good evening everybody and welcome to the regular meeting of these full committee of the town of foxborough today's october fifth two thousand and fifteen nights agenda is visitors approval of minutes teaching and learning highlight tonight featuring the role of the technology integration specialist as coach to teachers and students which is a position i know we all love and is caitlin brown's going to give us an athletic director update thank you caitlin we're going to review the twenty fifteen culture  climate survey results then we're going to go over the department of elementary and secondary education coordinated program review report for learner education dr berger take us through a curriculum review first update and then take any other matters any visitors who want to be heard tonight seeing none i'm going to use a minute or two of the visitor time at the ch discretion here to congratulate the nellie on some exciting news well i guess it's our daughter and her husband probably deserve the congratulations but yes john and i are route you grandparents a little baby girl yesterday so they named her yes yes they named her after her great grandmother my mother long lity is spinelli and her uncle dan grimes who passed away six months ago that's my son in law's brother so kathy with a scene ok so i just want to point that out but other than that i didn't see anything right you always she's  anybody else notice something in the minutes i have one idea that i want to share with the committee and see what you all think but we have a very brief but i think important discussion about them cason park with the last meeting and i appreciate the comments janet put in here to summarize the discussion i wonder if we should just add one more sentence at the end maybe the or even before the last sentence that talks about the discussion followed but something especially that reflects something to the effect of your comments as i recall them being that you and dr bird i'm sure maine very focused on the issue in that you feel as though regardless of what happens that m k s is ready for an upgrade we want to find you know something that just states that because i think the way i read the so far talks about you know we're waiting on a decision but i'd like us to be a little more active because i know you two are more active in watching that  so what's captured that so  we like that what you first said that we so i'd suggest inserting a sentence right before the last one the last one reads discussion followed regarding m cuts apart something it just says that the superintendent and assistant superintendent continued to review this topic closely and that it is your collective opinion that the cast served its purpose but is ready to be updated something to that effect however i don't  yet it is our collective opinion that that the m cas is seventeen years old and ready to be updated to the next to next generation to a next to the next generation assessment and i think if i recall your comments they were and i'm not suggesting we have this problem this week fredricka remember the conversation i think what you said was you're not sure what will be approved as park as it stands today or some version but there is something that my the need to have students apply what they know you're not asked in school to just spit back information and memorize it give it back us to what do you know when can you do something with it in class can you apply it yes we usually like to what we learn rather than just like getting sped up questions we get we have to test right do different activities right so that you do so actually so however we word it really is that whatever the new assessment turns out to be that that that follows to the next generation assessment system that has students to go to the class is old and ready to be updated the next generation assessment systems require editing and ok  the next generation assessment system requires systems require students to apply what they know as they are expected to in classrooms every day not just the children we know not just memorize can get that to janet it's all with that i make a motion that we accept the minutes september twenty one as a matter of seconds at any further discussion all those in favor this is a really important teaching and learning highlight to have especially in light of the community support and your support as we've continued to be able to have coverage if you will at each of the three levels and reading an article recently by julie evans and it was more on mobile technology and it was titled a vision for mobile learning more verbs were announced and in that article she talked about if you were to ask someone what is mobile technology they would give you now they might say a smartphone from own or they might say a laptop or a tablet or something like that and really technology education is more about the verbs it's what are we asking students to do within the curriculum in the goals with teachers and classrooms and that's what the three of them do they work in collaboration as coaches with teachers they work in collaboration with ehr and higher in the technology department but to really take and leverage the technology that we have in a way that's going to support our curriculum as it is and then take that to a much higher level and engage in ways that students are able to collaborate teachers you're taking it to a very different level and i think that's a piece that you'll hear through whether it's professional development embedded or on p d days whether it's just coaching with teachers and their curriculum goals and what they're trying to do and to take it to that level where it really is about the verbs and what's the actions that are taking place i'll turn it over to julia thank you when we talk about the finding  coach one of the first places that we look to the standards for coaching the standards that define what it is that we do and when we look at those standards the word that appears in the concept that appears most often is learned it appears thirty nine times in the standards it actually appears more times than technology itself so that is really our focus it is all about learning our job crosses a lot of foundries then we serve m we handle some data and assessment we partner with curriculum to be able to integrate technology and to daily lessons we serve as change agents we help to transform and we also service digital morning environment gurus helping people to choose the right tool to accomplish the right goal we collaborate with and hired his team for seamless rollout of new technologies and programs and working together as a  helps us to not just be a district with a lot of new technology it helps us to be a district that has put into practice the pedagogy in order to be a district that only leverage is at technology for our students and teachers so as where beginning our new we are second year of implementing office three sixty five staff showed an interest in learning more about the tools available in office three sixty five for collaboration and and the learning will continue for elementary teachers in january so we've followed up this traditional with one to one training a small group instruction and also of that nature and so they are truly exhibiting twenty first century learned skills and learned barna that's constantly evolving so we're trying to keep up with that being a responsible visual citizen is a lifelong skill and for this reason limiting screen time as well as their digital footprint and how to communicate effectively online we begin introducing these concepts to students at the elementary level focusing on fourth grade at the middle school completed training for also with an eighth grade students will finish up the sixth grade this week and then we're hoping to finish up the fifth grade by the end of the year this will serve search citizenship in the high schools often invited within the continental u s as well as through the warrior so last week we attended a four day training at microsoft says in cambridge mass and we are now officially certified as microsoft trainers and the training was a graduation thank you the training was fantastic but it also gave us an opportunity to network with others from people from other districts and to hear about their experiences with office three sixty five and i think in talking to them and hearing stories of their struggles and carrying out their technology initiatives it gave us an increased appreciation for the support that we get for technology integration here at fox and a few weeks we're going to be presenting and i ask you  specialist on staff you're building saleable to you but you know you the things that they have to say having an instructional specialist helps me identify the technology tools that match my students needs and put them to use right away so that my teaching is enhanced that very day it makes the process seem lasts there is no way i would have had all my students in one note been using one note myself or embedding video and live in my classroom without the help of our structural technologist thanks to one no training you save me fifty minutes at the copier this morning any time you can save your time at a copy or you have when a friend for life incorporating one note into my developmental reading program levels the playing field for my students they are more productive and willing to share their thoughts while reading and keeping an accurate record of the books they've read support builds confidence in turn we can support students and build their company it's just some great things that our teachers have to say about you know us being able to be there with them and we really appreciate that opportunity and the investment that's been made they are recent improvements of our technology department our school infrastructure including my access in every building additional interactive white every student you have you and i have a suggestion on how to improve the appreciation of time at the copy machine bring back one of the goal i don't have a question other than i wish you could come home with me and get me some coaching because my children are so much farther ahead in this than i am due to what they're doing in the classroom and you want to comment and open house for the eighth grade that i attended a couple  weeks ago couple weeks ago and yes it is for my younger son my older son is in tenth grade and i can see they do friends even in the last two years same teachers same classrooms but the way they're utilizing the technology in their classrooms is you can tell that they are flourishing they will be i mean it was great education two years ago when my older son was there but that they are definitely taking to heart and taking your coaching and running with it it's fantastic in my third observation that i'm done and we were away in philadelphia a couple weeks ago and my kids had their i pads with them and there were no excuses any time matthew where really does mean you can e mail your teacher and find out what the assignment is if you can't figure it out or your king doing your work in one note and get it done and you know it's there so thank you for that the students are happy when i point t yeah they want to tell you that those are from the era they don't want their parents to know but it's much better than having to make it up the next week because i mean we have very good conscientious students all of us at this table and in our district and it does make it easier when i mean we we sat on the tarmac for three hours so it's nice when you have life eye on the plane and you can catch up you know and that that sort of thing so i think it's great and i the teachers are using it in so many ways i walked out with a group of parents a seventh to the administration three years ago we wouldn't be having this conversation not from any blockage but the singhs really got some pretty good legs and was moving forward and i hope you get to see life we choose to spend money on the school committee you know i think we have a lot of discussion each time we want to add a new position here and now when you hear the three of you speak so eloquently and really with a lot of specifics about what you're accomplishing frankly i know my kids going to school here without that i mean this is this is we are at a point in age day in age where we need you working with those teachers so so importantly it's so critical and i really think you know just listening to you describe you've come so far so i think this is such a smart investment for us to continue to move this district along the path it's been on in the past and keep that going into the future so i really appreciate what you're doing  one of the comments that you made about being a change agent i know how challenging that is you know it's not easy for staff to take on new tools we don't give them a lot of time and we give a lot more p v in this district professional developer in this district than many but even still there's not enough time so without you there to make them feel comfortable it just doesn't happen and i know that so i think your role as a change agent is critical final final to what we want to do you know it's interesting one of the things we talk about a lot with these three and is that we have great teachers here who truly our pleasure to work with because they will try anything and they are not afraid and so i think it's a combination of getting the right talent to people because as individuals whether it's me or foster teacher at any level you can't leave the only person by yourself trying to figure out everything that's out there what direction you should be going in by yourself i certainly feel that in my role and i know every teacher does but we've got a terrific teachers who are not afraid of trying new things we just have to get the right supports around them because they can't be the experts and everything is going forward everything so i think we've got a willing very creative professional staff who work very hard and to me they're a pleasure to work with i know that you three were new have all said the same thing  well i want to thank you guys for coming in or staying late as the case may be you know i hope you get the sense that the committee's really focused on technology have been for a few years but this year especially and really to her credit jumped right in and said ok we know we're going to really make a difference with this on the three of you embody that so thank you for what you're doing and i have to go on a tangent just for a minute i've gotten to know mr ambrosio in a different capacity as  soccer coach this year his first year and the team is having the most success they've had in recent past so i've gotten to know dan as a as a coach a young boys two he's doing a great job so we're keeping them her busy  but it seems to work to get so upset as you make it so evident that you know i said from the beginning we knew you were at the cusp of something a year ago that was going to rate and i knew i wanted to be a part of it so you do have a great idea here yeah it's important the only other comment that i wanted to make is we talk about technology it's not just the technology and the coaching it's really the relationships too and out of the three of them the talent that's there and the hardware it's clearly evident and what they've done but it's the relationships to that they're able to connect with the teachers and be able to really make headway is fast as we are in it speaks to what you have already and that's great thank you for what you do  update on all things sports and athletic department related she does have a power point for you that we probably do more than a few verbs but something that will be shown at home so we're ready  for to be out in the also at nighttime it's nice to be here with all of you so thank you for this opportunity when i started and i kind of went to debbie and asked her for some direction and what are you looking for in athletics you know i know the we can talk facilities we can talk about coaching numbers but to me athletics is all a lot more than that and so i really looked at our mission statement through the athletic program it wasn't something that i created but i inherited but i think this through the competition the qualities  sportsmanship leadership pride respect maturity are fostered and i really look as athletics as an extension of the classroom and i feel very strongly about that so it's something that i really honed in on as athletic director  six fifty s probably early six fifteen six six thirty ok six thirty in the morning every friday he brings in his students to do some leadership training and you know i've gone through training with him one of my one of the coaches and teachers in the building all last year went to the leadership training with a football coach at the time and something i feel very strongly about that we ask these kids to be leaders but then we don't tell them how to lead and it is something that's a schizo skill so this year with  i worked with the milford a man's field athletic director to revamp the way we do our captains conferences to change them for seven hundred kids sitting in a conference room being lectured at to something be a little bit more interactive and really creating a leadership curriculum for the haka markley to use so it's something i feel very i have a lot of pride and we had our first one you know we had some bumps and bruises the vegetarian option we ordered from beaches didn't show up so we had a few things but i think overall it is a good  think what came out of it was some student athletes from tottenham who is going to be hosting at this time decided they wanted to take on some ownership of the conference and really wanted to work with in collaboration of this group of athletic directors and to me that's when you know we've we've learned something so we're not just helping foxborough student athletes but we're really looking at the entire league of the twelve teams you know with that i also created the captain's code of conduct that was something that i thought we needed in our  handbook so that was put in september of last year and it was really i like to give coaches in teams their ability to run their program the way they want to run their program but i think as captains we need to give them a little bit more direction when it me unless as a ca n you know and she's a great student leader you know it's a little bit of understanding what it means to be a captain and how you represent your program and the athletic department the minute you put on that si i think you meant you put on that uniform but you know it's people look up to you and i always say to the seniors if you go back to your freshman year you know every single senior what they did what they say what they wore now year now that's you and you don't realize it then you forget what it was like to be a freshman but people are always watching you in the community and it's not just kids it's parents as adults so really trying to work with them and part of that now with my captains the code of conduct is explaining to them and now i need to continue to work on leadership training in the school working with the captain working with groups and it's something that i'm still working on how do you how do i find the time because they're busy you know demanding them to come after school when they've got practices or before school and they have been you know so it's finding that time and i'm still working myself it's a work in progress i think it's been my smart goal for four years that communication of my same smart goals because i think as i continue to improve on it we're still finding areas that we need to work on i was able to work with another teacher in the building to develop a leadership curriculum  hopefully with the emmy's approval with the commit to create a class a lot of it based on what steve did but using other sources to really create a leadership class and here we're not just not student athletes anyone can take to learn some of those  skills we're hoping so we worked on it this summer and we're going to continue are working on it throughout the year and inviting myself to participate even though i'm not a teacher because i miss the classroom so much that it's right in myself as a teacher i didn't give really making a project base class but it's still in its infancy so it's a still working project but something i'm really excited again i'm trying to get myself back and i miss the i miss the kids so i force myself upon the social studies department with another thing that i am proud of is the sportsmanship guidelines for the league i was told a few years ago according to our student body that i am the toughest when we have games that i am very mean to them  and so i and i said no is that a is have a high expectation of how our fans act and i want them there and i love them there and there's nothing better for an athletic director and i have that picture that's from a girls basketball game last year when i came back after maternity leave and to have all these student students there supporting one another is incredible and they've developed their own group and they are really taking off and i am still thrilled but we wanted to understand what the expectations are so i really said throughout the we have to as athletic directors have the same expectations so another thing though to gone through the league was to work in conjunction with them to create a guideline of sportsmanship so it's really taking a little bit off with the m m a does but we thought we would talk about what  acceptable behavior is instead of just always chastising them for unacceptable behavior but you know recognizing the performances being respectful to games officials and players and realizing to get out in the court and to get i think anything you do you're putting yourself out there and you're anywhere from fifteen to eighteen years old and that's a lot so you know it's really to appreciate what you're seeing the performance you're seeing and to be respectful that and i think our student athletes have really taken that on they to it put their toes on it a little bit and then back themselves off you know and they listen to me they're the agree so we really worked on that and i think having that kind of consistency across all the venues that they attend is important for often athletes not just  thirteen last year i know the interim put it on the back of every fan expectation on the back of the roster that they gave them we also had printouts somewhere and i don't know where they are right now but the printouts of them it's harder to do it yes and he just out sometimes all it takes for someone else and they know who they are and they say they they know who they are and they know when that line is but i also think it's building it up in meeting with the students ahead of time so you're not at the game you know saying ok we know we have an important game for the student leaders whether they you know people know it or not it's a lot of times i sit down with them what's going to be what are we going to do and i think they've just we have a nice back and forth now where we talk about it they share it with me they talk standing there they were really harassing our kids and one can parents that they're not doing anything and why are you guys harassing them so i just want to tell you they were fabulous whatever you're doing keep going down here thank you as soon as he asked them to move they are going up in unison they're great and they really do and they listen it's really that i mean i like to take credit for that but they really are just a great group of kids who who understand an era respectful and i say respectful of me in my role as athletic director is to me to be easy because it's not a lot of yelling it's really sometimes just a look and they put their head down and they know and they nod their head and that's their warning and then we go back and it's it works out very well even when i was very pregnant sitting in the seat in the they were always they do a lot of work with the sports but i thought it was a great area for parents coaches and student athletes so it's a it's a three year commitment and the first year we this is the first year we're doing a partnership we had a parent workshop and we talked a little bit about how to have those conversations with your kids and i used and i want to share the story they talked about you know my experience growing up in my head a very intense father dearly and he is my biggest cheerleader my biggest supporter and still to this day i have two kids of my own he's still taking care of trying to take care of me or give me advice whether i want it or not but i was playing sports and as my biggest cheerleader he was also one of the toughest critics and so at one point i  did not do as well as i knew i didn't do well my mother was there she was happy to be there and he left the game and afterwards i got i got some awards which was great it was the end of the season and i knew why he left my mother couch it any way she wanted to but he left because i didn't i wasn't playing well and so it was a great learning experience for me and my father and i think it really we had a very strong relationship but it built to be even more and i was the oldest so i figure they make the mistakes on the oldest i'm doing the same to my now and he didn't realize the impact he had and i think that's what the positive coaching does is kind of really talk about the impact that student athletes have with each other in a team but also the parents how they impact their kids you know the joy that just enjoy watching your  you know whatever it may be that is just a joy to watch them and then also the coaches and to realize how being positive being supportive can you give you the benefits you're looking for and i say to my coaches all the time i  don't care about wins and losses which i'm very competitive so i think that i really care about the character that we're teaching these kids and how to deal with resiliency how to deal with facts because those are things that rather than learn on the playing field and in the school in this district then  out in the real world and then when they don't have the support system to build them back and pick them back up but i think with the character education and learning how to do that you then find success on the playing field and i think they go hand in hand so really you know it's been a motto of mine with our athletic department is if you have to have those tough conversations kids are you know as coach you know teach them the character stuff first and then the wins and losses will come and in some of our most successful programs you see that happen all the time including melissa's  unified track and field program this past year and last time i was here i think i was explaining to you what it was it was a great first year and here are some of our participants we held a meet here in foxboro and we're going to continue to expand this with the wellness department they are doing an alternative and i'm probably not saying it quickly but i'll turn it of wellness class or health gym class which we're going to hope work together and bring kids into the track and field programs that will expanded to more and more participants this year i it was the bet if you ever want to go if we if some of you may have attended special olympics but to go to one of these track meets and see kids performing and the support they provide f incredible so i really liked it hoping to actually a state competition for unified track we can all stay performance and then we're also looking to expand in other areas as we get more comfortable  traffic possibly basketball or soccer but again that's a work in progress i'd something that's on the back of my mind i do not yet have a plan how that would work without a player and i don't make any commitment oh thing is the community service our student athletes the month of october we've done i talking basketball games to donate money to cancer research and it's not necessarily about donating money or time it's even the track team helping out with a discretionary fund right around the holidays moving boxes and things like hoping that another area which is my constant and still working at communication is trying to find the best way to communicate i do use twitter we have about seven hundred forty followers you know i would always want in trying to think taking about six months off of using twitter affected my followers so now i'm trying to get back into allowing people are coming at last me real time communication and speaking of real time communication at the game and my phone went off and there was a twitter message the superfan group explaining to me the injustice that was going on to them at the cannes game and the oppression that was happening to them and then as they said later they like we are a little dramatic just a little bit but they were  what it was kind of need to have that real time interaction with them and i'm trying to take the positive and i'm like well we scored ten point one when when you were on the other side so maybe it was a good thing and i didn't get a response after  cons i'm still trying to work this out i've actually met with a couple of different talk to a couple different high schools about developing an app for fox for high school so i've met with a couple different companies and i've talked to them i've met with high school can't high wittman hansen some of them and i mentioned into our tech people and they said oh the i school advocates could help with that nice you know that do you like this who needs an outside company when you've got you know the technology here so it is there's all these ways and  is a constant i'm still trying to figure out the best way and i wish i could have an answer you know what i do do is i do create all these calendars and and how do you get them on the web that's another thing i really look forward to working with aaron within the technology group is to have the web a little bit more user friendly for for my purposes and it's purely selfish and like how do you know how do we get information out to people so i really rely on my coaches  to kind of trying to model to them what i would like from them and it's with humans are involved in technology so it's not always perfect but i do create weekly calendar season calendars transportation with the help of the transportation department what and it's just to try to get this information out there so i would love to have if someone can give me a magic answer i would love it but it's that such as my i think my world is always changing and i could show up that day and thinking oh this is what we're going to do and then something happens and you have to change it so it's trying to figure out how to get the best out the most people and then having the kids take for some responsibility themselves as well because i do want them to understand the responsibility of controlling their own schedule and not having other people looking for them i think the challenge is you know you're always upgrading how you communicate and help people keep track of what's happening but you have dozens of coaches so how can you as one person ensure that dozens of coaches communicate as effectively or as well i think that's sometimes that can be when that is because like i said there are people with different styles so if they have a last minute change of a time or requirement or bring this to be superman or don't bring that it's big it's reliant on the coach and there's a lot of times you realize what the coach give people expectations in you explain what you expect from them and then it depends on what people do with it so then what you do is when usually when something there's a glitch a college and the system then you realize ok where did the breakdown happen and how do we fix it fix it for me one time you know sometimes you make mistakes ok if it happens over and over again then we have a real systematic problem but we can fix those glitches and you know one of the things is i you know i like things in a certain format and i'm like well i'm just going to give it to the coaches and say this is what i expect out of you and so i just having those expectations for the coaches and also trying to remind myself a lot of them are teachers a lot of them have other jobs this is a part time job for that so some of them have the ability to do it some of them go in so i always say what can i do to help you and if there is an area that  know you are a teacher and you know and that's you know if i have a computer until two o'clock well then what's the best way for me for you and i to communicate but i think it's having those conversation with coaches and again sometimes you don't realize it's happening and so there is a breakdown and then yes then you're looking at i mean we have i give my expectations i explain what i'd like but sometimes it's doesn't happen so then i figure out what am i and can i do to help because that's the way i figure it's whatever i can do to help make it so our student about the game because they have a lot of other things to think about so let us worry about all the little details as adults so that's that's the goal i would like to say we hit that oh you know it depends on the day so we're really we're still really we're in something i feel very and number of concussions for two years and it was thirty three the first year i was here it was twenty five and those are the that's kind of the history that i have since i started you know we are required to review concussion protocol and i think as a school district we've really gotten very impressive the high school about how where teachers are our staff is how concussions cannot just impact you on the athletic field but just in general in your classroom environment  really fortunate to have a trainer who works closely with the school nurse to make sure that these student athletes can get back to i don't even care about participating in athletics but get back to feeling functioning in their classrooms never had a concussion and it's so much has changed in the last ten years about this about concussion and more information coming out of it so your brain is so valuable we just want to protect it and get a better so i mean again i rely on the staff to help me with that and the other school but we're competing at the highest level and it's really fun to go to these extra games and see this and i just hope being the tennis team has twice been runner up in this state champions and they always do it with a smile and you know it's it's been fun for watching the girls lacrosse team ran into midfield two years in a row to look for a boys lacrosse team ran into med fields a few years the boys you know the basketball  team they had a great run and almost beat at the end of the girls basketball team lost a taxpayer for the second year in iraq so we really are they're competing at the highest level and that's a lot of pride so i think you do get the student athletes i now want to come and support these teams and they come to everything they come to everything and this is just a breakdown of some of the ratios from the time that i've been here based on the participation numbers and if you see it has two numbers for boy soccer we've only had to cut until this year we had three coaches this year we've had three coaches up until this year we only have two it gives you we have had more and more ago and it's really continued to grow our growth numbers are a lot i combine them both because we have one coach but we have a a lot of female athletes swimming not as many male athletes but they are separate teams female team in a male team but i would say we have five this year i think only have three male participants and the rest are just friends and i don't know why that breakdown is something the coach is as a teacher in the building is trying to change that all nice t and i realize that when we all sit around and talk about the things that we're dealing with there it is in it's a lot of it is scheduling and things with the league but i come away thinking i'm very lucky and i just keep my mouth shut and i just smile a lot because i am very season but i think it's good that we need to acknowledge that and make a move and also be prepared for for the increase ongoing interest in swimming was just terrific  and then this is our coaching ratios for the spring sports and again the track numbers and you can see how much and how do i put two point five things to the generosity we increase by  lit because we have one coaching position who really they really it's a boys and girls team but they all are all the same they're out they are all there together and so we've had again that's another area where we see students participating in  growth with their swimming and track that they can find in there which is great and then the same thing as our girls ice hockey co op which i was here last year with the five girls participate last year we have about eleven student athletes already signed up for this coming year that's from foxborough which is it which is wonderful and it doesn't come at a cost so it's  growing sport and you know i'm thrilled that our student athletes are participating so they had eleven sign up to participate we'll see how actually how many do that and you know we'll be talking a little bit about that about the cost that means for the district many ice hockey players do you have to have to really makes a mess i would say to be comfortable like around eighteen or eighteen to twenty five would be really comfortable what they were telling me with  co op in one of the reasons why they asked us to join it was the people the hockey people knew our numbers of female athletes participating at the youth level in a variety of different hockey teams and that number was growing and they knew there were a lot of foxborough girls participating and some schools in mansfield believe that we have a better chance of becoming our own team first based on the numbers that we have in the program as long as they continue to come to school but it's very good so i think this it was quickly dispelled and they're very excited about this is you want to still do continue with this co op and they are like yes yes please i said well you know you have to see but you know they they really had a good experience which is really to me the most important thing if they come back with  you know and then we can see the construction for the memorial walk and we're really looking forward to the next stage and really having complete campus here so finishing the sam finishing i know it's there in place it's just a matter of finishing at the concession it and can't wait for that opportunity and then the bleachers in the press box i think it's it will be a showstopper when it is out there and i appreciate the community support and you know that wasn't easy to do and so i really i think he probably hears more from me than he wants to hear from him because he's been so supportive and so hands on what you don't realize he likes to stay under the radar but he's out there do the stuff with everyone and so we've really  cage for those months in february march to try to get that in there and something they want to make a commitment on doing as well and committing to that cost so if we work with them and then looking in terms of the boys locker room i went and spent some time over the summer and not to i'm not talking about expansion but just restructuring to add another team room and that is really what it is that there's some space in there and to try to be creative with the space we already have and to see what we can do to create that that's again that's more of a wish list as to create another team around to have there and use that space effectively and get our students and our coaches to use the space effectively because there is space in the don't think would be adequate for a football team but we do have the perfect location right off the existing locker rooms so it is something else that we'll be looking at down the road to be you know to incorporate back into the campus here which would be to have the entire sports activities are in one location so again it's not a big fortune that's not a big spender because you have everything else already in the locker rooms as far showers or something that you need a locker room it was one of the things that we did very well i think the girls area which continued improvement and this is for more for myself you know the things that i want to convey to improve on is my partnership with a positive coaching alliance i'm really looking forward to that i'm very excited about that partnership that we have working on creating a leadership council that really is almost get myself to be trained as a as a facilitator to teach the coaching education so that i can just teach the coaches and then i don't have to pay for a facilitator and for the coaches to get the coaching education the continued enhanced myth of the website to coaches for any of those areas that need it and then also that the other girls have ice hockey team and putting that out there so again these are more of the things that are always in the back of my mind of how i can improve the athletic department improve myself as well  am very for i am getting ready to go back to school we have a very supportive environment with the administration here and the coaches that i have in place and very very lucky and i really do every time i walk away from  because i've been asking for you to come with the presentation and i i learned so much about things you're doing and if i learned it and i'm somewhat involved i'm sure many of our parents don't know about all these programs so i think it's a wonderful  awareness of all the stuff that you're doing and i just think that parents can be so helpful to our success and look at the feldman's as one example and i know there are many but i've shared with caitlin that i've gotten a fair amount of noise in my short time here at the high school and i'm glad this is meyer's back with your ex i want to i want her to help us with this you know we aren't doing a real good job on communication of change and it's hard because it's real time and there are so many themes and escape when said there are different coaches with different styles and i'm sure i'm naive on how to improve this compared to you kaitlyn thought that i can think of the moment is maybe there's a set of standard expectations of what the tool will be  throw out one example i'm not going to belabor this i will schedule but one example is a couple times i've provided the coaches personally with email addresses for their rosters you know if they should probably get that the day that the team is determined so that they were parent whatever they want but just the coaches of come and said we need ways to communicate and parents i've seen parents you know parents will always help if we give them and i've seen parents step up and own changes in their own actions and also then appreciating the parents who are so willing to help and how do you do that and that's where it as an educator and thinking how do i teach our students to take responsibility for their schedules and their and their life and you know and figure that out and also having that clear expectation i will say with the parent emails one thing that i when i was looking up our school i was i was looking for something when i came back from maternity leave i was looking for an e mail of a parrot about scholar athlete and i couldn't see it on power school so then i asked and i said do you have those and so i went to the i'm the first you know i went to one of our secretaries and i said yes but only i have this and so i did and i asked if it can we all see that and you know it's great is that yes let's get all that so i think going for it it's fine i was finding that fine line i didn't always have access to parent e mails and i you know i encourage that's why we have these if i should put it on there what might want to my crazy ex blocked off all the names but what i do is i have an exit with all the kids who are participating i have to keep track of all their physicals because they have to have a physical and last thirty months like of other physical days when they expire on the day plus their participation forms but then there are e mails addresses and so what we're doing now is what we decided to do is because everyone kind of is one hundred said this is our expectation this is what we want passed into us we will keep track of all the dates of physicals and participation forms and stuff but you need to provide us with an e mail contact that the student provides now we also have a new student e mails which we want to incorporate more and using the students to use that you know that i think that's an effective way to deal with students i think the student and we get the students it's just them sharing that information with the parents and year but you know when he played high school sports if there was a change in the schedule for that day you know what to say happened during the day when he was responsible to get the information nobody had cell phones so you know he was responsible for hearing from the coach was there was a change in basketball of whatever it was and then you know doing something i was at work he couldn't call me and say guess what i think is a change or have a coach wasn't going to call me or my husband who was not in the area for work and say your son's practice this after has changed so i'm very confused about other than the coach why do we do want to be consistently in the coach on the way to access to students all of them know what's going on in real time because you know we've all experienced some of those changes occur that same day but i  personally in my husband would never responsible for being the ones to let our son know that was a change so other than using our student e mail accounts a little bit more effectively what is it that we should expect our coaches to do to keep all the kids  ago so let me respond and then we're going to sew the experience i had was not parents wanting to be communicated with it was parents volunteering because the coaches were struggling with communicating so it's not that the parents want their email to necessarily be the one zero it was that the coaches weren't getting the word out so the parents started doing and came and i talked about this and you know this may have been a one off so this is not something we need to be labor other of them i think if we can have standardized process and kaitlin of time it's hard as coaches are different styles of the a yeah that's that's the that's the heart i you know and i think trying and i've talked a lot about with my assistant too because  it drives her crazy sometimes too is just trying to figure out what the best way and then there you go you know i i'm just so blessed to have a such a great cool staff and just trying to kind of and part of my organizational now but having it be their own because everyone has their own different and so this is that's the fine line where i and i don't know if i have the answer i don't know if my ways the best way it's what works best for me and i really like email last i like communicating through email then follow up with a phone call or start with a phone call and follow up with email that's the way i like to communicate but i don't know if that's going to be effective for all and that's where i'm trying to figure i think that's when we had the discussion it's it's now taking a look at kind  of self reflecting on what works and what doesn't work and how do you then kind of create the standard expectation without demanding them do certain things which may not work for them and there's their style you know it's just a thought i knew i know not all our coaches or teachers but our kids use edmodo and teachers use edmodo to you know update them on things that like they forget something to tell them something in class they can check it you know put some granted mot work for this coach because the teachers here all day in school are less often to work for the next to the right because they're not they're working at another job at an off site location that maybe they can't always be reached so i think it's i think that's why it's a challenge because every situation is happen to catch that i'm going to be late for practice or i have a doctor's appointment but that call necessarily tell the other coaches and if the other coach is looking for you you know they don't know that you know johnny told coach so and so that he wasn't going to be there and i sometimes don't know because it's that they made a decision and i'm not aware of so i think for parents to have that access to that i think a lot of coaches do give their email address or use a phone and i feel more comfortable coming so we are going to starting in the fall signed them all up with the and then post those e mail addresses on our website so that there can be that community communication and i think that's got the most promise yes because i think the tricky thing too is that we don't want them to communicate using student but you know i think that's the challenge is to use the appropriate technology but still have it be effective when when there are some things that we communicate as adults pretty regularly in small groups don't always work so i think it's more layered and complex than one w with the comparison also sometimes with me take to have that so that is something that we have of our end of the year meetings and i can have that conversation with that coach and these are my expectations are and it's constantly working to improve that part of their and then we all get like if if you're going to be leaving work early to go to a game your kid updates you and says i'm game was moved blah blah blah you know if you leave work so i've always had smooth transactions i don't have any issues with it so i guess i'm confused what's positive coaching alliance program i started looking into it when i got my parents ok this is cross curriculum and you can remove athletics and insert music or chess club like now and you know i really like their magic ratio and you know teaching the student of what they can control and how they can learn from it so i hope that as you work with your your bosses here and you know you can you can develop this and maybe even spread the word a little for my student athletes to go and then they'll be another one right before the spring season for all my coaches not just from coaches but all the coaches as well and then we'll evaluate with them and they it's a really is a great partnership so they sit down and we talk about things that went well things that didn't go well what i need to do in my and what they can do idea the problem is not in the director's job description but that you're doing because you see an opportunity well i which i think it's terrific i think you and i because they see it in see and i see it in this day and it and i'm not saying that our athletes are leaders and they're great leaders but i think th well i think the committee will be first was a terrific review as we said and i know we went over but i think it's important because we don't spend a lot of time on such a big part of our culture and so many students participating you said more and more students yes terrific and i just want to speak on behalf of the committee and i think you probably get a sense but i think what ever you need you should come you know i mean we can't just put in the concession stand because you want us to we want to come i think with so many students participating and so many good things going on i think we'd like to have you bring up to us now and i appreciate that and i would also you know and i hopefully will come back after our captains conference and even the positive coaching meaning and talk a little bit about what we've done here and share a little bit athletics i think sometimes where in this little world and down the hall which we're moving eventually once i get my act together you know it's it's it's a great twenty fifteen culture and quite survey results yes i'm so let's say sol i'm as i put in the packet my goal tonight is to not go over every slide in the in the presentation because i don't think that's necessary certainly a one was literally just a month or two before it became superintendent so this is our fifth consecutive cultural climate survey and they said our overall message is really one of stability and growth and i really took those words to heart so th everything else that we looked at in our specific survey we do results so cheap that that actually is true stability and growth if we're very stable school system in terms of how people perceive the services and the think the things that are offer here and yet we're experiencing growth in in several areas so just remind people our cultural climate surveys are so our perception surveys so they really assess how people perceive what's going on in the schools so it's not a survey like how many of this you know how many courses digital take it's not data in terms of concrete data but it is perception data how do the teachers feel about what's going on in the school how do the parents feel and how the students in our middle and high school how do they perceive what's happening so some of the highlights that the k twelve have created for us is that nine out of ten participants regardless of the stakeholders group so it didn't matter if they were teachers or parents do is that nine out of temper disciplines rate the school or excellent and that we've had that sort of positive data for the last three years our overall stability or positive growth was found in all five survey areas and the five general areas that are surveyed and there are several different components of each the first serious academic preparation how we prepare students to be successful students in school and beyond student support parent involvement safety and behavior school operations and school leader interactions you put a couple of those together that's ok several key strengths are identified including the overall safety of students and how well we support student learning so for example some of the summary comments before we get to some specific slides that i would like to talk about and what i would like to do if that's ok with you is just how it a few things on a few slides and then whatever questions you have we can certainly address ok so in the area of academic preparation the parents waiting for all of the dimensions that are the topics in that area all of the dimensions increased with the parent reception survey and we're ninety five percent or higher for that was pretty significant so parents feel we're really preparing the kids well academically the students reading for academic preparation also increase in almost all dimensions from last year the only two exceptions for students were real world connections and being challenge support student learning most students respect each others they enjoy teaching at school and that the principal makes decisions in the best interest of students some of the strengths that parents identified in their survey data was that they feel very welcome in their child charging them what they need to do to do well in school they feel safe at school their guidance counselor help some sort of courses that prepare them for the future and that they have all the textbooks and materials and resources that need for classes we did ask new questions this year about the services and i will definitely go to this lied so we can talk about what we asked about guidance that we haven't been asking before the interesting part is that parents and students have very different perception about the issue of bullying and threatening behaviors than parents and students it should say just parents parents have very different perceptions about the issue of bullying and threatening behavior than students and teachers do and i can certainly take you to those slides teachers and students are reporting that bullying and threatening behaviors for you being on go in incidents of harassment in a series that's how we define bullying teachers and students report the bowings occurring less often than in previous years while parents still believe it's an increasing problem so again this is perception data the true stakeholder groups that are actually in school all day long the teachers in the students are agreeing you know there's occurring less frequently and they both understand their own common definition because we we pretty much educate students pretty well on it so their understanding of what going in threatening behaviors are and and we're very careful about defining those they feel that that's occurring less often and that's going down as we see some great success parents i think it's hard to explain perception data but not being in the school they may still think it's a problem it's certainly still common society and sometimes we're our perceptions are influenced by what we see in the media or in the newspaper or on the news and that is still a very worrisome topic for parents so their perception of how much of a problem it is does not match though with teachers and students are saying is actually happening so that's actually a good a good gap in perception to have because it would be it would be worse if the parents thought oh it's getting better and people actually district other distraught as many do it in such detail right i mean we've been very conscientious about this yes we certainly these are very thorough you've got them yourself to fill them out we ask you a lot of questions about your experience and we ask is what about their experience think i think that to us this is valuable because we collect our hard data what's happening on any course the kids taking with the student teacher ratio with house our testing data looking what's our assessment saying you know how well is our curriculum aligned so we do a lot of that really concrete work but all of that is for not and most people perceive that it's a good place to work it's a good place to be our teachers are working collaboratively do the work kids are getting a good education parents have confidence in the schools so don't we always say you know perception is reality and so i think that our hard work is only reinforced or bolstered when we feel that people see that good things are happening and they feel that they're staying good we're not seeing up and down this year we feel good next year we don't that as we're very stable and still growing in help people perceive the district so i took it i mean when we did this strategically in the first time use the data that we had collected to reform the objectives for and i think it's a very important we discussed at length when we did the strategic planning process the second go around about keeping the  continuing the surveys and i do think it's extremely important perception data in is very useful in informing our decisions here and your decision and i'm glad you reminded me about that for and have a voice because this is part  people have in our students as well as our teachers and our parents and i do think it is interesting that perception thing is that i think there is one side in here where parents think they're volunteering a lot and students think that the pierrots aren't doing anything s that it's easier for parents to make sure their child's going to homework because it's more visible and so i think all of the things we're doing here that actually has some synchronicity to it you know so that's that's one of the things i thought about when i saw th the students do agree that their parents are helping them you know be more responsible for homework so i think we're giving parents walls to make their job easier than it was in my generation but kids don't really want you to do it anyway same so in terms of what we'd like to talk about tonight and highlight i'm going to have a me just jump to a certain slides so if you go to slide four and then i just picked the ones i thought were where you will go back to and once of the one so our participation we had a total of one thousand six hundred seventy eight stakeholders taking our surveys so our participation rate was sixty two percent for teachers twenty three percent for parents we would like to see that go up a little bit next year so parents if you're watching at home don't ignore your cultural climates are because we are actually listen to you and students participate at seventy percent rate so that was great we can't we do have the students do in school but you can always use their forces especially the high so we can always ensure that everybody gets into a lab to do a survey because believe it or not the record of course work comes before the other if we could then go to slide seven our perceptions of education quality so we had one hundred percent just getting teachers ninety two percent of participating parents and eighty seven percent of participating students raise the rate rated their school is excellent or good and so that's really important to us and we don't expect one hundred percent of students to always think that their school is really good because sometimes they don't feel that way or maybe they've had a really tough week and maybe things haven't met any in that way so that's pretty close to all to get  you to go to slide ten this is dimensions by all stakeholders so of all the dimensions that were surveyed how do teachers students and parents feel about the exact same issue so one of the things that i thought was interesting is parent involvement so if you look at this third line and i thought this was fantastic so ninety one percent of teachers agree or strongly agree that aaron involvement in all it dimensions that go into that collective reading is really good so teachers are acknowledging the parent volman of the strength of that and the massive aspect of that the school system as well as eighty seven percent of parents teachers and parents have it have a shared positive view of parent involvement in the facts of public schools and that was a thumbs up for me sixty seven percent of students agree or pas most strongly agree but parent column but like i said they don't always want you there anyway so i think you know i just love to see that teachers and parents are both acknowledging that they feel it's really positive because we all know that peer involvement is a key part of a successful school district so deaths their perception and i love that so peer involvement is strong and recognized by the stakeholders to  it's really important so if you can see in the right column this percent change column has to do with all of the the data that we've collected over the past year so if you if you missed it in the slide data the how the how the k twelve insight company calculates the change whether it's zero which means not much change to to stiffly a positive changes a plus a negative changes a minus you know anything that's minus one or you know minus one or two a plus one and two isn't that big of a change so if you think about plus or minus two with kind of the same that's ok anything more than that really indicates a direction so if you want to know how that's calculated it does explain it back on slide three but it's not really necessary trades when it's the public let's talk about with student said and this is this slide speaks to the area of student support you can see that in the top dark blue bar so this is what students felt about how they're supported in the learning so you can see that except for one where it didn't change very much that course an activity offered school interesting kids felt about the same this year is a felt in the past few years but in general they had more positive views of several  dimensions so when it comes to the first one there's a teacher counselor of a staff member at school i can talk to about school problems that increased in their perception with a plus to the second one was really significant there's a teacher counselor or other staff members school that i can talk to about personal problems so these two questions of the same except for i can talk to them about school problems they kind of have always felt that they can and if you look at the second one though i can talk to somebody about my personal  problems back four years ago this was something that we wanted to be attention to whether they had a comfort level talking to somebody about personal problems and that has increased from a baseline of fifty nine percent to seventy two percent so that's pretty good and in all the talk we've had at this table about  mental health social emotional wellbeing and if you look at any anywhere pasta country that's really becoming you know there's a lot of social pressure on kids is a lot more going on that they have to deal with as teenagers than certainly in my generation in certainly my children so i think that this was one of the most important things that we wanted to see some movement on and i was very pleased to see that and then the other dimensions have shown some increase are they do students and teachers do teachers the staff treat students fairly regardless of backgrounds and says continued positive increase that they feel encouraged by their teachers to the best the kenyan can they talk to the principal or another ministry  seventy two percent and excuse my in my purse possible insensitivity but what number do we want to be with that and do we always want our kids to always discuss personal matters at school and i mean nothing by that except the but nine questions so there were so many there were dozens and dozens of dimensions within the survey we don't have accept for a very few that we talk to in terms in ta in terms of our school or district goal we don't have i want to say artificial we don't have artificial numbers for each of these many many dimensions that we're trying to shoot for but i think that's a really good point there are many situations that either the parents or the students don't feel like school personnel are the right ones dog or person prompts and they may not be so we want this to be a fairly high perception which i think it is getting to now we're almost three quarters of the kids but we don't ever want that's a great question because we don't ever expect that to be one hundred percent because there are so many situations that that's not appropriate and or comfortable for a student and that's ok because they may have people who are affiliated with their religious issues that they feel more comfortable with there may be outside counselors there may be family members and that's all well but that's that's the way it should be so i think that we've got something we're very happy with if we could maintain it at that at that students support the high school these were our brand new guidance question so everything you see here are considered our baseline for new questions we have not asked before because we're particularly interested in these things and  to rather than say i get good advice from diagnosis which wasn't specific enough for us that we added these this past spring so their guidance counselor helps helps me my guns how softly slip courses that will prepare me for my future college and career plans so that's eighty eight percent agree i strongly agree guidance department staff through group guidance individual meetings have assisted me with the college application process now understand that all students nine nine through twelve are taking this so not everybody from you know feels that what they go through guidance is preparing them for college yet although i just saw a freshman right there in that lab being trained on the software and understand what it means for them and putting in their profile so i saw freshman into temper of freshman year already getting their profiles going in understanding how they can look at colleges and only can look at who gets accepted there so it doesn't mean though that in the freshman year you would define that as preparing me for guidance from and provides me with information and assistance regarding standardized tests as a whole myriad of them seventy two percent so we've got some really strong baseline perception data and we'll see what happens in the future but that there actually was  pretty good feedback for for year one so that's why you don't see changes in the brand new to us here if you go to slide twenty three this is teachers this whole slide throws shows teacher perception of parent involvement and as we said before that teachers have a very positive perception of parent volman and i just thought you might want to get a look at the seven dimensions that they have to rate that  amalgamated together to make that overall reading of particular note we have several really high change numbers here and if we could keep it at this level it would be really great  reward when addressing an academic problem with the child for example regular communication with parents about their child's academic achievements and parent input is used to improve instruction at the school and agreed just as kind of our parent report card and i would say kudos to our parents and yes so if we could keep that they're there to be great because they're all pretty high in the ninety's and you know our average was pretty high in my mind and then i think so i think when you look at it if you just go to the if you go to slide twenty seven i don't want to ignore areas that we're looking a little bit more at and so when we get a slide like this with multiple dimensions about safety behavior and this is teachers perceptions and then we see a few things that are in the mind so we've got we've got some great pluses pulling in threatening behaviors rare in the school we had definitely again there and others look either a small increase change in the positive or negative but then we had one that really stood out which is where the school administrators consistently enforce rules for student conduct so the good thing it when we see something like that is we have so much data and we can dig much deeper in the information that were provided with so we don't have to do follow up or find it was wrong we have lost the comment boxes we have lots of raw data that we get that we parse through so when we parse through this and this is the district wide results which is what we do we also get school level results so we can take a look at all the schools and say is there one particular administration reinforcing in forcing rules for student conduct related to the dress code at the high school like it was and so you know there's always a lot of discussion about the dress code h like of course like the two or three finger roll but this year we got told that we can show our shoulders and that the rebel and off guard like it's ninety degrees outside we  tank tops this is not going to go over well but then teachers would wear a tank top and so it conflict and be like that's not their teacher or a tank top but we cannot so the and people would still wear tank top and then some teachers the force and others would not to do the fact because the teachers are wearing them then they shouldn't say anything to us and it is ninety degrees and i must say i'm sorry but like we should be able to play if three fingers rules of course but so we need to revisit that because it was a hot topic i heard a lot about this last year right around service attacks from students and from teachers and i think the inconsistent enforcement of that and what was proper  wasn't but i'm going to out on it it was that was a really big discussion so and we have lots of comments so if you don't agree you don't get ratings feel free to comments and myriads of comments about the high school dress code so you know we expect to try to address that a little everybody soffits if it if it's that finger with raul than that it has to be for boys and girls you can't say it's good for one and not for the other so there with this was there is a multi multi dimensional hot topic yes  have a plus nine change which is terrific in saying that bowling and threatening behaviors is rear at the school and i think i really credit a lot of that to the students who i think we have as we always say we have great kids here but they also take responsibility then i think they're mature and you know they they take their role seriously with others and how they present themselves and how well they represent us so that's been great we had a great change students do not use drug and alcohol at school at school notice it says drugs no not that you know let's be honest drugs and alcohol are going to be a problem in every high school but the fact that large groups of students reporting it's not a problem at school is terrific because that's the  environment we're in charge you know they feel safe on the school bus and while waiting at the school bus stop and this is middle and high schools so this was an important thing if you remember years ago we weren't sure and we didn't have the perception data and there was sort of a feeling that maybe a lot of safety behavior concerns were on the bus but we never had data to show that so again it's the it was the perception of parents that the bus might be you know not a safe place we've never actually collected data that shows it and this time around it's sort of a real period at the end of the sentence the buses are a safe place to be not that there aren't buses but people feel safe on the bus not much is happening on the bus so kudos to a bus drivers and a transportation department you know and  so i thought for our own amusement we look at slide thirty one you know how many discussions we had when the federal guidelines for school lunches came in and how the portions were miniscule and we're all in this is the about that but we've had some really good change in that in that teachers are reporting here that healthy food is served at the school we've had some great increases in just the quality in terms of health overall health of the food let's see the parents if you look at the next slide are also in saying that healthier food is now servant was four years ago if you look at students they are also reporting that fresh high quality food is served in the school go loved it at least they're saying they are now getting enough to eat at the school because that was a problem with the federal guidelines so i was happy with that it was a critique of their getting enough to eat has more options they can add healthy alternatives that fill them up well violating the federal federal guidelines and great results on the fact that students feel the school's clean and well maintained working climate control it's all our fault by the way it was really hot this month september but good lighting and well kept graham i would just say in fairness while the trends may be up on the students perspective on the overall satisfaction level this is quite aside some of the that's right it isn't but i don't think anybody's going to be raving about school lunch seven teachers this is teacher perceptions of faculty relations and support a big part of our strategic planning and other things focused on are we giving and are just their goals are we giving teachers time enough to collaborate and we've worked really hard we're still not there we still need more collaboration time for teachers but we've really tried to get creative work really hard and there is a plus for change in teachers reporting that they have time to available time available to collaborate  progress but not there yet with this site i had written next to one and it's supporters available to help me incorporate computers and other technology into instruction this goes hand in glove with our teaching and learning highlight for tonight i would expect that next year we going to make a difference to absolutely plus they have had that much more time to get comfortable with them and have more people on it so i really think that's going to go and i just this one of my favorite is ninety nine percent of teaching reported that they really enjoy teaching at their school and i think kids feel that it would be people one like to come to work like being at their school that that attitude certainly carries forward what they offer to kids every day we also have an increase in to just reporting that they felt the administrator report responds to the concerns in a professional manner whether or not he or she agreed with my view that was ninety seven percent that's important to us as a professional organisation that we deal with things pretty sleep professionally respectfully while listening but not in let's see if you would go to keep going until we get to middle school transition because if you remember not so many years ago when you don't divide us with the superintendent i was the assistant little transition was a hot topic here at this table number for the change from elementary middle school and at the middle school staff is a plus seven was available to help my child as they begin middle school and we've got the majority's thing that the child knew what to expect as a middle school student which is to ha in fourth grade knowing what to expect so that was a good slide and we're now working on high school transition as you can see that we've got some good data in that eighty percent of the parents felt that the child was provide useful help with the change from middle school to high school so that was great this is the second part were a little more puzzled by which is the high school staff being available to help my child is here begin here should begin middle school that was seventy percent so we're not really sure why people feel the child useful help but they weren't available so that it's not quite jelling we need to do a little deeper the comments weren't really that helpful in figuring that out it could just be that's what happened but that's how people felt i'm not sure but if you look in the last bar my child knew what to expect as a high school student this is key that i'm going from eight billion to the high school they know it was going to be expected of them and ninety six percent of parents agreed or strongly agreed that the child didn't know so that's why had written access same thing where's the disconnect yeah sure i get it but it would be interesting to see what the ninth graders themselves and don't forget these are the parents of the art software yes some perception it's perception  it tells us what we're doing well and it does point us in directions where we need improvement and that's that's why we continue to improve because we're focusing on the area that do need to be addressed so it's great very helpful  to new questions we ask them often to analyze it in different way or say on this one can you give us more skin to really dive a little deeper and tell us what are the themes in the comments as there could be hundreds of comments so one of the themes you're seeing in the other towns strategic plan very few have a goal that centers around culture and climate never mind a survey to ask parents teachers and students what they're thinking so i still think i thought at the time we started this process it was very important i'm glad figure out strategies of the state to get more of the goods to excellence and i know it's a public school system and i know we serve a lot of needs and we do a lot of things and we do it at a very good cost to the do it's so hard to capture how much data we get because it can be all say that one because i'm a warm by almost anything but it's time consuming we do say if you didn't read it excellent what can we do to get a better rate over the next year oh well interesting we did come up anything specific like where we did thirty people are saying we do this so it hasn't pointed in any one direction yet but it could next year i also think a lot of people don't mark things as excellent on the left they think  always pursue that excellence and that's one term and the other one i can't find it in the state again right now what was it was a survey of students i am excited about going to school and as you would imagine that's not a very high number and i'm not sure  person but you know things that will help with that you know if there are such things i mean all the technology investments that we're doing you know student this is a national challenge i put students who feel engaged in their learning like coming to school and they and we have teachers here after oxford high that motivate you on a monday morning that get you excited to like being in school and then on top of that like i member who was in the summer i was excited to go back because i missed my friends i haven't see mean that's a great report thank you yeah i think that i think that's great i mean i think we do want kids to be engaged and liked it but whether they enjoy being in school i don't know how many would mark excited for me because i say sometimes excitement is more about wh program review report for the list so this is the fourth and final report that we received from the department of that although this visit to a place back last november in two thousand and fourteen we've just now received this report from them on english language learning and out of the eighteen criteria that they assess which took place by looking at tons and tons of documents interviews with teachers administrators even parents  students etc there were two areas for improvement here and the first one of those has to do with program placement in structure so just to give a little context we have one english language learners teacher for the entire assesses that level of english proficiency and based so on those levels the department of that has guidelines as to how much e s l instruction that they should have based on their language proficiency well if you only have one teacher that servicing five straight and at this point in time we have twenty nine e l l students you can imagine that we're not meeting when they're setting its guidelines so as a corrective action here where it's partial implementation it means that we need to explore opportunities for increasing additional instructional hours for our students and our student population it has grown just to kind of give you an idea three years ago we had fourteen students and in addition and that can go from thirty minutes to an hour and fifteen minutes depending on their level of english proficiency so it could be proficiency students who don't use services but if on the intake form it says what language is spoken at home with anything other th number of students that she's assessing so that is something that we need to look at and take into consideration as far as looking at the the teacher that servicing our lives so that was the first area the second one was formal program evaluation of our english language learner program although continually we talk about it with principals and looked with and i work closely with our yell out teacher and look at the data they have a very  new forms this year and there's a renewed interest i think some of just based on the shelf pretty much emerging new requirement for teachers for certification that they have to all either have an endorsement for sheltered english immersion or they have to have professional development points in that area regardless of whether they've had a student in their class or not so the corrective action there for asked is to put together a team which will look at all of our data very specifically use all of the forms their new forms that they would like us to use and go through that process and relate then look at any program improvements that we want to make and we're going to do that together with their group because it going in that direction and they're all different languages i think i've mentioned before we have nine different languages and if you include the dialects of india and they're even more than that so it's that i'll put forward to the department of ed it could be that they give us longer but we really want to tackle this head on and look at the number and the date is because of the budget implications so we can bring that report back to you and let you know exactly what we have found through to the other day and decided to keep that it's a hard day because you know if you see our first iteration of the budget in december and we will you'll likely see is that expect to put something in there whether it's one or a point five or whatever it which is the first meeting you january then we will have all of the report done and were presented at that meeting and then you could adjust if you needed to based on cap and i don't think much change between december and january because you get the budget typically just  for the holiday rate and still his ear any assistance the state will give us as a stopgap and do we have this problem not just and this isn't a black  eye this is a this is something that needs to be fixed and you know the water's coming in faster than we can pump it out in some cases is there a regional support network that we have around and other school districts say in this area or socioeconomic similarity experiencing the same problem so they can send people around to help our president on on hand staff oh you know sort of there's the easiest question to are is there any financial support for this the answer is absolutely no effect that this is probably the one of the biggest unfunded mandates that have ever occurred back since question three was on the ballot about english language instruction this is some we go to the state  to have a huge population with six full time teachers and we still need that the exact hours and they have been there because they're pretty significant so most places are in the position we are which is you provide good service but probably not enough and so we're going to if we're trying to get too close enough to enough the whole idea of regional support doesn't exist because we have to employ our own people we can't have people with  access to our student information sure what really has to be somebody that we employ so the solution is really here to make a move toward a more optimal program  perfection right now that insight was important because when i get in the privacy thank you so it's just not quite right for now yes and then move jump into looking at a lot of different things and the action work know and honestly with all of the paperwork and all of that the processes that we have to have in place i personally after putting all this together was very happy that we only had those two because in a way part of it is is not something we could have as you are aware we have a six year curriculum cycle what you see in front of you is this is the year that our turn one runs out and we needed to go back and look at that to see if we want to do the same order if it makes sense based on where the state is with frameworks etc and it does make sense so we just took the last five years put that on top and then kept the same order going forward one notation that is different on our  as we like to call it when we look at a particular area we've inserted p l l there on that trip to make sure that we then revisit and we have that formally documented on the cycle as well but it's to continue in the same order that we've scale right the only thing that i really see is in the area of elementary math and looking at some resources in the future and not waiting till the next review based on some of the things that we were able to identify before  are so in depth and it's i'm always impressed when we hear the report from the curriculum review team so i'm just going to chime in on that after the fact that it's such great work you know there's an impressive amount of work a lot of it goes on my goals for this year i always think about what you as a committee expect but also what i personally in my view feel like i need to work focus my attention to and i think it has worked in the past for if i write it down and make it a goal that you can help two mr team meetings or twice a month on wednesdays but there are smaller team it's our central office people our principles and then the system principles for here it's the sisters here for the or her and we alternate it's the same principals there but that's our smaller ministers team are larger mystery team is the group that we have together only of that day in august and that includes our curriculum directors our coordinators our department has a high school our tech integration specialist our special education team facilitators anyone who is a leadership role the district is a large team we had such a great day in august at our retreat and then they commented on how much they really got out of the the leadership aspect of what does it take to be a good leader what are you working as a leader what are your challenges as a leader that i thought after that you know we need to do more for them and not just once a year because yes are busy the department heads teach part time and and everybody has a lot to do but what what is my role in making more opportunities available to them to reflect on what they do and to grow our leadership team and our collective thought for the larger team of of thirty ish people so what we thought we would do and we're going to start discussing it this week or what i thought we would that we want to implement monthly informal instructional rounds so they're not going to be you might have heard of or so if you really did in formal walkthrough is where you have a formal data collection you're asking questions you want to do we have so much data as you can see the purpose isn't to collect more formal data and to you know hatch marks of how often you're seeing something important thing is for us to ask some questions about what we're wondering about of what we see and go in expecting listening that was across every single subject area even the arts this reading writing speaking what's going on and probably something in the area of stem which includes science technology engineering and math which would also include our technology issues so if we could come up with  broader questions that we're thinking about in terms of what do we wonder skiver and to use those are as opportunities to have informal strolls if you will instructional around and talk together about what does that mean because what our people are asking for is those frost's level visits as well so some of the high school department heads would love to walk through a middle or elementary classroom with someone and say this is what happens before you go into see how we have that vertical it probably would do a number of things give us more confidence in the things we are doing like we're on to something let's keep going let's continue our efforts there we see good results it could also say gee we've been so busy asking these other questions focus on the data here's one thing we know is maybe that deserves our attention and also an opportunity for the other there are generally fourteen of us on the small team so we've got double that so the other half of the group to be able to articulate what it is that they need help with and connect with people so they feel more comfortable calling anybody else on the other thirty better team and talking about it so that's what we're going to do they'll be a more formal structure to it and that's that's one of the things i want to do is my professional practice so i'm sorry who will do the monthly informal instructional rounds to whom everybody on the bigger team will connect with one or two other people each month and go in visit somewhere or several classes and then come back in a month talk about what we saw so we're trying to do something to broaden the conversations among that team but not necessarily do more observations of teach you know nothing not the formal we all have that you do and we also so we want to do something that's productive in terms of finding more out more about the leadership challenges and visiting other levels to see what goes on so it's communication and leadership development without it being another high hi highly structured stressful thing to do because they've got plenty of that and then maybe something specific will come out of it in terms of a more of an action step but you don't know what it is you'll find until you so it's more about us and our conversations that it is about it's not an observation of classrooms at all and you feel comfortable you can fit the sooner they can for this and well we'll see we'll see it is one more thing  i think that we had such success with everybody in august saying this was really great it really made me think we really great conversations that how can i do more for them in terms of that it could end up could end up that i made some progress or significant progress if we hadn't meet the goal it might be a longer term goal i don't know but i think this is my obligation i think is to do more things like that to just create more conversation among among the bigger team about what actually happens in schools and the allow some of the cross pollination cross conversations to occur and destroy the floor one last question on this one would it make any sense as i first read it to look for in addition to literacy in stone to look for some work global connection opportunities we could we cause a problem is you're going to i'll look into that and we were going to start talking about it on wednesday for the i'm just looking about i don't know that's a good point so what i'm going to think about is this does that improve your leadership skills which is what we're trying to do or is it that teachers need to share more with us and global connections that are really work for you and can others learn from you that's what i'm struggling as we've got a lot of things and then narrowed it down to let's just keep the two things so that we have some focus and not just you know i just visit with each other to accomplish but i always for this goal as you know i always put something that i personally will have involvement in not a student learning goal that somebody else now work on and i can say great i can change that so so i'm going to work on this together to check all that english language learner program to meet those needs of the student population are just it's kind of a complex thing to me and it's because you're also dealing with families and cultures and challenges and and how they communicate with the school or the program of the teacher and what we can considerations but i would imagine after that after that report there are going to be goals and action steps that in the second half of the year we're going to develop plans to address so is a year long goal because the report is only one thing and then by the end of the year we hope to make some it's narrow because there's only few students yeah and then i'm just react there are but i think and when i looked across all of our student populations this is the group has gotten the least of our attention you know the only other thought right here i have here for consideration be is this where you can do this this particular objective maybe think of this is this where we should also talk maybe about full day kindergarten and is what i share with you so i thought it was yes so this is a goal you might be familiar but i've continued to from last year in a in a more narrow focus because some of the other things in the in the area we have achieved so as you know i had some progress last year it is article ever computer science course available at the high school we continue to explore how we're going to achieve this it continues to be a huge challenge but it is i have this is a goal last year for this september and there just isn't a curriculum of theirs was able energy on that the good news is that we have made progress that isn't exactly where we hope to be but this summer as you know we had a computer science camp offered for beginner intermediate students which was very popular and very well received  d the same people that we had our summer camp are coming in to offer afterschool computer science clubs at the elementary and middle schools throughout this year so i put the flyers in your other matters informational items to show you that they're actually going to run it several times a year if they get enough money so run it all if you're in the right in every one of the elementary schools and so that has been a great partnership for us we've brought in i'll take people as you know and that was terrific so i'm very proud that i did that the summer and the people willing to continue and offer it in school but it doesn't achieve the ultimate goal which is to grow students interested in computer science which we're doing at the elementary level and then have a course for them take a school so i'm back at  goal for is i keep this on in some form every year which is to continue to expand outreach and communication to community groups and other constituents and every year i think my my challenge is to find a new and different way for outreach but i think it's not something that any superintending can check off and say yeah outreach communication and i'm sort of done so every year i try to say what could i do more differently so this year we do the two in the schools in use therefore using social media to inform the public with him to leverage the district website to update information a more dynamic way think i've told the committee this that our current web site was looking at carefully we don't have the capacity the way the current website is structured for an r s s feed which is a real time kind of feel but he is working on that and that is really important to our plans as a committee on our street plan and to me as a superintendent just want to let you know it's not as simple as we thought which is bringing earlier is really sixteen is quite well and but you have to have a goal and i will say this is more important to have ambitious goals than to have ones that are less ambitious and meet them every time so i would rather have more ambitious goals and make some progress but not all and that's just me so not just to ok so we're good we're given it a whirl and then this goal i'm going to keep until it's finished and you continue employing to plan to implement the plan for the completion of the outdoor theater complex of parks for high school toward a goal of having a full campus here specifically we have our booster parent committee working to raise funds for the concession stand at the community field will continue to pursue that see how close and how far we can go and where we can get some other sources for that young and during the two thousand and fifteen school year this year we're going to assess the feasibility of putting forward the next phase which is the eight lane track toward a c ip request so our after the concessions in our next two are really high ticket items but as i've said many times the high school's been here since roughly hundred sixty ish and you still have a full campus here so i think fifty five years later time for some people to feel a little more urgent about that committee i think these are excellent goals and some will be good place to be we have good work to do it speaking of our athletic complex mr you cannot separate just living in kind service to the nation yeah i think it was kind of remiss when we when they actually offered this  lighting to give us a significant discount of fifty percent off of what it would cost just to buy the lighting supplies by using the must go name when we actually went to do the installation side of it highlighting was the group that was brought forward a about a thirty five thousand dollars project it's not just labor or their equipment they also pay for the cement materials and things of that nature that went into putting the four poles in place worse and they bought o think that quote that came out was actually something that came from one of the e mails that i got from jared and it was not just him and his father but he really felt strongly that his own staff was just happy as a group to be involved with  to go yes the variance you know so actually i do want to make a comment actually thoughts one of the things that bill and i met about we talked about at length and decided to do which i think is a great idea which was include what the information we have a power school and see if we have a variance so it actually uncovered a couple of problems so in other words the kids you have in school on the ones are officially registered in power school what's the difference and where is it so  identifying them as a pre k student but it's actually better this is they also have to nurse or we need to count them as a half day kindergarten student because that's better for our chapter seven the money and everything else is a minimal difference only took them a handful of kids but great conversations i think that was interesting today so i had a couple questions over it dumped it on bills just get it turned out to be an entire day's work for me to final questions like hey what about this and what about that day and i think he had spent a couple hours on anyway i might exaggerate but it really some great things came out of it so we're going to continue to report to the committee what our power school numbers are saying and what variants that we have so for example we have a tuition to out student that wasn't in power school and now will be better so when we saw the variance do it builds up build it to do some detective work was that one student what's the discrepancy why use it and if they're tuition doubt they should still be enrolled in our system so it allows us to catch a lot of things and i really commend him in his office for doing more work as i think that will be interesting for us and in another of the way to be more accountable meeting updating and i think that will that great and i think not only great aussie subcommittee ladies love to have good work to do but i think we've learned in the past that some of the things like the allergy policy free number from about five years ago almost that we tend to check things when it becomes a problem and that's when we really revise a lot of policies our technology policy we're trying to be more proactive so i think this will be just like the chunk of technology policies you got to look at the chunk of wellness policies and have an expert group weigh in on them there may be no changes in which they should be happy that for me there may be some i don't want us to be some major ones so we're going to take a proactive look at our wellness policies and come to you with some suggestions for maybe i'm going to say we're here to for early spring i think that's a great idea because it has evolved over the last few health especially that the health classes at the high school level but health and wellness as a high school really have changed in the same and elementary middle school of it but i think  ok i saw on the tail a school sign told our seventh wednesday is walk to school day so i just want to remind our elementary school friends to walk to school and the one of the students who get bussed to school will live it too great distance to walk there and it's my recollection that they do all a lap around the school so that everybody gets the opportunity to walk in changing their date i don't know i just think i read it on the sign that it was walk to school day on wednesday so i didn't know because i have graduated from decided against it but i there was some discussion about changing they haven't changed their sign so if they're changing the date they need to get on ok so my other thing is i notice you an eagle scout so it's a very meaningful donation you know that those girls do a lot for the community anyway by those are that that donation comes from the proceeds for the pancake breakfast which is a big scouting fundraiser in the town it's a really great community event but sam was always a huge part of that as a cub scout as a boy scout and again he was such a role model and touched so many people so i just wanted that it was a wonderful supply ocurred right the middle of the homecoming game and it was it was just wonderful he w in that troop with them to yeah right so one of the things we're going to see if the next meeting is that we've had a lot of people donating to the concession stand and the boosters you know group that is working with me so what we're what we're thinking of doing for you or them having something so many different that's all i thank you mr grant yes i mean just to upcoming elementary parent information nights on wednesday october seventh at six thirty at borough we will have the parent information night which is the same information night on the elementary work courage that took place back in june so we're repeating that just for those that maybe didn't get a chance to come so that's wednesday at six thirty and borough if you did come in june it is the same presentation and then also on october twentieth at boro at six thirty one of the things with our commitment with darkness to light and training every single staff member we're looking to add a lesson because of the research that's there and what k twelve wellness department head and we've spent a lot of time looking at research there last year and so we want to provide a peer information night based on that less a material would be right on the website people could look at that ahead of time to see the early cancer questions and at the same time it's like any of our