February 20, 2020 at 7:00 PM - Bethel Board of Education Regular Meeting

Rationale: 

Bethel Middle School's Unified Sports Program was recently recognized as a "National Unified Champion School" by the Special Olympics.   We are so proud of this program both at Bethel Middle School, Johnson School and Bethel High School.

The Bethel High School Jazz Ensemble Trumpet section won the Judges Choice Award for it's recent competition.

Senior Maranda Nyborg was recently honored for reaching the milestone of 1000 career points in Girls Basketball. She 

Our Winterguard program finished in seconds in the Regional this past weekend in Salem, MA.  

Senior Morgan Haskett was the SWC Champion in wrestling.  

Ava Graham, Miranda Anastasakis, Lauren Gallagher, and Abby Correard came in second in the state meet for indoor track (4 X 800m).

Ryan Lemone has advanced and was awarded as a Finalist in the National Merit Scholarship program.  This is highly competitive program and is one of 15,000 students across the country to be selected.  

The Bethel NJROTC recently completed their annual inspection.   We recently received a letter from the Department of the Navy indicating that they scored at the highest level, "outstanding" in all 7 categories.  

Rationale: 

Gifts, Grants, & Bequests

Grants

Bethel Health Dept. Healthy Living Grant, $4,400.00, Bethel Health Dept., Bethel

CIAC Unified Sports Grant, $750.00, CIAC, Cheshire, CT

Gifts

Peace, Love, and EM Foundation (Emily Todd Foundation), Balance bike, Foam bowling pins, and cup staking for Unified Sports, Peace, Love, and EM Foundation, Bethel

Donor's Choose, $150 for Library Media Makerspace, Donor's Choose Classroom Rewards

 

 

Rationale:  As discussed at a previous Board of Education Meeting, this presentation provides an overview of School Based Health Centers.  The presentation will be provided by Community Health Center.  We are most specifically interested in starting mental health programs at Bethel Middle School and Bethel High School.  

Rationale:  Jim Delany, Rizzo Corp. and Geralyn Hoerauf, Project Manager, will give a status update of the overall projects.  They will review the revised schedule, impact on phasing and operations, and budget overview. 

Rationale: 

• Email from J. Gangi regarding Common Core.
• Letter from EdAdvance regarding District Data Report 2018-2019

Rationale:  (Please note:  The Board welcomes Public Participation and asks that speakers please limit their comments to 2 minutes.  Speakers may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them.  The Board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about Board of Education personnel and students, nor against any person connected with the Bethel Public School System.)

Rationale: 

Girls Basketball are in the SWC.  We will be hosting this Friday night at 6:30 PM at BHS against Kolbe.  

Activities for Calendar:  

• Tuesday, February 25, 2020 - Renovation & Budget Update at Berry School - Parent Forum
• Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - Parent University 6:30 at Bethel Middle School
• Monday, March 2, 2020 - BOS Budget Deliberations
• Tuesday, March 3, 2020 - BOF Budget Deliberations 
• Monday, March 23, 2020 - Public Hearing on the Budget 
• Monday, April 6, 2020 - Annual Town Meeting 

Tenative joint meeting with Public Building Site Committee on April 23rd at 6:00 PM (before the Regular BOE meeting) to approve the Playgrounds and Package "B" Furniture.   

We are receiving regular updates from the local and state Departments of Public Health on the status of the COVID-19 Virus, including guidance to schools.  The biggest risk factors are related to individuals who have travelled to China recently.  Laura Vasile regulalry provides us with updates.  

Rationale: 

Key Points of the Briefing: 

• We currently use the book, Meyers’ Psychology for AP, 2011 (1st edition). 

• We are bringing forward a new edition of our current AP Psychology book.

  • Myers’ Psychology for AP, 2018 (3rd edition)

• We selected this book for several reasons:

  • It is one of the recommended books from the College Board

  • The book mirrors the outline and organization of the recent redesign of the course by the College Board and the associated unit guides/modules

  •  the textbook highlights the skills, concepts, content, learning targets, examples, and course objectives

  • written at the college level and encourage a conceptual understanding of psychology. The ideal textbook will use sufficient examples and approaches that enable students to make connections across different domains within psychology, and also, between psychology and other social and natural sciences.”  

  • There is a digital component (6 year subscription), Launchpad, that provides students with an interactive eBook, videos, PsychSim tutorials/activities and adaptive learning quizzes

  •  Pomperaug High School, Brookfield High School, New Milford High School, Newtown High School and Masuk High School all use this textbook and over 60 districts use of the editions of the Meyers’ Psychology for AP book.

• We are projecting an enrollment in this course of about 80 students next year.  Last year there were 77 students and this year we have 73 students enrolled in the course.

• Seeking 80 textbooks and the digital component, Launchpad

• The pricing structure is below:

 

Rationale: 

Summary of the Briefing:

• We have been using Big Ideas as the core instructional resource in Grades 6-8 since 2013. Edreports.org recently rated this program in terms of its focus and coherence, rigor and mathematical practices, usability and equity and it did not get a strong rating.

• Bethel Middle School engaged in a program review of Illustrative Mathematics (IM)using edreports.org (which passed all gateways and is one of the highest ranked middle school programs).

• Bethel Middle School math teachers are currently piloting the program.

• IM started as an Open Educational Resource (OER) released through Open Up and has since moved to Kendall Hunt Publishers. This move was made so that their curriculum would stay intact and not be modified or changed by other parties. Kendall Hunt houses the certified IM documents for free and sells professional development sessions and teacher and student workbooks.

• The Bethel Middle School Math Department, at this time, does not feel that student workbooks are needed, as all of the materials can be accessed online and printed. 

• All of our BMS math teachers attended IM training prior to the pilot. 

• There is an accelerated track that is mapped out in the IM instructional resource so our teachers can access that as well.

Rationale: 

Key Points of the Briefing:

• *CSDE requires annual certification by the Board of Education for participation in the Healthy Foods Certification Program
• *In participating, Bethel can only serve beverages, foods, snacks and a la carte items that have been specifically approved by the CSDE.
• *For participation, the District receives and additional 10 cents reimbursement from the State on each meal served. This is important to the financial success of our program which has always been self-sustaining.