East Haven highlights college-career expo, Naviance rollout and staff symposium

District staff presented an update on college and career programming and recent professional learning initiatives.

"We had somewhere between 30 and 35 families that came out last week to talk about different aspects of college and career readiness," Lisa (Speaker 9) told the board, describing an event open to eighth-grade families to inform high school course selection. Lisa outlined academic options including AP Calculus and AP U.S. History, and noted CTE pathways that this year include culinary and manufacturing classes that can award college credit if students complete the sequence. She also referenced an ECE UConn drawing and illustration course as an example.

Lisa introduced the district's use of Naviance for student and family career exploration and portfolio development. "It's a website," she said in response to a question, and described features that let students complete self-discovery surveys, collect artifacts and generate a formatted resume.

Staff also described a pilot symposium option for early-career staff as an alternative to a traditional paper submission for a required team process. Six newer staff presented at a two-hour symposium and reported it fostered collaboration and reflective practice; the district intends to offer a similar symposium in May with staff given the choice to either write the traditional paper or attend the symposium.

Other programmatic updates included the district securing additional asynchronous Science of Reading literacy modules (12 educators will take the modules) and a thank-you to maintenance and Public Works for storm response that allowed schools to open on a two-hour delay.

No formal board action was recorded on these program updates during the meeting.