J. Scalice brought attention to working with SPED teachers regarding full audit of Sped placement and service hours after being made aware of some concerns with placement.

The school have notified BPT public schools regarding IEPs and safeguards between our SPED coordinator and BPT Public schools coordinator of special services.

As a result we are currently looking for a new special education coordinator. SPED coordinator at BPT public schools will no longer be with them as of March 17th, 2023.

J. Scalice and other team members with SPED background, will work together to see if there is anything they did not find during the initial review.

J. Scalice has a question - after initial rounds of interviews, we would like to know if board is interested in meeting potential candidates for the consultant - project manager; invitation to attend the board meeting Wednesday. 

B. Carlson indicated yes, that we should invite the consultant to present. 

J. Scalice notified the board that he will be attending a BARR visit in RI this coming Wednesday-Friday, so he will be taking the board meeting remotely. Slide deck we shared gets shared with all participating members. John will send to the board. Main crux of report will be highlighting recent walkthrough with Josh and Hector regarding progress on implementation of new ELA and Math curriculum.

J. Scalice gave a high level overview of what the BARR foundation is and the work they do as it relates to innovative practices. He also gave the historical context for the Barr grant and what the grant has enabled the school to do, including high school academic support, changing curriculum, and build a career and college pathway. 

• Career and college pathway we are working on first is on teaching and instruction. It starts first with a cohort of 10th grades and allows them early college access through Post university and is similar to a split-day schedule program like ACES for Art & Music, where the students begin their day taking their core classes, then their elective classes fall under the career & college pathway. They will learn basic instruction the first year, ELA and math, working on small group dynamics, and creating general plans of support for struggling students. As it progresses over the three years, by their senior year, they are working in small groups similar to our Americorps fellows and we are in process of working with Americorps to see if we can create a transition program out of high school into amerircorps for them, which could start to serve as an opportunity for us to fulfill our fellow spots with recent graduates from the middle school. J. Scalice expounded further to note that the idea, is that students have an opportunity to earn an associates degree before graduating high school, which would put them in line for a college graduation with a teacher certification at 20 years old.

C. Pellegrino, high school principal will be presenting a problem of practice for this trip/visit with the Barr Foundation. He will be presenting a problem of practice around AP courses and rigor, as well as academic engagement. He will be looking at the benefits between AP and college enrollment, as well as how that enrollment takes shape.

B. Carlson asked if there were other sources aside from Barr to support the current model/work. J. Scalice noted that yes, we are trying to explore those at the moment. He noted the foundation used to do most of that legwork, but J. Garrett has been working on pulling together a list of active/current grants available.

Rosetta Stone - more languages rather than hiring FTE. Based on the way Rosetta Stone is calculated in terms of levels earned, we have been acceptance at the CSDE level to use as a course, the way we provide for students is with coaching sessions for students that may have difficulty or challenges. Hiring world language teachers is a difficult situation. When renegotiating contract for Rosetta Stone, the price dropped significantly because of competing apps (like duoling), we now have 3 years of unlimited licensures.

We have had staff members engaging in languages outside of Spanish, Portuguese, because of our CIRI partnership, our food services staff will be tutored by NHS students to learn English. We recently received an email from Rosetta Stone highlighting our strengths in use of Rosetta Stone as a school and they are choosing us as a case study/want to highlight the school as an exemplar story.

L. Hubbard will give an update on enrollment applications and where we are. As of today we've received 160 applications which is high this time of year.

L. Hubbard will share updates from CT school safety symposium that L. Hubbard & M. Little attended last week. It was for schools, SROs and different school safety officials to get together. L. Hubbard shared they had a phenomenal panel who shared about their own experiences in schools.

L. Hubbard noted they took 10 students to the state capital to discuss school funding. The students shared their experiences here at GOBPT and what a great opportunity it has been, for them and their families to have school choice. B. Carlson suggested sending a follow up with information about the school to the appropriations committee.

B. Carlson noted that the school could/should look for more grants for school security. L. Hubbard shared that the state just announced round II of the security grant, which is due at the end of March. C. Sneed asked if the security grant was based on reimbursement, like the current one, to know if the school would need to come out of pocket first.

L. Hubbard noted the school is still in the planning phase of the first security grant, so we have a good opportunity to ask questions. 

J. Scalice noted we should also look into school improvement grants. Some of that upfront cost may be eligible for school improvement grants.

B. Carlson asked if there is a master list of grants; J. Scalice noted at the state level, yes but no, that's why we need a grants manager/writer.

B. Carlson also asked if we had an update from the foundation concerning grant applications and fundraising.

B. Carlson is interested in combining academic subcommittee with existing governance subcommittee - he wants to add it to next month's agenda for discussion. B. Carlson asked J. Scalice to give an overview of the academic committee. 

J. Scalice noted that the academic committee typically reviewed school performance data, ELA/Math data more frequently, discussion around course correction in terms of where data is trending and next steps, input from various members about what those steps look like and how they can be reported or monitored. The second piece is around new initiatives, new programming or new course of study - looking at the trajectory of the school and assessing if new courses are in alignment with our focus and our state admission under corrective action or board directives. Lastly, it was around executive director evaluation - performance of the ED, including discussing the process under which that evaluation occurs.