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[Music] welcome graduates guests to our 2020 commencement exercises commencement is the culmination of four years of hard work and dedication to academic and career technical studies it is an exciting time for families and friends who have contributed to the achievements signified by this tradition that all gathered here sharing this happy moment let this day be one remembered for the joy and for the accomplishments that bring us together this evening thank you to our faculty and staff who have been an instrumental part of these graduates lives and today we're sending a special thank you to this year's teacher of the year for his outstanding service to our school and students let's have a big round of applause for teacher of the year mr jim mckinley at this time please rise for the playing of the national anthem [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you you may be seated i now call upon the superintendent of the cape may county technical school district dr nancy pudanic thank you principal vitello graduates this is your time to shine you the class of 2020 are ready for the next phase of your journey use your energy and skills to focus on making a positive impact and being a problem solver you have already demonstrated this by overcoming the hurdles we are all experiencing today remember the bigger the challenge the more rewarding the sense of accomplishment be proud of your accomplishments to date you are indeed tech's unique first graduating class to ever celebrate your graduation outdoors after three months of online learning plus a virtual graduation however these changes emphasize the need for you to become lifelong learners as you continue to navigate through the quick silver environment of the technology and the demands of our fluid global economy and society congratulations class of 2020 it is now time for you to fly you are senior hawks you must go into your own personal journey of success and thank you parents for choosing the technical school district and allowing us to learn and grow with your students and before i end i would be very remiss if i didn't also say wow are we here at cape may tech is this not exciting in this setting take a look at this and i want to complement our whole administrative team our staff and our very indeed dedicated people who helped to make this innovative celebration for you the class of twenty twenty thank you [Applause] thank you dr whodanic i now call upon board president mr alan gould [Applause] good morning what a lovely day class of 2020 of the cape may county technical high school parents grandparents brothers sisters and friends that might have been able to get into this festivity we are so happy to be here outdoors aren't we i heard from some students that they did not care much for the virtual graduations since it wasn't authentic well here we are this is authentic we must thank dr whodanic principal obagillo and the administration for organizing this day and it's like being it's like being in a the sports event we got this telethon we also would like to take this opportunity to thank the teachers who have been very helpful in getting you all through the last sp the last four years and certainly the last three months of difficulty now once again i speak for the school board of the district and they have asked me to tell you what a special class you are now i'm not saying that the other classes aren't special i don't want to get any letters from anybody but you're special you did not sign up four years ago to be in the middle of a covet 19 pandemic be known as the pandemic generation i was going to say the corona generation but you might take that wrong and this caused you to be at home missing classes attending classes remotely missing your friends by other than by phone text email or other methods of communication that i'm not familiar with no sports but you took those lemons and you made lemonade you have our appreciation of the board for the wonderful manner in which you dealt with this epidemic as i said in my previous statement before you stayed with the plan despite the uncertainty now all the parents have watched the last three months passed by they watched the last four years passed by and the last three months were probably like the as long as the last four years having to deal with the at home atmosphere but look how much stronger you are all today class you take with you your technical training for one or more of our numerous courses and or you're going to go to college or some other advanced training i can only say we wish you good health good luck and be safe thank you president it is now time for the valedictory addresses from our co-valedictorians up a resident of wildwood crest he held a concentration in our allied medical program exhibiting academic excellence through his time at tech he has contributed to our school community in many ways including serving as treasurer of the national honor society coordinator of the american red cross school blood drive member of the swim team and weightlifting clubs as well as many others in his free time he enjoys playing the guitar and violin running going to the beach and spending time with his family planning to study nursing at the college of new jersey and eventually go on to become an advanced practice nurse anesthetist i called to the podium co-valedictorian of the class of 2020 gerardo d'antonio greetings board of education dr daniel mr patel all teachers and staff parents and especially kate may tech class of 2020.
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good evening I like to welcome everyone to our meeting tonight we would stand for the pledge relations pledge allegiance black tie States of America [Music] yeah okay once again one before meeting just a couple of items I would like to go over the movie with that theme Sega gender and for the public the consent agenda is available online we are continuing our gravity belt lunch at school number three we will be distributing lunches to our families through the end of August I also believe this time of the break Department is also distributing lunch to residents we are going through the employers I just wanted to thank our administration at the high school and middle school they did a great job with two graduations are virtual graduations which we show at the end of June and we did have live graduations two different sessions adhering to the governor's social distancing during the week of July tonight and both were very successful and very happy to see that many parents and students took advantage of that graduations so I again congratulate all of our eighth grade students we enjoy the high school and our high school students on the college and the military just a reminder that we are accepting new students for September so if someone had moved to website for invite you to contact my office and we can register people virtually we'd like to get that done throughout the summer I will also accept the pre-k students our pre-k program and kindergarten registration the new Student Senate District for sports I met with our athletic committee and I've also met with mr.
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somebody please mute themselves anybody who's on except for the board members please mute yourself who who is eagle nest will you please mute yourself thank you let's go shhh everybody i have 6 28 will begin in approximately two minutes uh okay is everybody on benny we have a complete head count i'm checking now bernie i just don't see jeff yeah i don't i don't either he's the only one oh he's coming back in now okay we'll give jeff a minute we're waiting for you jeff get yourself settled no worries yeah i'm on my daughter's laptop um let me just um make a note also before we begin the meeting because i've got um uh one of the members of the public is asking with regard to um engaging in a q a the board meeting is not for a question and answer session certainly members of the public will be able to offer comment during the public session but it's not an opportunity to engage in questions and answers that is not the intent of the board meeting okay jeff you good to go uh give me one 30 seconds i need to no worries no worries i had a lot of problems vlogging on tonight too i'm just getting power to this thing see if i can do it cyrus uh all right i'm set okay you can hear me yep can hear you okay okay everybody i'd like to call this meeting to order due to the confide 19 health emergency and in order for the board of education to conduct its business this board meeting is being held video conference and streamed live via youtube on the district website at www.ebnet.org in addition members of the public may provide comment at this meeting through zoom by educating into your web browser the following meeting id and password upon joining the meeting your participation will be muted to ensure that there is no disruption to the business being conducted by the board of education will the secretary please call the role mrs chu here mr sismar here mrs gloss here mr hong here mrs lax here mrs reese here mr simmons mr winston here president becker here we have a quorum please rise to salute the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and the republic for which one undergraduate the new jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced nervousness to attend the meetings of public bodies in accordance with the provisions of this act the east funds of formative education has caused notice of this meeting to be published at the board of education offices written notice was also provided to the sentinel of the newark star ledger the home news interviewing and the municipal clerk of east brunswick all board of education meetings with the exception of executive session discussions our videotape related broadcasts and individuals who speak at the board's public meetings should be aware of this good evening although it looks like i am in a cave i'm having some major technical difficulties and um that is why i appear to be in the shadows good evening i hope everyone who is watching is well and safe and we're going to start off with our superintendent's report thank you president becker uh my report tonight is very brief uh 1 45 this afternoon i sent a communication to the entire east brunswick community regarding our planning for the opening of school this september it's a high level overview there are so the community understands there are many more reviews to our plan one of which will occur at the board level tonight and ward has to take final action at next thursday's meeting we will also need county approval so the anticipation is that during the week of august 3rd all those approvals will be in place and we'll be able to put our plan on the district's website on our home page for the entire public to review and that will give everyone approximately a month or a little longer uh to review the plan and to have any concerns that they have uh addressed or to you know provide any insight into our anticipated plan so that's all i have okay um matthew kobe our attorney wish to say a few words sure there's been i understand um that members of the public um have inquired if we're going to have live board meetings and my recommendation of this juncture is to keep it in the zoom format the reason being is that under the open public meeting act when you have a meeting you can't exclude members from the public and you have to have sufficient capacity to attend your meetings and we generally do them in the board office occasionally when you have the big events when you're celebrating uh retirements and teachers of the year we've done it in hammersold but with social distancing mandates and the uh for public safety reasons my recommendation is to keep it in the zoom format now where anyone can participate people can log in watch uh make public comments because the one thing that we cannot do is we can't control who from the public is going to come to a a physical public meeting as opposed to when you're in a virtual format there is no limits so my recommendation at this juncture is to keep it virtually i'd say that the vast majority of towns and school districts are doing the same thing they're finding that the public can participate can watch the business of the board can view it they have access to all the same uh documents that they normally would at a public meeting frankly i've actually seen greater public participation with people zooming in to board meetings uh over the last several months and i think it's really to just ensure the health and safety of the staff the board members and the general public until we have greater clarity of where this cova 19 virus is going and as you can see right now there's 31 states on travel advisory bands so we're just playing it cautious so that no one gets unnecessarily exposed to cover 19.
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uh let the record reflect that all members are present and we are going to go ahead and start with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everybody all right we'll go ahead and start with agenda item b1 uh make a motion to approve the agenda um form consistent with the governing board policies contemporaries suspend policies which this agenda may be inconsistent second motion made by jay leonard seconded by jen tanner go ahead and vote yes motion carries oh it's up there i'm used to having it on the second screen hello all right motion carries getting back into being in person awesome all right let's go ahead and move on we will move to agenda item c1 recognitions and celebrations arizona school administrators asa distinguished administrators award dr kellis thank you mr president members of the board and members of cabinet this evening i am very pleased to be able to present our first recognition every year arizona school administrators recognizes extraordinary administrators throughout the state of arizona this year dysert unified school district was privileged to have two of our extraordinary administrators recognized by the arizona school administrators as distinguished administrators and received the distinguished administrator award mr hawkins was named by asa arizona school administrators as a distinguished administrator for the secondary division mr hawkins has been the principal at shadow ridge high school for 12 years he has helped make shadow ridge a home to a community of learners that inspire student excellence he's admired on campus by both students and staff for his visibility his unwavering support for everyone and his direct association with so many of the community members at shadow ridge high school so we'd like to congratulate mr hawkins for the distinguished administrator award i'd also like to recognize our very own mr jim dean who was also recognized as a distinguished administrator by arizona school administrators mr dean has done some extraordinary things for the district namely the under his direction bringing the vista to life bringing growing minds preschool to life the opening of asante preparatory academy the launch of our first annual festival of the arts and many many other things the least not which is growing our athletics mr dean has served as an assistant principal now for 10 years he is getting very close to completing his doctorate and has just been again an extraordinary administrator for the dyson unified school district so i'd like to ask the board to come down and recognize mr dean at this time [Music] social distance [Music] yes pictures [Applause] oh um thank you governing board you can be seated that's what i thought and at this time i will uh let mr ken hicks present the second recognition this evening good evening mr president members of the board superintendent dr kellis uh colleagues and community members i'm proud to present to you this recognition our second recognition which of course we can't go six months without celebrating our amazing efforts of our staff and especially uh miss janet janice peale on our wellness efforts and so um although she's not here um there's a list of the people attached to the agenda for all the people that participated in this virtual step challenge so it did start um i think it was uh march 16th and went through april 24th we did not win the traveling trophy we took second but we did take first place in the top 20 participant divisions for all the steps they still did during this virtual challenge which was a challenge as they were trying to isolate in that sense so i just want to say great job to everybody and here's the plaque for celebrating that good job for wellness phenomenal definitely appreciate the people that have worked so hard and stepped up to the challenge i'm here all week don't worry all right we'll go ahead and move on are we headed to d1 with added individual audience with individuals miss densmore do we have the first one we anybody i believe it's kelvin ray patrick hit your mic oh sorry and then you will have to read the statement i'm not in yet you want to read the statement i'm not in still sorry done okay this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda um pursuant to ars 3843101 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of three minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for the record are we allowed to remove these or do starting now yes okay well i would like to start by giving consideration to john williams because i'm here on behalf of the students of willow canyon high school uh a group of parents brought an issue similar to the one that i'm coming before you tonight with and this gentleman he handled the situation very well the kids and everyone was satisfied with the remedy that he brought forth for us tonight i'm here to talk about a situation where a coach came forward with some information about another coach who was trying to engage in inappropriate conduct with another kid she overheard the conversation shortly afterwards this coach was dismissed from willow canyon after parents you know kids coming forth you know with all the emails the witnesses the situation was not handled the way any one of us as a parent would want our kids to be in a situation like that in the violations that we have everything is documented there's been a charges filed with the eeoc this is a situation to where i wish some of the other parents wanted to be here tonight to voice their concerns they wanted to make the board aware of what's going on so everyone can know like what's going on in the dysart district this is a situation to where this uh right now these kids are still subject to this coach they're still in that position this coach is engaged in violation of the constitutional rights where some of these kids wanted to kneel during the game he took them in a room and threatened them with kicking them off the volleyball team if they participated or exercised their constitutional rights now see these are things that um my kids when they come home and tell me doesn't sit right with me and the coach that was terminated that was my wife she's been a coach at willow canyon for five years she's been a great coach but after she came forth and she told the administration about what was going on she was shortly let go right after that and some of the violations that these this coach has engaged in he's engaged in verbally abusing the players like my daughter she was one of the players that was verbally abused they said they had an investigation she was never called in and never asked one question about anything that transpired so that investigation is not valid um there's been players who refuse to play for this coach but they still choose to keep this guy here at the program i i we would just ask the board to contact these parents contact these kids get each and every one of them let them voice their concerns to you and see exactly what it is in dysart that we're striving for we want a dice i mean a school board a system where every kid feels valued no one should be verbally abused no one should feel like if i come forward and say something something's going to happen to me that's not a situation no one wants to be in that's not america that's not what we i go to work for and that's not what i send my kids to school for yeah that was three minutes oh sorry well i have a lot more because the list goes on like there's parents that have file claims uh for this coach sitting here threatening these kids if they don't play for his club then they don't get they will not be welcoming his team and if you would please contact these parents and get their information because they want to come and talk to you guys to voice your concerns thank you dr kels can we look into that and get the information and mr president members of the board administration be happy to provide the board with an update thank you for doing that appreciate it we had one more thank you dr kellis uh yes the next one is uh ariana corona all right good evening board community superintendent um typically you guys see me in the same outfit right over there giving a student update today i'm here doing the same thing but it's a little bit different because it's not the best so um piranovirus has been hitting us a lot a lot of us seen it worse than others but the thing is with district choosing to do digital learning it's a great option but there's some little things that i just don't think we're thinking about the impact of the students and that's just what i'm here to kind of briefly talk about um a lot of students just like me they want to speak about it they post about it on social media but of course not a lot of us see that not a lot of us connect with the students in that way and a lot of them don't really care to speak up to board like i am tonight so thankfully i kind of have an outlet here so i feel comfortable doing that um a lot of us high school students are being really impacted for me a lot of our senior year this year not going to be the same we're not going to get the memories that a lot of seniors are going to get but on top of that the whole digital learning it was very nice prior during last year we were available to go at our own pace because a lot of us we work jobs and with the pandemic a lot of us are short staffed at work and our hours doubled and tripled a lot of people including me are having to work 40 to 50 hours a week trying to serve our community dysart we try to be extraordinary they want our students to be extraordinary a lot of us are balancing we were able to balance work in school last time but with the new guidelines for school and digital learning for those first few weeks we are there from 7 15 a.m to 2 15 p.m that is very difficult to work around with work scheduling for those short-handed businesses and companies as well as that's eight hours a day on top of that we have more hours that we have to spend online doing homework and studying and that's just not healthy to be on a computer that long for that to a period of time and it's basically just looking into the impact of the students we want to be extraordinary we want to serve in our community i just worked 50 hours last week serving my community a lot of them look and a lot of them are sad a lot of the regulars are sad that i have to leave and not be able to serve a lot of companies are short-handed there's not enough people with all the numbers rising in we hear every morning about the numbers rising not a lot of people are there we're supposed to be high school students but we can balance academics and stuff but but digital being there for eight plus hours a day it's just not healthy as well as not being able to go at our own pace to be able to balance serving not only our academic and our district but our community i love my school and a lot of us can't wait to go back i'm very involved but it's just something to maybe consider for future references about the impact of a lot of the high school or older students that's it for me thank you thank you is that it excellent thank you all right let's go ahead and move on let's go ahead and move on to e1 superintendent update dr kellis thank you mr president members of the board and members of cabinet first of all we are officially in our 100th anniversary year and would like to acknowledge um all of our predecessors over the last 100 years who have slept established the foundation upon which we are being successful and that we are enjoying our term in dysart and we're looking forward to the next 100 years there are a lot going there's a lot of things going on over the next 12 months as we celebrate this 100th anniversary like to thank our public relations department who has assembled um a few requiredos that's what you say in spanish memorabilia for each of the board members in your in your bag there you'll be seeing more events coming it's always interesting trying to celebrate something this extraordinary in a virtual world not something we would have expected or planned for but it will still be a very exciting year i'd also just like to extend a huge thank you to every single person who has been working feverishly over the last several months to get ready for school to start virtually on august 4th there is countless hours that are being currently and have been and will continue to be put into getting ready for students especially now that as we are getting ready for virtual learning we want our students to continue to have an extraordinary experience whether they are remotely learning whether they're in high school or when we come back at a date that everybody is sitting on pins and needles waiting to find out when whether it be in person again i just want to thank everybody who's doing their part that's all i have to report thank you dr kels i appreciate that let's go ahead and move on to e2 governing board updates i'll go ahead and start i just want to say thank you to everybody who came out to the meeting in person it's good to see half of your face at least it's it's nice to get back into the grind i know technology is amazing and we had some good meetings but i don't think you can substitute the in-person experience at least for a very kinesthetic person like myself i appreciate everybody and uh making the adjustments wearing masks and and looking out for each other and i think as we you know look forward to what the future holds i know that as we come together as just good stewards of our areas of responsibility that we can make a difference and as we make tough decisions especially for the schools and the individuals and the employees i know that we're all looking for the right answers and and to do the best things um i have a great uh respect for dr kellis and the staff that have worked tirelessly as the rules of the game have changed um sometimes it seems almost daily um and and i've seen the work that's gone on behind the scenes and the adjustments and and everything that that we're doing um to make sure that we think about every single moving piece in this giant puzzle and make sure that we have something that is extraordinary and something that we can present to the public and feel confident about and i know that it's it's taken a lot of work and a lot of toll on people so as we approach those dates that you talked about i'm excited to um you know obviously work within the bounds that we've been given but i'm also excited to get the students back where they need to be and and to help them continue their education in the best possible manner that we can so i appreciate everybody and just wanted to let you know it's good to see you it's good to be back and i'm excited for for this year um in all of the challenges that we we have i think we have the right people in the right places to to make great decisions and and to move forward so that's all i've got anybody else i just wanted um ditto i can't talk about this ditto the same sentiments that president leonard has said and i know that dysart has been working tirelessly over the summer thus far because we receive regular updates from dr kellis and his team so i just want to echo the same sentiments it's it's not easy it's it's something that we have never faced before but um i think that with all of the work all of the knowledge that we are getting from this we will be able to serve our students successfully as we have always done so thank you dr kellis awesome thank you anybody else go ahead hey just a couple things um first just want to congratulate again mr dean and mr hawkins for your distinguished administrator award um that's awesome and not surprised but congratulations to both of you on june 15th i was involved as a committee member for the legislative committee the legisba legislative committee to assist in the development of the 2020 political agenda it's always a very um always has good conversation um lots of deep thought and um time that goes into that just quickly there were so many i mean i think it was probably almost a seven hour meeting um obviously talked a lot about funding um a couple of the newer things though there was actually um a complete section on um kobit response and it discussed things like suspending the possibility of suspending state standardized testing for 2021 um making sure we're we're in line with accessing technology for our students safety lots of things so for me it was refreshing to be a part of that conversation knowing that our leaders are really they're hearing us and they're looking at these very important topics and hoping to really push forward to do some great advocacy work to make sure that our our voices in education are heard so that was that was wonderful the other the other piece that was a little bit near and dear to my heart they're looking into next year um possibly for school board candidates and e-file anyone that was out this year trying to get signatures during a state shutdown can probably appreciate that possibility i think there's pretty much every other candidate in the other office you're able to use like the e-file system but but not schoolboy members so that is something that they're looking into as well as a possibility so again looking forward to the delegate assembly hopefully in september possibly but um again just very much appreciate being a part of that process um and then wanted just to kind of echo uh mr leonard's sentiments about just very thankful for all the work that's been going on at district office from dr kellis and his team you know down to every every employee everyone's had to make adjustments be flexible it's a very emotional time it hits everybody in different ways and i can honestly say in speaking with dr kalis it was probably an hour and a half and very detailed in his responses very open and willing to listen i would encourage anybody who has any questions about the protocols and things to reach out to him but just know i mean how frustrating it must be for all of you that you work so hard to come up with a plan and then something changes and it's back to the drawing board so in a lot of times i can appreciate it's like you're spinning your wheels but just know that we all appreciate all the work that's being done across the district by everyone so thank you for that and i'm really just looking forward just want to wish everybody a great first day back to school however that looks for you whether it be online whether it be in person if and when that begins anytime soon but i think it's just exciting to finally get our students back into a routine and some consistency and structure i think i think that's going to be beneficial for everybody so i look forward to getting back into our learning environments for sure so thank you that's all i have thank you mr richard anybody else all right thank you go ahead and move on let's go move on to action item our motion to approve percentage item of f1 motion to approve the agenda items as presented second motion made by jay leonard seconded by miss pritchard let's go ahead and vote i lost my connection so can you mark me as are you a yes all right motion passes thank you you're back yeah okay perfect all right we'll go ahead and move on let's go ahead and move down to section h1 information item h1 update on dysart plan for returning to the classroom for the 2020-2021 school year dr kelvis thank you mr president members of the board members of cabinet this is really an opportunity to allow the board to talk together with cabinet it's not very often that there's this much activity going on with regard to the district and just because of the rules of statute regarding meetings it's difficult for the board to come together and have open discussion and to ask questions and be able to just dialogue that being said cabinet would like to just share some of the latest and greatest changes that have happened as president leonard said these changes happen so quickly and it often depends on the landscape and how things are are happening at the state level sometimes even at the national level as we receive changes for example from the cdc uh just as one example we had a a whole spreadsheet a flowchart on what to do if there is direct contact and then last week the cdc came out with all new guidelines for direct contact so we had to go back and revise our our procedures our protocols for cases where there's direct contact this week as we look at parent choices of the various options for school for this year we can see where there's opportunities to take a plan that was originally devised and make it better for everybody as we look at some of the needs of our employees and our parents outside of school again we are looking at opportunities to do things better so sometimes it's not always driven by external forces sometimes it's just reflection and sheer imagination and innovation to to think about what is really affecting our students what what is the experience that our teachers and our parents are going to have and when you approach any problem to be solved with that empathetic approach it makes it so much easier to understand the best solutions for it so we will start out this evening on this agenda item with just giving some quick updates some of these things may seem like they are routine but some of them have had some tweaks even within the last hour and so we'll start off right here with mr dean and then we'll just go to dr pulling mr hicks and mr croto good evening mr president members of the governing board dr kellis and members of cabinet um it's great to see you again this evening in person um it's been quite some time and we're happy to see um faces again so thank you for being here this evening just a quick update from um support services and the departments that are working tirelessly to to prepare for the start of school our student services department continues to work with our with our school administrators with our social workers and with local law enforcement in various aspects as it relates to school reopening additionally student services has been taxed with the responsibility of covert response for students when our students return to campus if students become students test positive our student services department will be the ones that will be handling that and facilitating that process and so they've been working you know on what those processes look like we've had some opportunity to practice those processes as we've had athletic and marching band folks back throughout the summer and we've had a couple of situations in which we've had to put our plan into place so they've been working on that piece community education has never stopped um in in this time community education continued um to offer daycare services and preschool services for our community our first responders and our essential workers during the entire time that we've been away from school and so john williams and his crew deserve just absolute praise in the effort that they've gone through to keep daycare and preschool available for our for our community and so thank you um to miss pritchard's point um things do change quickly and often um and as of about an hour ago we set in motion some plans that um we're still flushing out the the final details but we're working through community education to provide an opportunity for our community related to learning labs and the possibility of bringing a small number of students to our campus during the school day and providing den club before and after school to help with working families in our community who would struggle with supervision of their students during the day we mentioned this tonight because it is a process that we are comfortable that we can move forward with but there's a few logistical pieces that we will work out and share with our community early next week but we're very excited about the possibility and the opportunities that that may provide i'm regarding athletics and we are in constant contact with the aia and their plans for competition for this school year um as i stated earlier we have had our athletes and our marching band students in for summer workouts we paused for a few weeks a couple weeks ago but we're back now moving forward additionally i would like to remind the board that we've created dsb live which is dysart student broadcasting live which is a live stream program in our district where we'll be able to live stream athletic events arts competitions um and and arts activities various pieces throughout the school year perhaps this is more timely than ever needed before because we'll be able to live stream for those who can't attend to watch our students as a matter of fact we have our first live stream event with an athletic group one of our palm teams on sunday of this week and so we're very excited about that looking forward to providing the opportunity for those that cannot attend because we reach the 50-person capacity um in that just quickly um finishing up cte is it continues to work to plan courses as you know the cte courses are very hands-on courses and so they're working to provide opportunities within their online pieces to allow for those pieces or for those components um to be experienced by students and then finally our pr team certainly remains our key communicators as we move forward they're working endlessly to make sure that we push information to parents so um support services has been busy as everyone has and we're looking forward um to the start of the school year in 13 days good evening mr president members of the board cabinet and community uh it's great to see you tonight and a pleasure to be here and um just uh have to give my team kudos they've been working really hard um really focused on a few things first today we welcomed our new educators back so new educator orientation started today and new educators showed up to their school site and we're welcomed by the administrative team and and the support staff and my team worked to push out some virtual pd for those folks so they had a mix of virtual pd and in-person pd at the school site i was uh fortunate to stop into a few schools and it's just great to see teachers and and staff other things our team has been working on a resource links page that will be for parents for students for staff with links on how to use schoology on remote learning we'll have q a it'll have video and we're really just working hard on putting resources together to support staff students parents because the remote learning will look different than the spring and online resources will be very high quality and and we're excited to use them but we also know that people will need support we have prepared a best practices in online learning pd for all teachers and we'll be supporting administrative teams at schools in helping deliver that and we're also working with our vendors on preparing resources again just so that no matter the position or the teacher or the subject or the need that we are providing them the resources so they can teach students and then also we're on delivering ongoing pd we kept a lot of the same pd that we had scheduled we've had esspd this summer some virtual some in person um some gifted pd and and whatnot so there's some examples but um we're just really focused on preparing as being as flexible as possible but preparing as best as possible so that that students and staff and parents have the resources they need thank you good evening mr president members of the board dr kalas colleagues communities um so um i will say um we've been talking a little bit about superpowers um as we all have heroes around us my superpower is to take very simple things and make them very complex and talk very long about them so i did bring my covet file i reread the executive order 41 and 44 so that we could uh go over a more detailed description of that but um in all seriousness um it is uh very true it's every single day we're going back through how we're doing double checking things that i already ask you this um following through with my team and and those leaders to make sure that we're creating the safest environment possible and facilities the plant managers have been here from day one and continue to work down through work orders as we also have adjusted their schedule and what they're cleaning and how that means they begin each day we're spraying down the front offices with um i forget the name of the gun the pro texas statistics machine that has the electrostatic disinfectant that goes everywhere and cleans everything they do that on every single day the front office any high touch areas as well as working through cleaning first before they get to their work orders and supporting the staff that are showing up we've worked with abm to modify the cleaning schedule so that we're cleaning staff restrooms more frequently as that is come up of concerns and so we're trying to address concerns we're working with the hvac team to make sure that we purge the air every day so at about 5 00 a.m maybe a little earlier we're going to stagger things just to save utilities but we're going to push all the air out and bring all new fresh air in it is the coolest time of day so we're bringing the coolest air in because then we have to condition that air as it comes in the air cycles through a couple times an hour anyway because we bring outside air in but this is a complete flush push everything out so it's a complete purge and so we're looking at how we could adjust and help those we've been dealing delivering ppe for the last two weeks to our schools mass thermometers disinfectants hand sanitizers plexiglass barriers hand sanitizer stands front off to the front office and principles we're creating inventory lists so that we know what we're giving everybody so they know who's good in it and how to distribute it transportation has been meeting for the last couple weeks to figure out how can we train 150 people when we do have in-person how and what are we doing so we've been working to move that to an online environment but how do we still train we're have to bring in small groups to do cpr there's certain things for certifications that we can't do everything online and so they're looking at how they can break that up and keep that in very small groups and keep everybody safe as easy as easy as just coming to work is very difficult when you have 150 people coming in at the same time so how we're staggering time so no more we're even thinking a color coding system so they can stay in their car until they see a green light before the next group of people come in so we're able to take temperatures at all the different i think we'll have 10 thermometers down there so how we're using those to keep everybody separate and taking that so we're working through logistically every single thing how um how we're spraying down the bus on the inside and between routes and between the the stop not in between the stops and between the routes so they continue to work through that process our food service who did an amazing job last year serving an unbelievable i think it was almost a half a million meals to our community took a little bit break they will have to start up on august 4th because national school lunch program requires that when school starts we have to serve lunches and so they will be serving meals on august 4th all kate students will receive the reduce free free reduced or paid meal high school is the only students that chose the in person get that option if they're an online student by law they have to pay the visitor price so it's a higher price and they're and they have to pay the adult visitor price meal and that's per the federal government on that one we will be serving breakfast and lunch options we do have some that have a completely free breakfast i think we have three schools that are completely free so they'll get a complete free we'll have options for breakfast at both times for during their schedule time for their parents to pick up we are asking parents to go to schoolcafe.com to put money on the account to help speed up the process and also i did not know this maybe i don't watch the news enough but we have a change shortage going on right now and so we were not able to get the change from our bank uh when we requested that so we're a little worried about not being able to provide the right change pushing people to school cafe would just be able to put it on account and be able to manage that process so we're working through those they've already had a ton of protocols in place to keep safe as they were doing it last year so we're just reviewing those and making sure that everybody's maintaining the the distance and uh keeping any opportunity to make little modifications and changes we're going to do it does look like it's curbside to keep it going as fast as possible and not having people park come in we do have a short window because we're creeping the keeping the same routines and structures in place one um just to briefly talk a little bit now the trust we're having liability so it is uh school board associations i think has put out some notices i've seen emails left and right i am on the trust board and so the organic pathogens is specifically excluded from our coverage our insurance coverage it's also excluded from any of the reinsurance coverages that the trust is purchased and so um we do have prepaid legal program and we do also have the no fault mold but that is really after an entire site goes down they will help as a claim cover the cost of cleaning but they're not covering any claims we do have legal our prepaid legal process so we do have coverage of legal costs for attorneys representing representing we are reviewing template documents that they've also sent of acknowledgement so parents are understanding to protect us in the case of lawsuits we're actually very very little chance of that anyway anybody can be sued at any time so there's no chance of stopping anybody from swimming but legal opinion is is that we we're doing a lot if you notice and look around things don't look the same so to try to allege that we have gross negligence that we're not taking this seriously we're not doing something would be a very steep uh legal bar decline but um we do have to look out for that process and and schools are very concerned um and so we work with the trust i was talking to mike tiffany the executive director of trust today about some of those acknowledgement forms and template letters and how and what we could do so we're going to continue to review that staff has covered the workers comp there's no issue there i know there's been some rumors that there's a law that prohibits any of those payouts or any of those concerns that is not the trust and we're with the alliance which is an arm of the trust we are covered and there's no concern with any inability to follow and pay out on that part other operations continue as we're working to track all of our coveted spending because we still have the exergrant we have the gear grant and now um because we can't have another we need more acronyms we now have the esg which is the enrollment stabilization grant that's worked through arizona department administration via the governor's office with his cares money and so we have three different grants now that we're trying to track monitor and apply it is a very difficult process we've already been denied on our first essa grant which i know they said will be super easy it is not super easy and i feel for the people that continue to try to submit as we're having to identify every type of hand sanitizer a six ounce and eight ounce individually what type of mask cloth paper every single thing individually to go into that for our coverage of that or for that grant and it's very very difficult so we're also always reevaluating and analyzing ideas sorry i talk a lot this is my superpower embrace it ideas decisions to ensure gifts of public funds compliance we're constantly monitoring and managing but we have to do the mental math every single day on every single idea that we're doing and so we continue to do that we've moved online training for student activities we're doing the parent support groups moving that online so we're continuing to provide those opportunities the best way possible can so there you go now i got to the end of my shoot i'll kick it over to hr thank you mr president members of the board superintendent kellis colleagues and community i'm tired after listening to him talk so um anyway uh hr has been a very uh busy place so first of all i wanna just thank my team they've done an amazing job uh in this time of hiring right now amidst all the hiring we have staffing going on which i'll explain i'll talk about some employee relations pieces that we're working on and also the exposure with the kovitz so human relations is in charge of the contacts for the employee side you heard mr dean say the students are with karen winterstein the employees are going to be with hr so to hit off staffing staffing is going very well right now district wide we're about 190 students off of our projection that we projected for this year a lot of that as we looked into the numbers today come off of the kindergartners and i know we have a plan to to address that and get them registered and back in but we are down right now and i'll elaborate more on the friday report for you but about 10 teachers high school and elementary so that's total regular um ed um positions and about 19 special ed positions so i'm doing pretty well as a whole obviously our special ed positions are a challenge every year and we're looking to uh to fill those and and get caught up with those addition in the staffing portion is as you know we we've allowed students to choose are they going to be in high school or are they going to be in face to face we're all starting off obviously with the virtual side but as we transition they're going to come back either face to face or stay online in the high school arena we have about 24 25 of the students that have chosen roughly about 2 000 out of the 8 500 that have chosen to remain online so we are busy staffing that we got an excellent staff working on that and also in the elementary side we have about 4 248 kids that have chosen to remain in the high school online piece that's about 30 percent of our population so we are busy shifting teachers the local sites are doing amazing job but shifting teachers responsibilities of egypt teaching the ischool or the in person or split of both they're doing an amazing job with that that is ongoing obviously we have schools starting pretty quick so that is one of our top priorities employee relations about three four weeks ago we sent out a survey to all employees i had a very great turnout over 2500 employees answered it we wanted to know three things from them basically um are you everything okay to come to work i'm not coming back to work or do you need some type of accommodation to come back to work uh like i said over 2500 employees filled that out uh we are in the process of calling everybody that answered two and three so can't come back to work or i need some accommodation that has um amounted to almost 400 phone calls from my staff we're busy reassuring them processing any accommodations they need or mutual agreements again employee relations trying to make it right for them to to return to work and make sure there's a lot of fear that as people have been saying and people are at different places with this so we want to assure them of all the process we have in in order and make it right so we're busy doing that on top of that is our exposure for our employees we continue process seven days a week whether it's direct exposure indirect exposure they all report to hr and we decide if they have to quarantine or not quarantine um and notify obviously the work and and those type of things the supervisors of of those people coming in there so we we have the family's first corona response act which uh provides them extra lead by the government that's through december 31st so we process all those and we process the return with the cdc guidelines so again that's been a lot of questions back and forth with employees and we continue to process that so that's life in hr right now so thank you and it's great to see everybody so that's just a quick superficial overview of a lot of different things behind each of those topics that were just discussed there's a whole team of staff who are working to make those reality so again i i thank everybody who's been involved with with the process as i've said many times before it's going to change tomorrow we are anticipating governor ducey making a press release and releasing as he said at his last press release he's going to be announcing more opportunities for flexibility for schools i believe is what he said and that is a very broad statement to make opportunities for flexibility i was interviewed by channel 15 yesterday and i was asked what would you like the governor to say and in the spirit of his statement of flexibility i said i would like him to just let us do whatever you want to do and pay for it and while i say that someone in jest i think that would be great if we could localize our plan to the needs and not be tied into a statewide plan that may or may not be conducive to the needs of our district we certainly appreciate everything that the governor has done i've met with him on different occasions regarding what our needs are as have other superintendents and he has been responsive to those so i'm optimistic that we will be able to move forward with the flexibility that we need to help our students have an extraordinary learning experience so at this point i just will open it up to the board and i'll turn it back to president leonard to facilitate the discussion but we're open to any questions that the board has thank you for that i appreciate those presentations and the fact that ken didn't have any slides made it even better not that i didn't miss your slides but um but one of the things that you know being a business owner and being in a situation we have about a hundred employees in seven different states and you know there's a lot of concerns and and understanding that as you know a community as you know people that are responsible for a education be safety of a lot of students and scholars and then see quite a few employees mr crota i appreciate you brushing off your smiling and dialing skills and reaching out to every one of those employees that that needs to hear from you and needs that needs that so definitely commend you and your people for doing that and it's a lot you know the beginning of school is is a huge undertaking by any stretch of the imagination on any regular year as we move forward we definitely need to pay attention to the additional work and the additional workload and the stressors that are out there for for everybody in the situations that they're in and some of those are perceived and some of those are real the very real um things that that people are going to face and that we have to take seriously and uh and and move on and help our employees and our staff and our students and our community members wrap their heads around all of those changes and and the moving targets that that we're all trying to hit in my staff meeting we talked about the 80 20 rule you know 80 of what we're dealing with is uh logical simple decisions that we're faced with and we can look at and we can make those decisions because logic is simple and just for for the ease of math you know that other 20 percent is broken up into uh microcosms all over the place and it's that moving target it's that piece that everybody wants to have a an opinion on and some of it's backed by science and some of it's backed on what i call bro science where you know people have come up with ideas and you know and here we are just you know working to make the best decisions obviously as we make those decisions we have to rely on reliable sources that have real science and real data and so as we look at you know moving forward i would encourage people to visit our website which is an amazing source of information as those moving targets we're trying to hit we are put in a situation where all communication is not created equal fake book doesn't always have the best answers and the bro science isn't necessarily where we need to turn to get emotional and involved in debates in all reality we have to make decisions we have to move forward and we have to look at all of the moving pieces and parts and do the best hindsight's always 20 20.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
uh okay rosa okay uh welcome back everyone um we had to take that emergency recess um so now you are joining us um only by viewing through youtube and our zoom link is private just to the people that you see on this screen i just wanted to explain what had happened and i do obviously am very apologetic for anyone who saw and heard on the things that were on the previous zoom call zoom because the public nature of this meeting has to be the link to that meeting has to be posted publicly which it was which means anyone can can join um so i just wanted to reassure you all especially the parents that are listening that zoom is considered a safe platform this was not a technical overly technical hacking of any sort um but again because of the public nature of this meeting and the necessity for for public comment um we had posted the link and that made it very accessible to everyone um eric did you want to touch on any anything in particular more technical um no thank you but you know the only other thing i will say is is we do by default employ the waiting room feature in zoom for those of you who know about it um you know although we use the waiting room feature we do have to allow everybody in due to the public nature of the event but that is a feature that all um our staff teachers um anybody in brookfield that uses zoom has to use the waiting room um and they have to knowingly invite uh people into the meeting and actually have an opportunity to uh require the attendee to identify themselves um which is which is a practice we have been and will continue to follow thank you how the rest of this evening will go and i know that we were in the middle of public comment when we last left we do have the recording of all of the previous public comments so those are part of the record and we have those comments recorded how it will progress from here on out is if anyone who is watching would like to make a comment or have a concern to please just email us so um you can either um email the the board of ed at boe at brookfieldps.org and at the end of the meeting um i can read aloud your um your questions or comments but i i think tonight's presentation will be fairly comprehensive and hopefully all of your concerns will be addressed that way so um i think we can um simply move on with our agenda and the only agenda item for tonight is a discussion and possible motion regarding the 2020 2021 brookfield public schools reopening plan so i'm going to turn it over to dr brill to go through his presentation and then we have some possible motions following that thank you rosa i'd also like to reiterate my apologies to the public and my apologies to you for uh personally for receiving uh being on the receiving end of those disgusting comments this evening um there's no place for that and um i'm dearly sorry to everybody who had to see that but i'm glad we're back on this is a very important meeting about reopening tonight i did want to share just a little bit before eric puts the slides up uh the first thing is that uh i i really want to thank the school reopening team that worked very hard in june and has provided uh in as soon as yesterday as recently as yesterday feedback to the administration who has been working on the plan over the last several weeks um and then remind the board and the public uh in terms of input there's a number of surveys to staff and faculty and to parents that have been distributed in addition to that we also spent time at last week's meeting going over the process in the context uh in the requirements of uh what was it is expected us expected of us uh with the reopening so that was done last week at the meeting and there is a powerpoint slide up and video of that from last week that anybody can access this is almost like part two this evening we're really going to talk high level in a powerpoint about the uh the plan uh so it's about the with some pictures it's about 30 slides i will start it off i will turn it over to dr ruby uh and then dr ruby will turn it back to me once we get through um the powerpoint which i think will answer a lot of questions for parents we really uh received feedback from the school reopening team yesterday as well as really thinking about what are people asking us what do they really want to know about health and safety uh some processes that people have questions on and certainly what remote instruction might look like so we're going to go through those we'll show some pictures of what a typical classroom might look like at each of the levels and uh and then we'll answer questions and we also have uh the budget toward the end of the powerpoint as well we can talk about what it's going to cost to open up so eric if you would be so kind you could put the slideshow up and we will begin i also want to let everybody know that dr ferrara and dr sullivan are on uh just as they were last week and thank them for their time and they certainly can answer any questions for us as well and they've reviewed the plan uh as well and been constant companions throughout the development of it so eric obviously this is the reopening plan this is the key plan details we can move to the next slide so this is a slide i showed last week just as a reminder for everyone this has a link to the adapt advance achieve connecticut state department of education and governor lamont's plan for reopening every single school district in connecticut was charged with developing a three option plan and it's due this friday the first one is reopen school this fall for all students five days a week one has the 100 plan as we like to call it second develop a hybrid model for 50 of the students in the school at a time which would involve remote learning learning for the other 50 and then finally prepare for full remote learning and you'll notice we're using the term remote learning now but state changed it from distance learning to remote learning so it it means the same thing but i want you to know that's the phrase being used now anything's we're going to jump right into things all right so there'll be student and adult expectations actually somebody was asking a question or making a comment in public comment uh earlier uh wondering about this so in our plan uh one of the things that's highly encouraged and we want people uh to do is to ensure that if they feel sick there to stay home this is for students and adults uh in the morning we would like the family to do a wellness check and that's detailed in the plan and individually as employees or adults or young adult students to do a wellness check which would include temperature taking face coverings or masks that cover the nose and mouth are required social distancing is required and we'll talk a little bit more about that of course hygiene and respiratory etiquette in terms of frequent hand washing and sanitizing is required and unless there are special circumstances for child care students may not change buses next all right so very briefly we talked about these particular uh core operational uh considerations so there's the emphasis on the term cohorting cohorting is where we keep the same group of kids together as much as we can this is not only for mitigate as a mitigation strategy it's also to help with contact tracing so we're doing that with classes uh k through eight to ensure our students remain in the same group as best we can buses are also considered a cohort that goes along with transportation um and on the bus mask is uh always necessary you must wear one as you enter the bus face uh face covering nose and mouth in terms of social distancing we talked a lot about this last week we are social distancing six feet to the greatest extent possible working in the three foot to six foot range from the americans from the american um uh pediatric academy academy of pediatrics so i wanted to just go on to that and remind everybody we've got the key keys with transportation face coverings social distancing and concept cohort continue to move on and we'll be revisiting things for the evening all right students the family provides the face covering district will have extra mass just in case for the staff the district will provide the mask one to wear one to wash and one for just in case and of course we'd have a few extra round if somebody forgets so there'll be three masks provided and those have already arrived in district next response planning a lot of people ask me dr rowe what happens if someone tests positive in school very straightforward here we have our consulting medical physician here as well as our director of public health we could talk about this as the evening goes on if there is a confirmed case in the school building adult or child we would assess the risk with the local health officials we would immediately plan for a closure at least two to five days could be longer um and two that's an opportunity obviously to clean and disinfect the building but it also helps with contact tracing and of course immediate communication to let everybody know what's going on the one thing that's important to emphasize and frame for everybody here is that we will be protecting confidentiality while we are transparent with our communication and what i mean by that is we are not going to tell you who tested positive no one's going to find that out that is we're we just will not do that i know people will want to know who it was but we will not be able to do that and that's very important to understand um we may identify it by uh other ways in terms to give people a feel but the real work will be done with dr sullivan his office in the state in terms of contact racing and that's how people would learn about this and we would work it from a public health perspective next all right cleaning people want to know about cleaning how how's what's going on with cleaning how much are we going to clean do we have a schedule for cleaning so sanitizer and dispensers they have been purchased and more have been ordered to make sure we have enough and strategically placed throughout the schools facility director is working with our principals on that hygiene opportunities with hand washing protocols in the plan and hand sanitizing protocols in the plan cleaning supplies all cdc approved and we have purchased those supplies in addition we have uh hilliard consulting services for custodial services they have been training with our custodians and they continue to work with us and plan for the number of positions we need to keep up with the health requirements and that is six positions needed to ensure that our buildings are clean and meet the requirements set forth by the state of connecticut in cdc guidelines our cleaning schedule we will actually have clean not only cleaning schedule but we have cleaning logs where custodians log in and initial or sign off that they clean the particular area that they're assigned to so we'll be monitoring that very closely high touch areas so this is why we need the positions um the extra positions sinks door handles etc uh hitting the bathrooms with disinfectant disinfecting bathrooms two times per day these are all mitigation strategies cleaning strategies that are in the plan in great detail that we've worked on in addition folks ask about ventilation filters have been replaced the units have been clean and there's ongoing maintenance of our different uh bathroom and uh unit ventilators are all going on and uh our facility director mr caldwell's with us if anybody has questions later in the uh on please all right general health questions people have asked personal protective equipment it has been purchased there are some small amounts of equipment still being ordered but like i said about the mass and other ppe for our nurses and for our staff that has been purchased we have to have an isolation room it's another requirement where students who are experiencing symptoms of covit are essentially putting a different room from the regular health office we've identified those rooms at each school those rooms actually have to have a monitor as well so there's a lot we're doing with health and isolation training of faculty and staff ongoing planning this is going on we're getting ready for all the training that has to happen with our faculty and staff in fact just to go back to last week and the work we've done the board actually um helped us with a reduction in school days down from 180 to 177 with the vote last week to change the calendar based on the state's uh decision to let us waive the 180 day requirement that now with the way we've organized our calendar will provide us eight days of training with our faculty and staff prior to the opening of school the first day of school is now september 8th which is after labor day weekend so that gives us more time the end of the summer to prepare for the kids communication with families we have been working on this with surveys and obviously any communications we've put out this tonight talking about the plan is the first time we're actually unveiling the plan uh in addition to that uh we're working with the principals right now to schedule some time we will be setting up by school parent q a sessions and of course our principals um with dr ruby and myself and mr post invited to meetings uh with faculty and staff as we set those up for the remainder of the summer are all all being initiated after this evening then there's wellness checks so we talked about wellness checks in the morning earlier in my earlier slide we have protocols within the plan there's one thing that's really important for everybody the 100 degrees fahrenheit or less is the temperature that we're using as the gauge for all of us and so it's one indicator but it's something we need to be paying attention to and you'll see that throughout the plant and so when we do take uh temperatures or we have random temperature checks that's part of the plan and that's just one example of many different checks we have in the plan next slide please classrooms folks want to know what are the classrooms going to look like our teachers want to know what are the classrooms going to look like we talked about the three to six feet of social distancing while wearing a mask individual student space at a table or a desk so our individual students need to have three to six feet of space and we are working on that in all of our classrooms um there's a we have a lot of tables in in our schools and we need to move to desks to make the social distancing work in 100 model and so we've been measuring our classrooms we're looking at purchasing desks i'll talk about that in just a second and part of getting more space in classrooms is uh looking at big furniture of the armoire type storage units big teacher desks uh other shelving that we may need to remove to spread the students out it's still very difficult to manage and address our typical class sizes in in our classrooms but our principals and our facility director are working very diligently on that the to make the social distancing work and have students have their individual space um we need to purchase 542 desks k through 12 to make this work whether it's desks in a classroom to replace uh existing tables where we can't socially distance as efficiently or at the high school and you'll learn about that this a little bit later in the presentation when uh we asked mr belanda to talk a little bit is purchasing individual desks for the cafeteria so we could have the students eat and have the social distancing that they're required to have the other piece is we have to have uh shields for uh for the majority of our k through eight students and these are plastic trifold barriers that can fit on a desk or fit on a table if it's a big enough table and we can orient um and this is this is what we why consulting with dr sullivan and dr ferreira is so important because supervision and large gatherings becomes very difficult with social distancing in typical cafeterias so a big part of our plan is that students will eat in their classrooms k through eight at least to start as we work this plan through and when they're at their individual space the students have to have this trifold shield because they have to take their mask off to eat and they need the trifold shield during the school day at their space because they need to take their mask off for a brief mass break so these are things we're working on and we need to purchase those for um our students um and we certainly could get into a little bit more detail on that but it's very important to understand that part of being in the classroom and eating lunch in the classroom and i won't get into too much detail on this but our um teachers need their lunch break so we also are going to have to hire and we'll get into this later monitors to cover the supervision of those students quite a bit more to make this work we need to purchase shields for our teachers so they can do their teaching when they're in a six foot distance the adults have to have a six foot space so from the students and so when they need to take off their mask they need to be six feet away and also have a shield for um for the social distancing piece and to make that work and one caveat that's really important when you work with the medical advisors that you learn is there's also a 15 minute exposure and so we're looking at time intervals and making sure things are less than 15 minutes when folks have their masks off at those particular times and then there's of course for the classrooms technology planning for remote learning that always has to continue and we'll talk a little bit about that later okay next all right so here's a center school classroom spaced out and this this could fit a group of students at center school it looks very different than a typical center school classroom with tables and centers where students would actually be able to interact share materials and work together but this is this is a way we can get the kids to fit um in the classroom and be socially distant and you don't see on there as the shields that we would have as appropriately needed uh during lunch time and some of those other things that i talked about next this is all about kids here's a classroom at huckleberry that's been set up this i believe we have 18 desks in this particular uh classroom there's some room in the corners some big furniture hadn't been moved out of here yet um and this looks like uh from what i was sent today this could fit probably 21 students in this classroom as we move out the large furniture and bring in individual desks all right here's whiskenier this is 22 desks set up in a fifth grade class and you can see mr renda has set them up that they are three feet apart on all sides and that meets that american academy of pediatrics that we talked about and the final one i think we have a couple we have a couple from um uh the high school because the high school doesn't have similar rooms all the way across the school there's some very large rooms and very small rooms so we wanted to show this happens to be the french classroom um and i think we have 12 to 14 desks in this room um this is typically there are more students in uh these classes you're able to put the kids closer together with these small desks uh but in this case we wouldn't we wouldn't be able to make the class any larger and that'll be a conversation that mr alanda and dr ruby shared uh specifically about the high school in a little bit so show another room from the high school eric okay this happens to be our science labs these are all relatively uniform or science labs downstairs at the high school um you can see in the background there that's mr belanda and mr conklin typically at those lab tables we would we could hit four students um in the case of uh social distancing in the 100 model um the most we could fit any of those tables is two and then you can see the desks we have spread out that are i think those we measured today were four that happen to be four feet apart um and so with that mr velanda um i believe thanks and mr glenn when you get on later correct me but i believe with our lab classes we look at 24 and there is a possibility that we might be able to get 24 into the science lab and then we want to show that one of the very large rooms with some in the math department we have some very large rooms uh this i believe uh we fit 29 desks in this room uh and the students are three to four feet apart in this particular room so we wanted to bring some of the humanity to this because this is about students and and what the classroom will look like again this is without the typical tables that we have these are individual desks and this is how we will have to operate in a world of social distancing next slide please want to briefly address transportation that's a big question everybody has at this time the way our plan is working out bus stops will remain the same we're not looking at staggering schedules or anything like that that you may have heard buses are permitted to be filled to capacity we did send a survey out at this point parents shared that 59 of parents at this point will utilize transportation the remainder would drive their kids to school the state department of education has encouraged local school districts to work with their parents and encourage parents at this time by children to school because of the fact that we could fill the buses the cleaning of the buses drivers will disinfect high touch areas after each bus run so in between runs the buses will be disinfected the bus will be disinfected sprayed from back to front at the end of each day so everybody knows that seating arrangements will be adjusted on the buses to prevent students from passing one another while loading and unloading as much as possible the first students to load the bus will sit in the back filling the seat toward the front students in the front will unload first the loading process uh excuse me loading process it's school based on the bus route to limited passing in the aisles and then students will be expected to ride the same bus to school in the morning and the same bus home in the afternoon every day where possible of course if there's some regular specific child care arrangements that are made you can work directly with your school administration on that and the next slide lunch so there will not be a la carte or waiting in line for lunch lunch will be a bagged lunch and it will either be delivered to the classrooms right now that's a big part of the k-8 plan where the students will eat in their rooms and we will need to be purchasing carts to move the lunches from the cafeteria to the classrooms or the bag lunch will be grab and go and so we're working on the details of those plans so um as you can see i've said here the desk shields would need to be up when students are eating their lunch and there's an additional 19 monitors that will need to be hired across the district to make this plan work in addition at the high school the cafeteria and other various supervised areas are being explored and that's where we talked about earlier that there'd be additional desks we need to purchase so students could spread out and we can actually utilize the cafeteria and again supervision becomes a a big priority in these because of our efficiency model that we can't utilize anymore with the social distancing next slide eric all right i'm going to turn this over right now to dr ruby dr ruby is going to handle in-person learning for us and then work it right on through through remote learning i think it's very important for people to hear what the model is going to look like dr ruby thank you so i want to first of all thank all the principals and the teachers who have worked really really hard on getting this uh plan together it's uh certainly been herculean um somehow i'm not seeing this there it is uh the what we really want people to understand is that we are not going to bring children uh back into school and jump into the academic year the way we typically do um students have been out of school they've been isolated to varying degrees separated from their friends separated from their activities and separated from you know the school as an organization that they've come to rely on for stability and comfort and so we are going to be developing what we're going to refer to as a first weeks of school unit that will be developed across the grade levels um and at the center of it will be social emotional well-being and this is not just social emotional well-being for the students which of course is our primary concern but it will be social emotional well-being for the adults as well a way for us to build community within the classrooms um particularly because those of the cohorting and um and build relationships between the teachers and the students and between the students themselves um to the greatest degree possible within the social distancing world um when we started the um the meeting we heard somebody um one of the i believe it was a parent um talking about relationships and there it's going to be really important because we don't know what's going to happen uh down the line to um do as much as we can to which we always do but we have to have a really stronger emphasis on getting right in and developing relationships between students and teachers in the unfortunate event that these uh that the time in the classroom is limited should there be an outbreak or something where we have to go to remote so those relationships are going to be key um the teachers will be reviewing the curriculum um from our scope and sequence and what was looking at what was taught in the spring what was able to be covered in the uh in the depth that it needed to be covered so that they can identify any priority standards from the previous years curriculum that needs to be intensively reviewed or taught and then the teachers will be able to look and and departments in the upper grades look at the curriculum and review the um the bundled standards for the um a specific grade level for a specific content area reading math social studies science and then further prioritize those standards because by the time we get to the grade level curriculum um we're going to have less time because we're doing all this really important upfront work and then they will be able to adjust the scope and sequence and the instructional timelines and um provide the students with a wholesome curriculum and then with regard to special subjects when i say special subjects i'm talking about art music etc we are going to be providing them in what i'm going to refer to as a cluster rotation schedule and folks who have older students who have gone to middle school will um understand this uh instead of having art or music or physics spread across the entire year like we typically do in the lower grades we're going to be clustering them into um into segments so the reason we're doing that is so that we have a greater ability to do contract tracing should that be something that we need to do and to try to keep that cohorting concept which is a mitigation strategy as wholesome as we can by having the adults have contacts with fewer groups of students than they normally would because normally they'd be seeing everybody in the entire school and so we really want to protect the children and the adults by having the interactions be as as limited yet as natural as they can be so we'll be working on re the principles are working on revising schedules for the specialized subject areas we can go to the next slide so we will be using a variety of digital resources to support and complement our learning um the reason that we are are doing this is because we do not want to have ourselves put into a situation like we were last year where it was just like an amputation from school and students were all of a sudden faced with and parents as well and teachers with new technology new programs and they they just had to learn basically in an immediate sense so we have purchased already news ela which has ela math science social studies and social emotional learning materials um these are in a digital platform these are um reading materials uh fiction nonfiction news articles and they you can get um let's say it was a a an english language arts text um it's available digitally it can be printed out if we're in school and you can get once one story or one article and you can get it at different reading levels so that you we can all also differentiate where we need to um we have our st math and already or k through eight and we are looking right now we have been working eric has been working with two companies and myself uh lexia and ixl and these would these would be materials that we would use to supplement the work that we already have in our newly developed curriculum and we will be using these with our curriculum because students will be being taught in a way that's very different than what they were usually used to and what you've come to know um prior to cobit we're not going to be able to have children working in small groups at tables as as john explained which is why we have the uh the different alignment of classroom furniture so we will be able to engage kids through technology in working with each other just as when they're at home and they're on a digital platform working with their teacher or work and working with other students even though they're in that same space in the classroom and they but they they're in their desk and they're three to six feet apart from each other they'll be able to work through some of these digital resources with other students that are in the classroom and more importantly the children whose families for their whatever their reason might be decide to keep their children at home those children will be and i'm going to talk about that in a few slides we'll also be using these materials and so children who are sitting in a desk in the classroom will be able to interact with children who are uh you know obtaining their instruction while they're at home so we're building community between the students who are in the classroom and the students who are at home because we don't want kids to be just because they're they there's a reason that they can't come to school to be excluded so i can explain you know more about that when we have our our parent question and answer meetings in the schools the assessment calendar is undergoing revision as well typically um for those of you who've been in district before you know that we do what we call boi beginning of year assessments right um shortly after students come back to school because we need to get you know data to to see where teachers are going to start differentiating we really believe that that would be inappropriate to do right when students come back because we're going to be implementing that first weeks of school social emotionally based curriculum with the students so we're going to revise the calendar and move them beyond the initial weeks of school so that we can work on creating community kids are going to need to learn classroom routines that are very different from any routine that they've ever had to learn in a classroom before we want to constantly ensure the well-being of our staff and our students using our ruler tools we want to be able to spend time building the classroom charters we have uh safety and health training that we need to do with our staff as john talked about in those extra beginning pd days before school but we also need to train our students with regard to health and safety because there are measures that they need to take that haven't been taken before we also need to ensure that we provide our students with really robust and intentional technology training they have to be trained in using the breakout rooms for small group instruction um and small group work and as i mentioned before inclusion of the students who are working in a parallel situation from home and we can go to the next slide with regard to kindergarten we are very sensitive to the needs of kindergarten students some of which are ha or poom are having their first school experience we have students who have gone to preschool and we do still have students who haven't gone to preschool and so for the first four weeks of school our plan is to have a half day so to take that let's say a class at 20 and have 10 in the morning and 10 in the afternoon and we we typically have a break-in period for our uh kindergarten students where they they come in a day later and there's some assessment that's done and they're not in in the full day from the beginning but we decided that the best way to really be developmentally appropriate and child centered is to have half day for the first four weeks this will support their acclimation to to school their acclimation to the rules and routines that we have to maintain to ensure their safety and protect their health and if there was ever a place where the relationships were critically important it's in kindergarten and so it will be um much more appropriate for our educators to be able to build strong caring nurturing relationships albeit not with hugs um with 10 children or 10 8 to 10 children in the classroom as opposed to 20 children in the classroom additionally while this may seem contradictory to what i just said about pushing back the assessment calendar we do not have any data on our incoming kindergarten students because the shutdown in the spring precluded us from doing something that's very important to our our kindergarten program and that is the kindergarten assessments that we do when we register our children so part of the registration process is that you know children get registered and then they get called in for appointments for assessment but it really looks like games to the children we don't have any of that data and so it's critically important for us to be able to um to get that so that we know how teachers need to work with the individual students because they're all different just because they show up at the schoolhouse door for the first time as a a five-year-old or an almost five-year-old or some six they're very different and our teachers provide individualized differentiated instruction and that's literally impossible to do with without data so having half days children in for a half day smaller group will allow the teachers and um some some of the reading teachers who can help out to get in there and in a very calm and nurturing way collect information about students that will allow the teachers to be prepared to teach them no matter what the situation is for our english language learner students we are going to continue with the support through our el tutors and esl teacher we will be training our giving our new teachers when we do orientation um some training in sheltered english operation protocol strategies which is what we use to support our english language learners we will be continuing with rosetta stone and we'll keep our instruction for those students aligned to the kelp standards the connecticut english language learner proficiency standards and our new teachers will get training on that our special education students i i would love to share the fact that mrs wagonic and her team have developed a really um what we feel is a very robust and supportive esy program we have not had any negative responses to to the program and it is being done through distance learning so we are very much in tune to the need for the full implementation of our ieps holding ppts and they can be held very successfully through our um digital platform and remaining compliant with idea so i you know i want to thank our special ed um team for all the work that they've been doing and i really am excited to say that we um we have hired some new staff we've gotten some amazing staff this summer including two um really impressive psychologists and we're um interviewing for a special ed position um tomorrow and i don't think that we've had as many um people that we've wanted to hire when we i'll speak for myself and john when folks get sent up the finalist gets up sent up to um central office it's like we only have one position and we have like multiple people that we'd like to hire for it so that puts us in a really good position and there um a lot of the folks that have been coming have had varying experiences doing distance learning in their student teaching or their internships and so we can all learn together from what people have done elsewhere i can go to the next slide um there we go so the high school what's real an interesting fact that i want to share with you is that we have had an enrollment increase of 25 net so it's not 25 students and some people have 25 net new students just this summer as of today and we have a couple weeks left so we have more students not less students um the rooms in the high school as john shared with you through the visuals the pictures have been mapped and because of the social distancing there's a decrease in the number of students that are permissible in many of the rooms and so this then results in a decrease in the class size which is a decrease in course participants so this leads to a decrease in the ability for us to fulfill course requests particularly in social studies and if you're wondering why we're not picking on social studies social studies classrooms when you are in the high school if you were coming out of the main office and took a right down the hallway they're on the left-hand side of the hallway and those are our smallest classrooms and and mark can speak to this in greater detail it also results in a decrease in elective availability so the high school staff under um mr blanda is uh scheduling for the high school is always a a monumental challenge it should be like an olympic sport in the summer it's it's just i'm glad i don't have to do it that said they have to redo all of these schedules based on the room requirements and it's really important for us to figure out how to get as many students as possible the courses that they want and need to have for their schedule and i'm not even going to pretend to to say that that's going to be easy or doable but with 100 percent of students back in and the same staff that we had who intended to teach greater numbers in those classrooms it's going to be um a feat to figure out how we can um get that done but we're working on it and mr bellander will probably be much more articulate about it than i can be lunch as we already talked about the um with social distancing i think the number i could be off by one or two we can only get 66 students into our high school cafeteria using the furniture that we currently have in there and abiding by the social distancing regulations so in order to be able to get the lunch waves done we are going to use desks and set the desks up in the socially um distance manner this may sound really awkward eating your lunch at a desk in the cafeteria but by doing that we are able to get our high school students through um through the lunch period and it opens up the cafeteria for instruction um an instructional area for classes and for for study halls so it it buys us um it it's it's not like going to lunch at tiffany's but it buys us um some space for instruction and i think that's the last oh that's the last in-person slide now the parallel remote learning parallel remote learning is for students whose parents choose to not send their students back to the 100 option and some students have to stay at home for a variety of reasons or just parent preference at this time and so in this remote learning parallel track the students who are going to be at home will learn right along with their classmates the technology zoom and google classroom and our zoom classrooms are not publicly available links and the only people that are let into those classrooms are the students that are in those classrooms and the teachers in the classes and the teachers know who they are so um the type of experience that some people may have had earlier tonight or in other venues would not happen in a classroom with the types of security that we have for entry into zoom because unlike tonight's meeting or other public meetings that link is not posted anyplace and students other people can't get in um so this opportunity for the remote learning will be what we refer to as synchronous it will be happening at the same time as the school instruction so this does not mean that somebody who's at home is going to be glued to their computer screen for five or six hours a day because just like at school there will be um there's lunch there would be study halls there would be other there would be breaks so they will have the same type of schedule that they would have had in school but they'll be at home attending their classes through technology and we can go to the next slide the hybrid model is john did you want me to continue with this dr ruby you're doing great so please continue okie dokie so the hybrid model um this is um to reduce the school population um if there was a surge in the in the virus and it's a reduction of the population of students that are in the school at one time by 50 percent and this model was discussed um the the development of a model for a 50 50 hybrid was discussed with our larger reopening team and the they came um up with two a b type models um dr brill and working with these superintendents in our our area when they got together and they looked at the ab cohorting models that different teams from different school districts had come up with the decision was made that because so many people that live in one town in our area may be teachers or work in another town that would be best to be have coherence among the models and so the model that you see on this slide with an a and a b cohort is what the the majority of these schools in our area and in other areas of the state um have in their plans so if you were in a student was in cohort a cohort a students would come into school on monday and tuesday while the cohort b students would be in the remote situation just like i just described for students who um were uh out of school for medical or parent choice reasons um then the cohort b students would be in person on thursday and friday and the cohort a students would be remote on wednesday all students would be engaged in remote learning because the school would need the areas would need to be cleaned thoroughly because of the different cohorts of students what's key to know about this particular model is that the students whether you're an a or b are all in their classes at the same time so we're not getting uh like a 50 reduction in the amount of content that students are um are receiving so the curriculum remains whole and the students have the um at the advent the advantage of being able to be with their teachers and uh have those relationships those face-to-face relationships and be with other students but be um more widely socially distanced and um fulfilling the the reduced school population model and then finally on the next slide it's like groundhog day because if you go to that eric this is the remote learning and we're really hoping that we don't need to do this but it's it could be a short-term closure of two to five days or two weeks um that would be determined by our collaboration with the medical consultants that we work with and students would engage in remote learning we've learned a lot of lessons and we thank the students and the teachers and parents who gave us feedback on the um the distance learning model that we had in the spring and as many of you know as we got feedback uh each week when we met with students and um and had uh surveys with teachers and talked to parents we um made changes as we went along to try to improve upon our model so taking what we received as feedback the remote learning model will be a synchronous instructional model similar to the part of the at-home component that we had and the hybrid model that i just described to you and once again this is not going to be students glued to a computer all day we will develop developmentally appropriate schedules for that synchronous learning dependent on the um the age group and so you can see on the little schedule down there that monday through thursday it's 100 of students with remote learning on friday what we're considering that right now i'm looking working with other districts to make sure there's coherence is a partial day of remote learning and then partial time for teacher collaboration planning and professional learning because one thing we know is that in order for our teachers to get better and better at doing this new type of teaching we have to continually stay abreast of um what's going on in the field of teaching and learning with digital platforms and provide that professional development to our teachers and and that's it i'm going to turn it back to dr burrell maureen thank you so much really appreciate that um so um eric if you could go to the next slide please i'd really appreciate it so one of the big pieces in the reopening plan is communication and making sure that communication is coherent clear and consistent and making sure we as i said very early on in the presentation that we're as transparent as possible with our parents with our faculty with our staff and with the public as we always try to be but we want to we're going to make even greater efforts for that in really developing regular school and district communication whether that's a weekly or a daily depending on the situation we will be developing that plan the other thing that's important for everybody to know is the incredible communication between the town and the district specifically working with dr sullivan our health director on all of these particular issues but also being in touch with the first selectmen uh in all the work that's going on between the town and the schools we have a specific email set up ask covet 19 bps that's where we'd like any of the questions regarding uh if you're not going to for example send a an email directly to mr renda that has to do with something at wisconsin middle school but you have more of a general question about health and safety and what's going on in the district we ask that people send their email a question through the ask over 19 email and from there we will be putting together frequently asked questions and readily responding to folks the other thing we'll do is have a central uh as we've had since march with the covid landing page on our website we'll certainly update our district facebook page and then of course school messages that'll be sent out and the key a real key here that is important in in the first part of our meeting tonight where there's some public comment is parent engagement we're working right now with the principals and i think we'll end up scheduling a meeting tomorrow to have a conversation about setting up q a sessions for each school's parent population and so that should start to uh occur next week we really want to get the questions fleshed out for parents and understand where they're coming from and really answer as directly as we can their questions because it's very important we're going to be sending out a follow-up survey to parents specifically if you think back to what dr ruby talked about in the 100 model the parents do have a choice the way the state has set up the expectations that if they choose to keep their child home for the time being then um we would still need to provide education for them and so we need to know those counts it also matters for participation and transportation as well next slide please continuing on communication public expectations are very important when it comes to communication i think one thing we've all learned and i think we're all exhausted by is the fact that information in the coping 19 world continues to change rapidly we will provide you with the most up-to-date information in that information may change within hours so there is no purposeful hiding information we are going to do our very level best to make sure that you get everything we know um and we provide that information to you as quickly and accurately as we can and again like i said being transparent going back to my earlier comments will be transparent we will provide accurate timely information but we also will be protecting individual confidentiality i want to make sure people understand that next slide here all right so we're going to jump right into budget there's a few slides here because we have a few uh areas that we started to allude to today i'm just going to walk through it and then once we finish this as i talked with rosa before the meeting we're going to workshop this meeting the board's going to have questions we're going to process and we're looking forward to nearing the end of the presentation in a robust conversation so in terms of staffing um we need isolation room monitors one for every school we need lunch monitors and we have those broken up and we can talk about that as how that works custodial services and remember lunch monitors were 19 custodial services uh essentially six new custodians would rather hire a custodial service there's a lot of work that has to go into that working with our custodial team and so forth but we really don't want to provide uh permanent solutions to temporary problems it's a phrase we often hear in this situation and so we think a service might be more readily available to us again many school districts are looking for this kind of solution so um we're doing our best and we already have estimates from different companies and we're out there looking right now so the staffing alone to reopen the school is 468 000 as we have in the plan right now next slide please furniture we talked a lot about desks i showed 542 desks that need to be purchased so when we total up our desks you can see the cost there for the high school in the elementary school mr rendo we're at whiskey near they already have a lot of desks so they don't need the the desk to replace the tables in addition we talked about the trifold shields for the students as well as for the teachers and then other death shields for office personnel and various partitions uh the way offices are configured or how we might be reconfiguring some of them that's just over two hundred thousand dollars for the furniture next slide please eric are you able to go to the next slide nope there we go personal protective equipment we purchased a number of items for personal protective equipment equipment i alluded to that earlier with an initial purchase for the first hundred days as we worked with our principals and we worked on some of the areas where students will be in situations and i can leave this for either mary rose or for maureen to talk about a little bit um there will be opportunities for students to work specifically in science and some of the other areas where they actually do have to share we you know there's just they can't uh not do some of the work uh together in terms of using the same materials and it's not uh practicable for them to necessarily have everything wiped down and so forth so we want to make sure in those situations that the students each each student has a pair of gloves for once a week that would would go on and that's about a 20 000 cost as you can see and then we'll go on to the next slide so other equipment so there's some uv sanitizers that we need there are webcams for desktop computers so our laptops have cameras our desktops do not for the most part and while eric does try to the it department does replenish these and try to purchase some in the normal course of budget um considering the situation we're in this year we could use 60 um webcams and for those desktops so just so people could think there's been a lot of virtual meetings for ppts or parent conferences or other kinds of meetings that are virtual many of our staff are still on desktops they do not have laptops and so this is something they need to continue the meetings supplies excuse me the special specials supply kits that need to be ordered the cards for the specialist individual whiteboards packs of 30.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
first and foremost i'd like to congratulate my co-valedictorian eddie oakley i know we have both worked extremely hard for the past 12 years to be standing here today we as the class of 2020 would like to thank dr danish for providing us with a learning environment that has always put the students best interests first especially during these hard times and the board of education for their continued support there are countless number of people who have helped me along this journey with whom i want to thank first off i want to thank all the teachers who i've had over the years starting in my elementary and middle school years at crest memorial school and ending with the teachers of kate maytech they have all provided me with a stable learning environment and they have taught and have taught me not only the skills of their disciplines but also have always pushed and inspired me to be the best that i could be i especially want to thank skyles for all she has done for me over the past three years for the countless from the countless hours she spends preparing and giving her students what they need to succeed to going above and beyond to help all of her students with college searches applications scholarships she always manages to make me laugh and put a smile on my face during the most stressful times secondly i want to thank all of my friends in and out of this school for always giving me support and words of encouragement especially during the most challenging times that helped me helped enable me to succeed lastly i want to thank my family for always rooting me on and being my biggest supporters throughout all of these years i especially want to thank my parents for the constant love and support always pushing me to be the best that i could be in everything i do and for instilling me instilling in me since i was very young the importance of learning and excelling in education i wouldn't leave be where i am today without you and i am forever grateful the times that we are living in today are truly unprecedented due to the covet 19 pandemic and we as the class of 2020 are making history it has greatly affected all of our lives in some way whether it be the small business owners in our communities parents managing job losses as they supervise their children's online educations or all of us simply managing to stay healthy and alive while following the recommendations of our government leaders the pandemic has also caused us as seniors to miss out on events that many of us have been looking forward to for at least the past four years or maybe even longer these include the annual senior picnic and senior prom we also are the first class to have two unconventional graduations one virtual and one in person outdoors with social distancing of course none of these changes are ideal however looking into the future this pandemic and all the challenges we have faced will make us stronger than ever and it has taught us invaluable life lessons the first lesson that this pandemic has taught us is to take a pause in our everyday lives evaluate ourselves and undergo personal growth discover your interests priorities and maybe even your life purpose in the process do the work and when the quantity measures or lists are lifted you might just emerge into the real world with a clear understanding of who you are and where you want to go another lesson learned is that life can change in an instant we now realize drastic changes in our lives can occur at the blink of an eye due to a global virus however this is not the only thing that can cause changes in this way things such as major illnesses like cancer accidents and natural disasters all the capabilities of changing our lives we as humans must be able to adapt to these changes and persevere through them the effect who have been 19 has had on our lives is just temporary but i believe the lessons we are learning will last for generations thank you also co-valedictorian this year a resident of north wildwood he held a concentration in our engineering program exhibiting academic excellence throughout his time at tech he has been an integral part of our school community serving as president of the national honor society member of the academic competition team skills usa and robotics club he represented his class as a senior senator and captain of the cross-country team he also found the time to volunteer with 4-h and the opioid task force in his free time he enjoys playing the piano surfing reading and board games planning to study engineering at villanova i called to the podium co-valedictorian of the class of 2020 edward oakley hey everybody so i'm sorry you guys have had to listen to four valedictorian speeches now i'm sure you're getting so sick of it by now so i'm just going to keep mine just a little bit but i just like to thank each and every one of you for being here and making this possible because it definitely is better to actually be here in person like come on it's not even close but apart from that i just wanted to say a few short words to most of you who might be a little scared moving on it's just important to remember that each and every one of you guys is going to make a difference in this world no matter what you do how poor how much you fail how much you succeed and where you go you will change this world in some way somehow remember that it is so important no matter how far you go on in your life to remember how important your difference is going to make this world apart from that i mean it's been a great four years here at cape may tech i've had some great friends great teachers my family's been here to support me all the way even though they've heard me complain about coming to the ceremony and giving another speech for god knows how long now i'm happy to be up here anyways and apart from that i hope you guys have a great day it's a beautiful day have a great summer and thank you all for being here class of 2020 take this in this commencement signifies that you are now prepared to join the many men and women who have graduated from our school and have become contributors to our society i do want to repeat one thing that i said on the virtual graduation because i believe it's important while the last two months have brought you unprecedented challenges you have risen above those challenges and still found ways to bring positivity to your school your families and your communities as we all try to follow your example of courage through this test we also recognize that these past months do not define you or your time here at tech for the past four years your lives have have been woven into the fabric of the kate maytech family and please remember once a hawk always a hawk [Applause] it is now time to begin the presentations mr president i now certify that each of the following students has successfully completed the prescribed course of study and the state of new jersey requirements to merit diploma graduates as i call your names we have staff members that are going to help you help you come up and as you cross the stage please feel free to stop for a second to wave to your family and friends before continuing down the opposite side of the stage all graduates are going to follow the white line behind mr jones our cameraman and come up on this side of the stage and process across the other side brianna r adamson olivia j albrecht jared j bailey gavin m barber [Applause] alan bautista [Applause] alexandria paige babel alexandria marie baine [Applause] timothy g broadband alice m bruner jack bunker [Applause] jamie a butler ian j kardasi matthew j carrion [Applause] brendan j carter [Applause] yay etsy katana olivia m carnoso maxwell william chambers marisa m serino [Applause] emily karis clark [Applause] jack w cleffy [Applause] jada e kakuzi joseph d conforto sarah a cormackin jonathan m cortez [Applause] alexa e craver andre cruz miranda ray curran [Applause] connor casella gerardo anthony d'antonio kayla davis kimberly k diaz thank you kevin [Applause] gabrielle m g donato mackenzie e doll megan m douglas [Applause] will fullner charles t france cooper wayne gehring mary lynn gibson [Applause] julia rose gilliam [Music] [Applause] kevin gonzalez marice shane michael goodro jessica grant macy j gregory gage haynes trinity marie hammond cassidy june hendy [Applause] isabella jay henny [Applause] connor michael heim anthony hickman [Applause] colin thomas hoffman gloria hope madison haran [Music] [Applause] emily deborah hernowski [Applause] lindsay ray hunter jada alexis jefferson alexis brianna jenkins [Applause] angel jiminez zachary charles johnson peyton jones [Applause] diana lynn jones olivia jordan [Applause] eric caramelis [Applause] zachary evan kershaw jenny kirsch [Applause] giannis kosovakis [Applause] eric lamb aaron a larkin [Applause] justin t lee [Applause] roger life the third john matthew lim james t longstreet [Applause] james winston lynn [Applause] macy mangled desiree meadow matthews brinlin marie mcdowell [Applause] kevin c mcnamee [Applause] elizabeth jacqueline marino john j michael cody r miller cameron c muir [Applause] sydney j nelson [Applause] aiden lee myers hannah j newby calvin nugent joseph patrick o'brien iii [Applause] edward patrick oakley [Applause] stephen douglas olsen jr nicholas orsini anthony williams emily yvonne pasheri joseph james jack painter howard j peck [Applause] [Music] alexandria e pellerin robert pennington [Applause] anthony piazza [Applause] chris porto [Applause] samuel price the third ruby redmond michael j powers angelina talia reagan gabriel richards sean paul thomas richards devin patrick roach that's all folks kaelin k rodriguez [Applause] naiali a rosado candelaria eddie ruiz bruno kane g rulo luke a rulo sam j scarcely sarah k shaw joseph bernard shuck jane e sites logan r smith kira e sorensen [Applause] demian matthew stauffer [Applause] daniel l steele jr [Applause] lily e steinman jason m stratton jacob a taran britney and fart filling p tyranny trevor a tozer alyssa marie welliever leah a williams khalil williams scott henry wiltshire jr samantha r winters christians see wolf nicole j wright at this time i would like to ask all of our graduates to stand with your caps on we will now be conducting the symbolic changing of the tassel your tassels which are currently on the right or should be currently on the right when i give the go ahead we're going to switch those over to the left graduates of the 2020 class of 2020 ready changed hassle [Music] ladies and gentlemen family and friends the cape may county technical high school class of 2020.
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kogo our athletic director so right now as per the guidelines from the State Association we are finding our board season depending upon future guidelines but right now there are plans for students to begin July 27 receive a physical paperwork is in and these are just not contact workouts the teams can get together 10 then eventually the next stage is groups of 20 and eventually in September things continue to work out so right now you do have more scheduled you'll see tonight in our agenda we are appointing into some conditions or coaches full season so I'm beginning to the summer workouts students are when they get to practice inspection of students as everyone knows the governor Beebe sidelines we've been working on district-wide committee we start Committee which is made up community members or members teachers administrators students putting together a plan that we feel will be safe and also contain in-person instruction as well as virtual destruction so we're in the process right now completing the plan and once that plan is complete actually share your thing about more and once that's done I will be posted to the website and parents will be notified as to what the plans are for September just to mention the governor just recently came out with some additional statements regarding virtual learning so we're waiting for additional advisement on don't bad wines and hopefully within the next week or two we'll be able to final finalizing the cyclops plan have been a lot of press we buy plans from other district people intend to do with a brick what districts Bourbon County of doing or Somerset County Hudson County truly never plan for the district depending upon the number of students they have students they have to be serviced and summer and so forth so we hope that we will put a plan together that will combine all those different types of instruction and like I said our our principals I should say are in the process it will be in the process of contacting parents and having a Google session with their parents but big school prior to the middle school so somewhere around well this 28th and 29th when it's all plan is in place the principal will be contacting parents or because of our building inviting them through Google me so that they can share with those back with their hours what the guidelines are the back of specific school and also the answer questions and to take questions as far as things like how students have been tender in the morning how students with a breakfast because school to school with batteries so I thought the best thing to do would be to have this meeting by school so that parents have got here about their school and are the procedures will be and an opportunity to ask questions to the principal bye I will also be meeting with our staff ever I share flavored them on August 12 I'll be meeting with the elementary staff or night the high schoolers will stay up another night to again answer questions staff members might have talked about procedures they might be able to share information with us that is that we haven't thought about and then be incorporated because as we were just talking before I meet again this was really an ongoing plan depending upon what happened with guidelines in the state but depending upon what happens publicly the virus hopefully would prove but depending upon what happens he may have they changed or as I said to all principals we make my dad another district this will be something that we hadn't think about that works really well so if I should hear that they may be more accommodating so I'll be meeting with the staff and I'll also apply for this place you're going to be pushed parent survey out to the islands last week or that and had about 350 families that responded to that survey I shared the results with the board I shared them his own without district or committee and a lot of that important move over to our I do want to mention that although it's tentative for September we're still have an after-school program we have a 21st century grant so we are running a program for schools who raise 4 to 8 and last week we get over it up involvement of students in grades k-3 and a bunch of families that signed up after school so hopefully friends that come become will be able to run that program at the school and also know that that program doesn't help over there [Music] our [Music] we need [Music] anyone else okay so if we could just stop looking in gender I gave my I gave no cop faculty came in tonight just a couple of items I just want to point out as the stood annual convention we are back jessica is still wrong it's coming to us as a resource teacher she when you science for number six Jessica and also cover the position that would just recently made a move on one of our staffers decide things on move on to the mystery Nancy my Repetto who was our who have been are looking for accountant is desiring the effective July from ninety Silvio Master Ani with a historian with us and the high schoolers from the before for a number of years is retiring at that time the first munition the best has been in Kerala the battle is been with us a number of years in the district of the teacher in Cairo has decided to retire effective 2:30 on this ps2 Kevin Lee so as we've mentioned before we've been a secretary with us dr.
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thank you matt okay the good of the cause to the public members of the public may provide comment at this meeting through zoom by entering the url you see in front of you on your screen and the meeting id and password in order to be recognized use the chat feature select the zoom meeting host then enter and send your name to the host you will be recognized to speak when your name is called and individuals will be invited to speak in the order in which we receive your request the board of education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves to protect the privacy of all students and staff concerns regarding individual students and staff members should generally be addressed first meeting with the appropriate administrative staff public participation will be limited each participant to three minutes duration is there anyone wishing to address the board of education tonight we have one individual who has requested robin zernitzky welcome can you hear me yes we can okay hi how are you um i have two questions one is well we i understand that obviously through governor murphy's laws that he's enacted that virtual learning will be available to any family will we be getting more details of how virtual learning will be run because in my experience i have two kids that are in elementary school and in my experience i think compared to other areas the level of virtual learning that went on in the spring in my opinion was not acceptable it was busy work our children weren't learning it was um not enough interaction amongst the children so i'd like to understand so that i can make an educated decision for my children um kind of when will we get that guidance president becker would you mind if i responded no please um so right now this is for the entire community who might be listening or are watching uh tomorrow governor murphy has indicated that he will release guidance for virtual learning and uh we knew he announced it but we were told to hold forthcoming guidance so we don't know exactly what that's going to be but i assure you we have undertaken a redesign of our distance learning since we left on march 18th and it will look different than it did uh when we left uh to close our schools for the pandemic so if we um once we get governor murphy's guidance and align that with our plan we'll have more to communicate with the with the community and we'll put that out as a blackboard like i did today okay thank you appreciate it uh next we have robin ashman welcome robin hi thank you thank you appreciate it i appreciate being here tonight just to give you a little background so you know where i'm coming from um can you are you hearing yes um could you please uh turn off the video that you have on streaming please little background so you know where i'm coming from okay can you are you hearing yes um could you please uh turn off the video streaming please okay that should help all right um so i'm a professional professor at stevens institute of technology up in hoboken i've been teaching there for seven years um pursuing my phd in health science so yes i'm sorry we're still getting a lot of feedback um you want me to i can just text you what i want to say no that um do you have the video running uh on your web browser in the background it has to turn off the live stream still getting a lot of feedback my videos off no not your video your live stream what you have is you're watching it live stream as well mute your live stream then you can turn your video back on hold on one second thank you there we go it's much better okay i thought i had it muted so um where was i all right sorry for that interruption okay i'm a professor at stevens institute of technology i've been teaching there for seven years and i'm currently pursuing my phd in health health science at drexel so my feet are in both worlds education and science um my concern has been uh inconsistency you know uh i'm also a girl scout leader in town so i have my daughter who's in frost and i have girls who are in central and i have girls who are memorial and i have girls who were also now going into hammershould and i've seen a tremendous amount of inconsistency in the teaching so we'll take my daughter for example i love frost i'm very happy with miss taya and all she's done my daughter didn't learn a single thing from march till june honestly again as a professor i've watched her i've been close to her i've been able to teach my courses and be online with her as well um i talked to the parents in my troop and their daughters are having actual learning you know they've gone further in their science and their math and their literature and this is the same thing this is both fourth graders so there seems to be an inconsistency in the schools in what the kids are learning not only that it's within the school as well so my daughter is in class we'll say class a and she's switching with class a and b but students who are in fourth grade in class c and d were having online consistent learning experiences so there seems to be a disparity in education not only within the schools themselves but between the schools and i'm wondering what we can do to to make sure that everybody's learning at the same level because by the time they get to me in eight years and i'm seeing it already there's gonna be it's gonna be a problem you know students in new jersey do not compete with the students i get from other states and from other countries and it's it's it's startling and very disheartening for me to say and i took my daughter out of saint thomas because i believe she would get a better education in east brunswick and st thomas and i don't know if any of you know this is a poor parish with low to middle income parents okay and they had consistent learning from march until june with zoom classes live zoom classes where they had english from 45 minutes and they had math for 45 minutes and they took a recess break and they took a lunch break and they had religion and they had social studies and they had science they lost nothing and they're also a blue ribbon school just like we are so now i'm wondering do i need to send my book daughter back just so that she can get back on track i don't want to you know i'm happy with what i've had with frost you know while we've been there minus the pandemic but again now i'm seeing things that i find very disturbing as an educator and as a parent hey time thank you robin thank you and if i could president becker that those concerns are being addressed and and we will have clear expectations that we will communicate to parents about how virtual learning will look and what the expectations for both students and staff will look like for those that select virtual learning as we enter this next school year thank you okay next we have andrew morrell mr morrell uh thank you uh just to echo what the previous two ladies said uh our son uh go to churchill he was in eighth grade going into nine uh while he was at the hammer show on the first year of churchill uh he was on the honor roll getting straight a's and b's remote learning unfortunately without any teachers leading the instruction by zoom or webex or any other plethora of uh video sharing technology you want to name was completely ineffective when he went to season d's giving a student an assignment to read a chapter of a bucking canvas and then send them to a quiz just doesn't cut it it's very ineffective at least for our child uh is there any particular reason we are going to use zoom or webex technology to have a live teacher leading math for 45 minutes then going on to english and men history and meant science that's question number one and question number two uh in regards to the communication dr valensky sent out today i didn't see anything in there about covert 19 testing in schools should you elect to send your child back to school would you care to comment on that please uh covet 19 we're not going to require kova 19 testing to reenter schools that is covered under most most individuals private insurance that will be if somebody is suspected of being exposed we are going to require that they get a test but we're not going to mandate uh testing for the re-entry of school for the entire population not at this time but to answer your earlier question about the um the needs of your child if if you could wait until the governor gives us the guidance on the virtual learning uh we will be prepared to put out very shortly i would say within a week what the expectations for virtual learning will be and different platforms for delivering that kind of instruction should parents choose that mrs becker i have no one else in the queue unless there's anyone else that wishes to speak mr morell are you finished sir okay i just wanted to make sure that we you were concluded is there anyone else wishing to address the board at this time i just said thank you that's all thank you sir sorry he just said thank you oh thank you too have a good night okay um say none i am going to close the public portion actually i had uh just i had just emailed this is robin zernitzky one more time i have one other question can i oppose it yes i think given the circumstances we're not um we have to be very flexible we know parents are concerned i appreciate that i appreciate that i do have one other question will we also be getting detailed guidance on if your child is attending in-person school what will happen if uh someone is positive with kovid or someone is exhibiting symptoms will those things be laid out to us clearly as to you know what are the waiting periods who will have to you know not attend school for x number of days is that something that will be coming in in the coming week president becker if i could it absolutely it will it will be in the plan and we will be working uh if we have an occurrence like that we will be working in concert with the uh middlesex department of health so the um in addition to our protocol we'll be aligning that with the the medical professionals at the department uh for whatever steps we need to do on contact tracing and for notification okay thank you appreciate it thank you robin stay safe is there anyone else wishing to address the board there's no one else okay senior and i will close the public portion i just want to say that um we know that everyone has questions we still have questions the most frustrating part of this whole thing if even though it's hard to pick just one is that the news and directive and mandates we are receiving from the governor and the doe change if not daily every two to three days we are trying to keep up with the mandates we are trying to come up with a plan for every option we our parents we understand your concern there's nothing more precious than our children and our children's health and safety we will have a plan to the best of our ability to make sure that your children are as safe as we can create the environment for we are doing everything we can what we need is clear consistent guidance from the state and or the department of education so that we can finalize our plan but i thank you all for being concerned and being our partners in this endeavor we're all figuring it out and our parents involvement and commitment is crucial and we thank you for it dr baleski did you want to add anything um no president becker well i do actually um you know as president becker said we we do have parent involvement in our pandemic response teams at our schools that provide input for our plan they will be reviewing the plan the board will uh review and finally approve next week so they'll have input um but we appreciate the concerns tonight because we think they're representative of the community but i can't reinforce enough that this is going to be a community recovery that parents and guardians will have to be our partners in evaluating their own child's health their own family health and determining whether or not they send their kids back to school on a given day after being out of school for a period of time so it's that that is one of the partnerships that i think is going to be key to our success in this that we'll have to manage our own self-care and the care of our children and make sure that they get whatever treatment they need we get whatever treatment we need before exposing other people so that's that's a key part of of us pulling this off and being safe and doing it but i believe we have a solid plan and we continue to tweak it and based on even some of the comments tonight we will go back we will look to make sure that the needs of every constituent who spoke tonight are met in that plan so thank you and when you come and talk to us it helps us to better communicate to you what you need to know so thank you to those who took the time to speak to us tonight okay moving on to our agenda can i please have a motion on the board of education agenda for tonight to combine items one two and three movement side second by mark is there any discussion all those in favor opposed abstain motion carries on our curriculum agenda our curriculum agenda tonight i'd like to have a motion to combine items one and two more by todd barber you muted unmute yourself thank you is there any discussion all those in favor opposed captioning not available through three going once items well by mark second second is there any discussion on our financial services agenda can i please have a motion to combine items 1 through 16.
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nobody wants to be in a situation where you look back and are judged um on on the decisions that we've made but at the end of the day we are put into a situation us as a board you as staff dr kellis is the leader of the the district where we have to make decisions and so i i feel comfortable in the interactions that we've had the communications that we have and i would ask people to turn to the real resources that are available and look at the information that's out there and know that we are relying on the professionals and the state and the government and whatever you feel about them those are the things that we have to turn to to to help the people that were are in our stewardship and that's really what we're focused on moving forward i have full confidence in what we're doing and i appreciate your time and your energy and your sleepless nights doing what you do i apologize um these decisions are not made lately there's not one person in this room that hasn't lost sleep over the decisions that we're making we care about every person that is under our stewardship we have worked tirelessly to make sure that we're making the right decisions and there is no solid information that we can just turn to there's no book of facts on the coronavirus that we can say if we do x y and z we're going to be safe and so in making these decisions i trust each one of you that you're doing the best that you possibly can with the information and i'm very grateful for that i trusted so much that my kids are in the system and i trust them to come and to be a part of this and as a parent i know that everybody struggles with those decisions so please understand we are doing our best and this is an important thing that's why we're all here that's why we've put so much time and effort into this i apologize for getting emotional but this is something that's important and i think everybody here feels the weight of this calling and as we pull together we're going to make the best decisions for dysart because we are dice art and we have to come together and we have to educate our students and we have to provide a safe work environment there are no other choices so i commend you for what you've done i respect you for your hard work and the extra hours that you put in and know that i'm here to support you in every way i possibly can and with that i'll turn it over to anybody else that wants to speak and just know that i had enough tears for everybody so president leonard thank you very much for everything you just said that is a very heartfelt very mindful [Music] very appreciative of what we are going through and as i said earlier this is something that we have never dealt with before that even with all the technological advances that we've had over the past many many years this is a brand new error and um i quite honestly i'm not satisfied with the new normal i i want us to be stronger wiser better and there's so many things that we have to take into account to make sure our students and our staff are safe um and are in uh a learning mindset and uh i couldn't have put it better myself um i do have a couple of questions for uh actually i think there's one for dr kellet nope yes one for dr kellis one of the things that happened to me on tv right before i left the house it was talking about ppe starter kits for districts i don't know if you heard about that and there was a small amount of masks and hand sanitizers in it and um maybe it's not for dr kellis might be for mr hicks but it was a small amount of mass and hand sanitizer and whatnot and of course it said afterwards um districts will have to purchase and provide all this stuff what mechanisms do we have in place um to support yes mr president uh ms harrisonville i think what you're referring to is the maricopa county um department of education uh makisa education sport agency has said that they are distributing these starter kits for the ppe's we appreciate the support of anybody who is willing to help support our staff and our students but yes the the question of supply lines supply access what kinds of supplies are needed just with the topic of masks for example just this week maricopa county issued not guidelines but requirements that all students wear masks at school whenever they are on school grounds and that's a variation from our previous guidelines um and what our safety protocols were previously that if they are outside if they're exercising that they don't have to if they're in the cafeteria the eating that they don't have to these new requirements mandate that students wear them unless they're eating or engage in strenuous exercise we understand that if you have well we want everybody to bring the ppe that they are most comfortable with you see in this room most of us have our own personal masks but there might be if you follow the costco model there are those customers who show up without one and we feel obligated to have a supply line available for students or staff who need it to be able to comply with the county health requirement for schools so if you were to just assume that nobody had a mask so we have about 23 000 students another 2 000 staff employees figure roughly 25 000 people in the district and if we provided one disposable mask per person that's 25 000 masks in one day if you're to carry that out over a week then we're looking at 125 000 masks a week if you look at the cost of them right now i think at walmart you can get 25 masks for [Music] if we were to just go at a discount and say they're a dollar each or 50 cents each that would be you can calculate for one week between anywhere between 80 and 125 thousand dollars and then you carry that out over the the course of the semester we do have a partnership with the mass our own in our own neighborhood iris is a manufacturing company in the district and they are very gracious to offer us a discount of 17 cents per mass so we have ordered 60 000 masks from iris at 17 cents those are the kinds of community district relationships that really gel our whole community and make it important to say that we're all in this together and it's not uh you fix it it's we can fix this and provide the sports uh mr hicks i don't know if you have any other comments about the the ppes and what we have available just to continue on with the conversation is uh in cabinet we talk about waters where's our inventory what do we have how long do we need so we talk about different inventory how many hand sanitizer stands do we have uh we have limited or no no water for uh sinks in our portables so we need to get hand sanitizer in every single portables for the mass how do we get where are the bus drivers holding mass so the bus so the kids when they enter the bus if they don't have a mass we have to give them one so what kit are they bringing onto the bus to have that so we go through and how many days supply do we need and so and we'll be distributing that out to the schools with the expectations for supplies and how to communicate back to we keep it all we've actually changed the locks on a few uh rooms down in maintenance to make sure that we keep all of our ppe pretty safe and secure so it's not walking or anything so we have control over we know how much we received and how much were given to schools on any daily basis but we continue to monitor all of those and and that goes for um spacing signs on the floor we've got those ordered and coming in additional plexiglas we have plexiglass going to um every school i think two or three of them every school to create some barriers for plexiglass we also have staff that want to purchase additional ppe plexiglas and others and they work with our facilities to make sure because some of them if we did them the way they would like would violate fire codes so we still have to maintain our fire code compliance and and modify some of those requests in that sense but we're constantly evaluating assessing our inventory and where we're at and how long things will take to get there i have a follow-up question about just about that um but i want to change gears for just a second um it was stated that uh superintendent hoffman is trying to push full funding for online learning have you heard anything different i know that the announcement will be tomorrow um but she kind of remains steadfast in this uh do you have anything to say mr president mr singh bill i i think uh what you're referring to is uh state superintendent um hoffman has basically issued a statement uh this is what she expects or is asking the governor to do and you're exactly right and that is to fully fund online instruction at one point uh the leaders at b determined that it's cheaper to teach online than it is face-to-face and what districts are are learning very quickly as ken just outlined one piece of the additional expenses that are required and we didn't get into how much other technology is needed for all of our students to be able to learn from at home uh dr pauline mentioned access internet access that we're finding more and more families don't have sufficient internet access for multiple kids plus maybe a working adult in the room to uh to be able to log in and follow the student's schedule if there's multiple kids in the house if they even have internet at all we have some of our staff who have reported they do not have internet access they might have a cell phone but it's hard to teach a class from a cell phone so if we want our teachers to provide an extraordinary experience for our students we would hope that they would have the appropriate wi-fi access wherever they're teaching from so these are all things that could potentially increase the cost we looked at hot spots to provide for those whether students or staff who need them a hot spot is basically just a little plastic box that provides internet in the household if we were to purchase those we looked at just a hundred of them and that would be twenty four thousand dollars if you look around the state there are other districts who are in the exact same situation so statewide i think there was a false belief that it's cheaper to teach online than it is to teach face to face and so president i mean superintendent hoffman is appealing to the governor to fully fund because right now if the school goes strictly online we only get 95 percent of the funding that we would typically get at the students were in a classroom that extra five percent for dysert mr hicks would equate to probably nine million dollars so if we um only got 95 percent we would be short at nine about nine million dollars that's a lot knowing we got short at 9 million plus we have to expend another couple million just for all of the x-ray technology and ppe's and and things plexiglas hardware to be prepared for for students to come back um so i don't know if that answers your question but we support the superintendent's hoffman's appeal for full funding it does and i know that um several districts um are supporting that as well that they wanting the full funding for online i didn't know how approximately how much that would be regarding the five percent that's that's a pretty penny and having the other expenses um on top of that is just after another source even if i could just add so the governor in one of his executive orders basically gave districts the choice we could take the 95 percent or we could take the 98 so 95 for current year for the students that we have enrolled 95 or 98 of last year's budget but even if we took 98 percent of last year's budget and said we'll take that we would still be losing about three million dollars off of last year's budget carrying it forward if we just did identical now the governor did say that there's an option to submit a grant a non-competitive grant for that extra five percent of the 95 but there are strings attached to it one of those being that we would have to offer parents uh a place where they can bring their kids during the day so if we went all online and didn't offer that in-person drop-off opportunity we would lose the five percent we would not be eligible for that five percent to get us to the full funding so districts are grappling with that if you close schools and go online but then say we will take any student who needs a place to be during the day you're basically reopening your schools we are looking at some learning labs for our community and for our employees we are going to have to put a cap on it because we know that we can't take 500 students back to school when we're closed and it's just a it's interesting and again we're hoping for more flexibility thank you dr ellis when i figure out my question i can't remember i will ask you mr hicks the moment that's that's all for me excellent thank you miss tanner think of anything else other than what's been asked or said awesome thank you ms densmore um i just appreciate the internally you know the opportunities for for flexibility that we're looking at um i know that we're looking at legislatively or through the governor's executive order we're looking for official opportunities for that flexibility um i guess um some of the concerns that i've been hearing um are just you know around like staff accommodations for example and i know that you said uh mr critter that you're getting about four or you're doing about 400 phone calls out are you also experiencing people that maybe didn't identify an accommodation originally and that are now realizing that they do need an accommodation are you still accommodating those requests mr president miss dinsmore yes we are being contacted if they originally selected they don't need anything on the what we call number one selection uh we've had numerous people send us emails or call say you know what i changed my mind so we put them right into that file and we're addressing those also so yes we do we do talk to them if they change their mind definitely just with everything changing i mean those they may not have anticipated something originally correct thank you um the other thing i i had a question on so originally you mentioned for high school about 24 to 25 percent were requesting online and then about 30 percent for elementary is that still accurate or was that just the initial survey results i don't know mr president mrs densmore um those are accurate numbers that data has been cleaned up so the initial survey um and that data has been cleaned up so those are very accurate numbers as we move forward in the schedule we have to be really accurate and we're up against the time to get the staff in the proper place so we look at those those are updated as of this morning so thank you so much you're welcome all right miss pritchard i had several but just in the interest of time i'm just going to kind of narrow it down to some of the bigger areas that i think would be good um just for the community to understand too and then because there's been so many changes if there's any updates to this dr kalis but in regard to um so speaking about like the reopen date i think it'd be good because you you've been able to articulate it pretty well as far as dysart's position i know the board and we've been forwarding all of our emails has been flooded with people thinking that you know we can just decide to open in october or maybe january maybe explain your um thought process behind how we came to august 17th and if that were to change what would what would impact that decision mr president uh miss pritchard excuse me that is probably one of the biggest questions that is being asked is if we're not going to open on august 17th then when and in light of other districts who have already made the announcements that they're not opening until october um there's that looming question what about dysart and as we look at what other districts the process that they followed in getting to that decision there has been some question on our part about are they considering all of the unintended consequences of making that decision i had a meeting earlier today and i shared that in my heart of hearts we're not going to open on august 17th i think the governor will announce at his press conference that it might go another two weeks it might go four weeks i'm hoping that it's you decide when you want to open but as you look at dicert and why we're proceeding the way that we are we need to look at all of the pieces to the puzzle as president leonard said there's a lot of moving pieces to the puzzle and we are making decisions that are very closely aligned to data into the information sometimes that data can be seen through very narrow lens and it's i'm not safe don't open schools but in reality we don't have the the luxury of looking through that narrow lens we have to look at a very broad lens and look at all of the different implications of what it means to change the start date to a school year yes it would be easy to say that money should not drive our decisions as a superintendent um i am responsible for the money i'm responsible for the safety of of our students and staff i'm responsible for the academics um even though it may be a stretch i feel responsible for every family that has parents who work and don't know what to do with their kids for supervision during the school day so it is definitely a delicate balance that always tilts towards safety if if i were to put on my my prediction hat and say when is school going to open i would suspect it's not going to be august 17th i'm very confident that it will be at a time when we all feel a little bit more comfortable i just hesitate to say it's going to be in october could be and if it's october the benefits of opening in october is that that gives us a couple of months of stability it would be great just to say we need those two months to be able to have some semblance of normalcy rather than i would be frustrated if the governor said two weeks two weeks two weeks and we just would have that emotional yo-yo happening of should we could we will we is it going to go further than two weeks so there's some a greater level of confidence with our community knowing and being able to plan further out than just a couple of weeks but we know that if we go alone that we may be jeopardizing more than what other districts have considered when you look at up to 13 million dollars that's significant but if we're just a little bit patient and we make sure that all the pieces are in the right place we'll get there and we will not lose the funding and it's not a matter of putting funding over lives we're not going to put people's lives in danger but there's a sense of urgency that people want to know right now where are we going to be on august 17th are we going to come back too early we will not put people's lives in danger we will make the the right decisions it's just difficult to be able to come out and announce today that we are going to be open until august or october or january i don't know don't quote me on anything in january but it's it's um it's something that we are looking at every single day sometimes three and four times a day right now we are looking at the governor's press conference and if the governor were to say we're going to try it another week see how it goes that would be a very frustrating response from the governor i would hope that he would look at that stability and that opportunity for some semblance of normalcy that would allow us to [Music] if it's if we're closed for uh for two months at the same time i also understand that that puts a lot of families in very difficult predicament and so as we look at ways to mitigate the the extra stress the extra emotional duress that our families are experiencing our students are experiencing from that separation and we look for solutions to to that as well okay thank you and just kind of to piggyback on that um that piece too as far as coming back how would we balance though like let's say let's say we're well even from the seventh to the fourth to the 17th um if we were to offer our community some child care options you know there's the argument as well of well if it's not safe to have students in a classroom how is it safe to have a lot of locations where there's a lot of students in one room or classroom for child care services um mr president ms pritchard i appreciate that argument it's an option it's not a requirement it's something that for those families who see the need for it again we are not going to put children's lives in danger if you look at how the room is set up tonight and this was done very intentionally with a lot of forethought on how to keep everybody in this room safe and when we bring any any person onto our facilities we take that charge very seriously to make sure that they are safe so those learning labs will have specific safety protocols in place we've been doing them during the summer with summer camps very successfully to the satisfaction of all those who have been present and we would continue to make sure that it's a safe supervised place for students to do their schoolwork between the 4th and the 17th and beyond if necessary and just as a side note these students are not in classrooms with teachers we have asked the teachers teach from their classrooms to provide a very focused professional experience for the students the learning labs would be in very large group areas cafeteria the gym the library where they could be adequately distance apart from each other and that they would not be mixing with other people on campus like teachers and staff who are teaching remotely okay okay thank you now now with that then since we're talking about room space um so just something to consider just i'm sure you've already considered your thoughts on this so if we have a lot of students right now who are especially in high school opting for online and then that means our class sizes are naturally dropping is there the potential for rather than collapsing all those classes and making a full class of 32 students why wouldn't we keep those class sizes smaller so we could social distance or is that something that's already being considered and we're already putting in place mr president member pritchard um the answer to your question is that's exactly what's happening now so as as we are scheduling our students and our teachers for online high school the ischool option we're utilizing the sections that we have available within our high schools currently we're not adding sections to our staffing so as not to incur more cost but for example if if uh let's say uh valley vista high school has uh 60 students in english one and um and 20 of them opt for online learning or let's say 40 of them opt for online learning we would take one of those two sections and one of those sections would teach ischool the other one would keep the other 20 students in the physical classroom piece which currently is remote learning so we are not looking to shrink our sections to to a very small piece at this point in time our high school principals are managing that piece on the campus and they are managing their ischool sections through their current staffing so that we're able to keep classes low if we if we possibly can for the return but also make sure that we take care of our high school sections through the current high school allotment at k-8 at k8 um similarly they're spreading out those high school sections across if there's three grade level teachers then each grade level teacher might have seven seven seven so yes indeed then it reduces in person class size when we come back and so what you may have is you may have let's say take an english teacher for example an english teacher might teach four ground courses and one high school course um of the of their english class and so that way we're maintaining the the integrity of their schedule we're obtaining the the or maintaining the integrity of the sections but we're able to handle both the number of students that are in the physical location which is starting remote remotely and the high school sections as well so then you would be able to um so like let's say there were 90 90 students total in in because i'm not i'm not as quick with my math mr hicks as you are so bear with me on the easy example but if there's like 90 students enrolled in um freshman english and so there's 30 in each class and let's say half of each class so 45 would sign on for online that i'm saying couldn't we keep 15 15 15 rather than let's combine two of the classes and have a class of 30 and see what i'm saying to where we kind of even if it's a really really low number are you guys open to keeping it low rather than collapsing so we can ensure that distance so a couple things first i want to make sure that you're not asking mr hicks to respond because i'm not sure we have that much time left in the meeting this evening but secondly yes our high school principals are looking at those components as they as they balance between high school sections with our high school staff and their their current ground piece we're also keeping in mind that there is a strong possibility that when we return to school physically whenever that may be that a good number of those students who are currently signed up for online school high school are going to transition back into the building and so that's why we're working to maintain the integrity of those sections so that that transition is an easy transition back into the school and we don't balloon up classes at that point in time well i know since we're all using florida virtual it's supposed to be a semi seamless transition back and forth but for my understanding when everyone starts on august 4th you may not be starting in high school you'll be virtual but you may not be in the ischool program it's not like everyone can just zoom into their classroom you still you're only zooming in if you have signed up for in-person and the rest are would be in their high school that is correct that is correct however one of the advantages and one of the reasons that um we made the decision to use florida virtual as the curriculum for all of our courses this year whether it's high school or ground courses is that opportunity for transition so theoretically if i am in an english one class and i'm taking it online through high school and i decided to come back in the middle of october my my pacing should be very similar to where i am when i re-enter the classroom and so by having florida virtual as the curriculum across the board that allows for those easy transitions in and out throughout the course of the school year and this comment again is kind of an extension of what we're talking about and i know not to really get into a lot of dialogue now because it's too big for tonight but i just want you to consider it and think about it um you know some we know we've all talked about we know how every student learns differently they have their own unique learning style and where attending online through zoom your virtual it's not the same as ischool and so because of the situation you know we're making students choose between one or the other i school can be scary for some because with high school especially our high school students where if you're in a class and heaven forbid you fail your final you can still get credit and pass that class you're on high school you get less than 60 percent you have lost credit you're maybe not graduating or you're behind and so if you know you don't learn that well anyway i just hate to think of students who are unintentionally kind of punished for a situation that's out of their control because maybe their parent doesn't want them returning or they can't because they've got medical issues and they're stuck with this one option so i'm just asking you to consider when you're looking at all these things the possibility of a live stream or some way that these students who would want to be in their classroom and see their teacher and have that relationship be able to attend virtually that way rather than be completely on their own in a high school environment that may not be conducive to their learning style so just i hope you guys will think about that because i've heard that from from various people and um i just i think it's a valid one to at least consider so i hope you'll maybe consider that and we appreciate that point and one one thing that i would add is that those students who um take courses through i school um are assigned to teacher um and there is a teacher who is responsible for their learning as well so while they are while they are they're not attending school from 7 15 to 2 15 every day there is a teacher that's assigned to that class and that it's a sign that is assigned and responsible for their learning and so where students may find the benefit of being able to take to work on their course at any time that they want in the middle of the day middle of the night you know when my kids were in high school they were up until all hours and so maybe they at 1am that's when they go and they do their their coursework there is still a teacher that's available that's monitoring their progress that's checking in with them and that is available through office hours for that student to to get help as well and that's the ischool model you know within that you know we are very cognizant and very concerned that about the academic loss of all of our students our students missed 10 weeks of in-school instruction in the spring we've had the typical summer period and now we're coming back to remote learning and so we're very cognizant of of making sure that all of our students regardless of which format they choose to attend school that we're providing supports and and measures needed for them to be successful moving forward we can't lose an entire generation of students to one or two school years that that were a bit out of the norm and so we're very cognizant of that but thank you for that point yeah and i and i don't want to i understand teachers be responsive through high school but i'm just saying again back to that learning style you don't get that face-to-face interaction you don't get the class discussion it's still a different experience it is it is absolutely a different experience you're correct um because things have changed dr kellis um have their can you just kind of quickly review the re-entry protocols for both students and staff that present with coping-like symptoms or maybe they've they've tested positive for covid what's that protocol look like so currently um our from a student perspective i'll let mr croto address the um the staff piece but i i can talk from from the perspective of what we've done with athletics and how that would impact the school you're moving forward and the reason i bring athletics into the conversation is that we have dealt with a couple of covet situations with our athletic workouts this summer and so students who present positive with covid are are quarantined from being able to return for 14 days any student who has had direct contact with that student and direct contact is defined by the cdc any student who has had direct contact has been quarantined for 14 days from being able to return upon return symptoms are checked every day there is a sheet that's used to monitor symptoms of students and that will be the case with the classroom as well just as all of our temperatures were taken as as we came into the building today that will be part of our protocol with students as well and so if a student test positive for cover 19 um in a school then we will handle that through student services in working with the family um to to keep them from returning to school and for a period of time um that 14-day period and we will also work to find those students that were that had direct contact to do the same as well mr croto can explain the pieces related to staff uh thank you um like the students the employees are very similar so we use there's two two theories out from the cdc based on a return to work status one is symptoms based which we use and one is test based so the question always comes do we require tests to return to work that answers no we use a symptom based approach so that one basically in the symptoms based approach is 14 days since contact either having covid in the test or having contact with somebody who was positive so your direct contact remember is less than six feet for greater than 15 minutes um and so we use that thing so if they have to be symptom-free no fever for 24 hours and all those things before they return to work so we i have one person in my office that's in constant contact um documenting all that setting dates um and making sure we follow all the protocol so even with um because obviously i mean fever you can measure but some other symptoms that they're associated with covid you may not necessarily observe in a moment like if you do like a quick screening so if someone um maybe so we're not requiring testing at all like a negative coded test from someone that either we know was positive or was or continue to recover as far as knowing it's basically on the honor system that is correct um we do not require we're not using the test-based strategy um from my understanding and i try to read all this everything from the cdc is ever changing um the cdc well for a couple reasons i believe the cdc just came out and said that they do not prefer the test based strategy i'm not sure if that's because of timelines uh how much the test is taken right now we do have employees currently that it's been three weeks since they tested um and so that obviously that 14 days has passed before that time and then um the other piece and there's so much to read out there and i believe somebody said it before we don't have any clear direction of this is this is the line we need to take so 14 days is what we use on the symptoms based approach because supposedly and i'm not a doctor but all the symptoms and all that are gone and you're not shedding the virus actively at the 14 day point now we could probably sit here all night and refute that and argue back and forth because there's so much stuff out there but we have chose a symptoms-based approach just because the test base is not realistic in getting people to return to work so to answer kind of the can't answer i just gave you to your question is um yes we require we we are contact with them so we require the honor system for them to say i'm symptom-free i don't have a fever um you know i haven't had fever for 24 hours i don't have the chills i don't have all those symptoms that are listed with that um and to go from there thank you um mr hicks as you mentioned we were going through um the cleaning protocols you you probably were just speaking in relation to the fact that front office staff they're the ones that are here now so maybe that's the only reason but i just wanted just for clarity when you're saying like every day that front office is clean staff bathrooms are clean i'm assuming that student bathrooms and a classroom like the whole campus is cleaned with that same procedure every day mr president member support yes so there's a highlighted focus of with no students on campus uh to make sure staff bathrooms are cleaned multiple times um three times in a day where traditionally abm would not be doing that so that is different when students are going to be on so yes they clean the whole campus and district office my office gets cleaned and trash taken out so they're doing that but we've re-prioritized some of the things they're doing to focus on where the staff are right now okay two quick questions from mr croto okay um for teachers and i school are we giving priority to teachers who um maybe have some underlying health conditions or for whatever reason they just feel like mainly probably for health that it wouldn't be in their best interest to be in the classroom but they're still willing to work and they're still you know they're wanting that high school option i mean assuming i know there's a fine balance because we have to make sure they're the highly qualified and the best for that particular need of that classroom but are we giving priority to staff members who um have underlying health conditions for ischool options mr president miss richard uh we are taking those people that are asking for accommodations they have to go through the interactive process for ada accommodations so that is a a process that they go through to fill out paperwork um have medical documentation and that such so we are processing those we are working through those there has to be opportunities for them not necessarily to teach at home but maybe reduce the class size as opportunities come available we just had an opportunity today where a school selected to have one teacher at a certain grade level teach all the online kids instead of spreading it out so we did provide an ada accommodation in that instance so we are going it's kind of a case-by-case basis on what the doctor recommends as we're going through the process so they write down on the sheet what they recommend for an employee so yes we are working with them we're trying to work with them is it necessarily everybody gets to work from home that answer is no but we are working with all our employees to try accommodate them the best we can and still keep our environment um our learning environment intact basically okay and then my last question is just in regard to our classified staff hourly staff um what are we doing to accommodate them i know we like we've we've transitioned our certificated staff members back in like slowly with the the green blue schedule um what are we doing for classified and then also have you been forward thinking as far as again if depending on what the governor says um if we were to delay our start just making sure because our hourly staff i mean even a couple years ago when things happen in schools close they're they're without and i i kind of want because now we have this time i want to be able to hope we're we're planning and we're considering that so they're not you know they're having as much anxiety as the next person regarding what's going to happen with my my paycheck and my livelihood and job so mr president ms pritchard you're absolutely right that the difference between the spring and and today this fall is in the spring the governor said everybody gets paid through the end of the school year so he basically waived a very critical law that is in place now and that is the gift of public funds law that we can't give money away if somebody doesn't work we can't just give them money for them not working whereas in the spring the governor essentially waived that when he said everybody gets paid through the end of the year so we are very considerate of all of our employees in fact that is one of the driving motivations of starting school on august 4th when the governor said school starts on august 17th because if we waited until august 17th all of our employees who have job-related responsibilities to the students would not be paid until the students return to school including all of our teachers most of our support staff the bus drivers so that was a horrible situation for our employees to ex to have to expect about a month delay in any any income as we're moving forward at this point that is still a very key consideration is how does any decision that we make impact all employees it's one of those pieces of the puzzle so as it is today the gift of public funds law is intact that's the second thing that i would ask the governor is to waive the gift of public funds clause so that we could use our employees in a manner that is not we could reassign them to different jobs or if so be that our bus drivers are needed on tuesdays and thursdays to distribute food or to help out in in the school wiping down door handles or but we don't need them five days out of the week that they don't go without any revenue or any income but as it is right now if we were to delay until october with having students back in the classrooms there's a very high chance that there'd be certain employee groups that would not get paid other districts are currently furloughing their employees basically saying we don't need you now you're not going to get paid until we need you and please don't leave us well dysert has a high need for bus drivers and we would happily take any bus driver who's furloughed from another business is that a plug thank you that's that's all i have i just want to say real quick like i know that this reopening schools is um just it there's no there's no one i have talked to that is middle ground that just says whatever happens happens it's either very passionate about reopening or very passionate about not reopening and so i know that you as our administrators or administration is you're tasked with the impossible of trying to make everyone happy and i know that's impossible but i do know that you know dysart's always been data driven and i appreciate you said that you look at the data you see what what truly is going on and trying to make decisions with that but i also appreciate the fact that you say you're also trying to be very empathetic for people in their situations and i know that everyone has a different experience with what is going on and for some it is a very fearful experience and for some it's it's not and but i appreciate the fact that you are also trying to be very empathetic to what everybody's situation is um i like the fact i love the fact that you guys are focused on dysart and like you said other districts are doing other things but keeping it very focused on what is best for dysart and so i really appreciate that and and i think just tonight shows that you guys aren't just making flippant decisions that every question that i've ever asked or i've noticed my board members asked you've thought about you have an answer to and it just goes to show there's been much time and effort and we recognize that and know that and appreciate all the time and effort that you've put into this i know that um you know just with your goals you've had when we hired on dr kellis he had great expectations and great things planned for dysart that i know have been put on hold because of the situations that we're dealing with and so i just appreciate all the effort that has gone into you know trying to prepare to open our schools and um and i just i just hope you know that i have full trust in our administration for because of all the time and effort that you're putting in as well as being empathetic to those around us so thank you so much anyone else going once going twice all right you guys can all wipe the sweat off your heads the tough questions are over we're only going with easy questions for the rest of the night miss pritchard [Laughter] appreciate you guys on all your feedback and like i said it's it's you know we're working together it's a great community it's a great place to be and uh like miss tanner said um i trust um this process and and what we're doing because at the end of the day um each one of us gets to come and be a part of the process as well so it's not that we're making decisions that we are not directly affected by um and you know we don't get the option to stay at home either when the the things come back it's everybody comes back and we're all fully engaged so i'm excited and i look forward to the governor and what he has to please say something good and so we'll support support our leaders and and do what we need to so thank you for that all right moving right along let's see where are we at all right we are going to action discussion item eye number one recommendation to approve a pro statement for the maintenance and operations budget override election to be held on november 3rd 2020.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so you can just see as we go through pointers teachers are going to be further from students they need pointers to point to the work they're doing or point to their chromebook storage containers and storage you can see the uh rental storage containers this is for the big furniture that we need to take out of rooms and store um so there's cost there and so we're looking at uh quite a bit there twenty eight thousand 000 or so we'll go to the next one so total reopening costs um are at 728 000 to open up with 100 model many of the costs opening up for the 100 mile will still be realized if we're in the 50 model probably left less furniture but regardless at some point we'll be back in 100 model and likely still having to abide by social distancing so these are costs we're going to have to incur to open up and then i talked about planning for classroom technology there's some other options we could explore and talk with the board about uh specifically uh additional web cameras uh that we could purchase which is kind of the next level up from our laptop cameras that would be a better step that would be a cost of twenty thousand dollars more that was something we wanted to do and certainly eric could explain that and how that would work and how that would benefit students and then there really is um the the grand plan ultimately that would be wonderful for this situation but it's quite expensive as you can see a four hundred thousand dollars these cameras with an audio solution if we really have um beautiful cameras uh with incredible audio and crisp clarity and it would work better for our remote learning and that would cover uh 160 classrooms it wouldn't be every classroom in the school but we wanted to just put those out there so everybody could see we understand the board has just been through two weeks ago we had approvals of laptops and chromebooks through the board of finance um and there's only so much funding to go around in the contingencies here in our community and we understand that but we want to let everybody know that to ideally move forward there's some technology that we really should purchase but if we're just looking at getting by for the reopening the 728 000 is what we need to do and we're ready to uh have those conversations so i got a couple more slides and we'll finish things off next one please eric bob is his hand up john i'm sorry what's that yeah john i'm sorry i'm raising my hand like i'm in class um john on on the is there money available from the state or federal um uh funds for this sort of school reopening costs so um there is some different grants that are out there for the town through the cares act and so forth we've talked about the small uh amount of money that is coming through that's already earmarked to cover the cost of the seventy four thousand dollars to cover the cost of chromebooks that the board of finance approved a couple of weeks ago there are some other monies out there uh but administratively uh working not only with ken but with martial from the town side it's been very difficult to get the application process going and very difficult to have reassurances that the money will actually be there there's also costs and technology i do not believe falls under um the fema reimbursement costs but we're exhausting all of that with the town as a matter of fact uh ken and i met with marsha and steve this morning and has some of that conversation so marcia and steve are aware of all these costs they're they're aware of these costs in theory we invited them to watch the meeting this evening so they could actually see the cost and then we'll provide them with a spreadsheet so they have it um we didn't think it was appropriate to provide them with this information prior to the board receiving it and they understood it i wouldn't be at all surprised that there's no money coming and it and if there was money coming it would go to the big cities so we're gonna have to go figure you know with with steve's help and the board of finance and the board of ed we're trying to work our way through this yeah figure out where we can find seven hundred thousand dollars and this is this was a big uh big discussion two weeks ago at the board of finance meeting and they were really looking forward to to having um information on this and i saw at least one of the board of finance members that would join the meeting at least at the beginning of the evening tonight um because this is very important we have to work together on this and try to solve this problem yeah and there i i'm guessing they're listening in okay even though they couldn't make it into the meeting because of this the issue earlier so and there are things that that need to be purchased right so the shields the desks things that have to be purchased soon because there's supply chain issues because every school system in the in the nation and many in the world are in the same situation so that's very important um it's important can i ask another budget question or do you want to wait until after you're done um i don't want to finish up the slides there's only a couple more left and then we'll do that the other thing i want to know when we're talking about desk it's very important just in case i forget it um calling other districts working with fathership working with the archdiocese working with mr checo with his contacts in new york uh with the catholic schools and the diocese there and everyone's in the same position we're trying to do anything we can to find the furniture keep the cost as low as possible um that may not be an option for us so just want to let everybody know that but eric if you could go to the next slide and then we'll move through all right so i want to just review next steps very briefly and then uh we'll we'll uh get near the end here so uh tonight while the state department of education does not require in this uh reopening plan does not require approval from the board of education like we often do i would say 99 percent of the time do as a with this board of education is we really want to provide a united front with the school of the school and district administration so that's why we put it on the agenda for discussion and consideration of a formal approval of the plan so that's what we're talking about by the end of this meeting tonight making any final revisions or edits to the plan if there was any thoughts suggestions or ideas submission of the reopening plan to the state department of ed by friday i'm hoping to do it tomorrow rather than wait till friday disseminate the reopening plan to the faculty staff parents and community after this meeting we will be posting this information online and sending a school message home the faculty and staff have already received this the reopening plan holding the public q a sessions as we talked about of course securing funding as we just started to talk about for the desks and the shields and technology cetera that we need the staffing that's a big piece um adjusting the plan uh based on any updated oh i'm sorry can you go back eric our forward one yep sorry about that final bullet on that uh that page is to adjust the plan based on any new health data any new requirements that come down from the cdc or the state department of ed or dph et cetera again things change by the hour um and so that's the case there's one more slide for some next steps and then this district will continue to collaborate and support each school team the school is setting up teams similar to the district team so we can not only implement the plan but monitor the plan and have two-way feedback so we're making sure we are um adhering to the cleaning and health protocols and everything else that we need to for our students and staff and then of course i said the q a sessions next slide getting to the end i know we've been talking for a while and believe and that was it thank you so now it's time rose i'll let you take the meeting back over and we'll have our conversation thanks um so i just want my initial question that had to do with the budget um was i noticed in a lot of those you are accounting for the number of students now is there some sort of obligation to account for every student that we have in the district because not all of them and i assume like a pretty significant percentage of them will opt to do the remote learning in which case they'll never be in the school environment so do we still need you know plastic shields for all of them and stuff like that the one thing is legally we are responsible for educating the students and so if the student the parent chooses to keep their child home legally at any time if they decide they want their child to attend school let's say you know what i'm going to test it out and see how in-person learning goes a couple of weeks in a month into the school year things are going well and the parent says you know what i'm going to send little johnny back to school we have to open our doors and accept that child in and so we need to be ready and it's the same thing even if we started i just want to go a little further with it with an answer to that even if we started in the hybrid model where we had 50 of the kids well we don't have to buy the furniture we don't have to do this well the reality is if we at some point move from the 50 model to 100 model we need to accommodate the students and i don't see any time soon that social distancing is just going to go away so this is the conundrum all of us are in and we're all facing um i know my uh in my role as the chair of the western connecticut superintendent association with our regional um partners of the the other neighboring districts dr ruby started to mention that a little bit the um they're all going through the same thing and there's significant cost to their reopening plans as well they're all going through these exactly some might have more furniture and less technology than we do so everybody's got their own local unique challenge that they're doing thanks um so i would just like you know encourage uh board members to speak up with any questions or comments i think the suggestion for the sort of workshop format was a good one and we can continue on that and try to maybe anticipate you know not only from your viewpoint as a parent but in speaking with community members um trying to get some of these questions that might still be lingering answered rosa do you want to do it in any particular way do you want to call on us how do you want to organize it um i mean as long as we don't run into sort of talking over each other i mean i think we're usually pretty good with just um sort of speaking up and um yeah so go ahead uh debbie i saw that you look like you were about to say something so go ahead i don't mind starting um i have a lot of questions overall i just want to say john i think and and everybody on the committee there was this is a tremendous amount of work and i know you know you can't possibly answer every question tonight but i appreciate you know the work and thought and effort that went into it i think right now there are still so many unknowns that um maybe the answer to some questions is just going to be wait and see you know we we don't know but um i appreciate all the effort that went into it i guess my biggest question has to do with um identification of uh you know infected people i know you said that when there's a confirmed case of covid in the school that decisions will be made parents will be notified but i think a big question that people have is first of all if they're if it takes three days or five days or a week to get a confirmation of a test you know somebody alluded to this earlier in the public comments section there's this snowball effect if that person actually tests positive they were in the building you know the children in the classroom were exposed the teachers were exposed but we're not finding out about it until possibly a week later so is there any strategy in place um to notify people that someone may have the virus or similarly um let's say a teacher has a spouse who has covid but the teachers doesn't test positive does the teacher continue to come to work even though she's been exposed so those kinds of questions i think i think the plan just sort of implies that if there's a positive case in the school people will be notified but i kind of feel like there's these like tentacles that that grow from that like what happens in these other situations well i i think debbie i think the best people right now to speak about that because we'd obviously be on the phone uh with our public health director and our medical advisor but i want to start with cornea dr ferrara who can start yeah yeah so so i'll start so i think i think the most critical thing today is we should assume everybody is infected until proven otherwise and i think that's why you know when i look at this plan that we've set forth for the school i'll be i'll be open and honest my son goes to the high school so you know i share some of these very same concerns and i work in the hospital i mean medical practices on a daily basis but when you talk to our infectious disease partners right the key thing here to remember is that's why we have social distancing and mask use and it is because of social distancing and mask use that we have decreased the rates of covet in this area specifically because our communities and people in our in our towns have really adhered to that measure so we need to make the assumption that everybody is infected and that's why we implement the the tools that we have at the schools so doing your temperature checks that's going to help alert us to folks that have have potentials for fever or maybe in early stages of infection so we can actually send those folks home and say you can't come to the school the second piece is with the social distancing component and then the mask use when you look at just those two things alone the infection rates decrease substantially right so for example with social distancing the reason the american academy of pediatrics came out with the recommendation for three to six feet is there was a large study recently published out of europe it was published in the landsat and they looked at 44 different studies at distances so fascinating right so if you are over a meter or more than three feet away from another person who has covet your chances to contract that virus is only three percent once you get into that three foot distance your chance to get covet goes up to 13 so if you had no mask on it's a very low on contagion rate in those individuals and especially in the pediatric population so that's why the recommendation is three feet to six feet if you then add a mask on top of that that three percent rate goes down substantially below that and that's why we have seen this in our communities right so we have churches that are now open we've got the town parks that are open and we're just not seeing the spread because people are adhering to these these metrics so i think from from step one we can't live in fear we just need to follow the precautions that we have put in place because those very precautions are the things that have helped us overcome a lot of this challenge in in brookfield and connecticut and new york specifically because of the fact that we're doing the masks we're doing hand hygiene and we're following through on the social distancing so again the assumption should be everybody is infected and not to let our guard down but to follow strictly the measures that have been in place and i think the work that this school board has done and the work that's been put into this this basically playbook for reopening the schools is truly a phenomenal job because it really addresses a lot of the things even things that we do in our medical practices are are in these documents so you know that's why i feel very reassured that if we go out from this standpoint i think kids will be fine going back to school this fall thank you dr ferraro dr sullivan did you have anything to add to that to answer mrs brooks's question and you're on it you're on you there you go um i think dr ferrara summed it up very succinctly the fact is that the original recommendations from the cdc where social distance six feet plus frequent hand washing thus covering your propensity practical things don't touch your face etc now it came apparent that a large number of population couldn't adhere to that six foot thing because of their job position so they came out as an alternative to say that if both a contact and an individual who is carrying the virus both masked this reduces the chances of contamination or cross-contamination through the contact of counter 1.5 so the masks then became a substitute for social distancing the current the current science is that if you are within an individual without a mask for more than 15 minutes you're much more likely to develop the disease but there again what you're doing is you're adding social uh distancing plus the masks and basically doubling down but as dr ferrara noted the chances of spread of uh cobia 19 virus are extremely small under those circumstances the question then comes out what have you do have a ovid positive individual first of all that individual has to be obviously self-isolated we isolate individuals with the disease we quarantine or come and contact someone with the disease so there's a distinction between isolation and the cdc has spelled out the uh exact uh rules basically uh for uh dealing with a coveted positive individual uh who may expose others to um to the uh well maybe maybe i should ask it differently um what would the recommendation be let's just say a child has a family member who's been diagnosed with covid or a teacher has a spouse who's been diagnosed with covid what's the recommendation for those people to come to school they're not diagnosed but they live with someone who is or ray who would like to go sullivan go that would be a primary contact uh so contact tracing would take over and get in touch with that particular individual that individual should self quarantine for a period of 14 days that's the infectious period for covet 19.
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Bachman now it's one of them full and transparent another three Marion kerreri who was the secretary of three will be moving over to business law office as all people and top of page three walk facility and with us serving as the teacher inning and as a son back walk with points in the petition they asked rate Wendy virtual learning went into effect simply box appointment of now we are the appointing walk as a substitute visited to those school is taking over for a teacher who was are returning these so walk will be with us in that position through the 730 person Whitney Way mostly the teacher aide with us without service a full-time Pokemon secretary at school board effective this last week she will respond in that position and really disappear will be moving their lunch eight results will film another part-time custodian is my map page three Ken Rousseau who is an English teacher at the high school were rescinding his equipment at the volunteer coach because Kent will be with us as an assistant coach so just type of page for the moment Alvin's who ate with us now the substitute the spring fp8 five-time title one teacher that's one of Appalachian blood substitute at the bottom of page four as for our contract with EPA and the city firing Association you know reimbursing staff members were completed and though their obligation will grab her work so we now reimbursing them what they additionally submit that's based on their tuition and also based on the successful opinion of the polls pages five six seven and eight stomach the contract because I park Education Association bitten without a contract in 2018 19 1920 so we are now as for the contract they're going to be issuing retroactive pay to staff members or title to it are marination airplanes were at the top of the guide and some people in the cycle so rather than just standing there what the electrode is will actually just be adjusting here salary as per the torture it has to be stated but wasn't all the staff members that will get a retro check end of July because July 31st payroll and then DVDs September 2021 will be on a regular new contract as mister the panel noted age nine is the resolution we're going to appoint for coaches with stipulations based on the fact of whether or not is a full season or something work to happy with the governor were to guess for this system or virtual okay that would not happen but in preparation of that possibly happening the resolution on page nine testing them and then on pages 11 and 12 I'm sorry just 111 we are appointing just the four coaches or the high school and for the middle school and we will be well you don't find each of the coaches as far as their appointments and like I had said season will conditionally start on the site which is actually that's coming page twelve of the agenda we are recommending a resolution to submit our violence and vandalism report as per state guidelines and has to be submitted every December and every July or every each school year so with just a proving submitting effective report I think there's a copy of the incident and from July from January actually to July minimal page 13 is a first reading of policies that are going to be revised I had sent board members in their packet just a summary of these policies the majority of the policies are just minor revisions from the state nothing that is dramatic in the terms of how we go about visitors or guidelines that's the end of the students have to follow excuse me it just revisions to obviously never believe anything so this is our first reading focused we will have our second meeting and food policy it's not finally everything our findings over the final report of the year County with an executed resolution pointed out we are going to our summer projects forward together an expense table open 9 key expenses surprised by what happened quest we don't virtual it's tricky in regard to mr.
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so move jeff moved by jeff ii by mark is there any discussion okay team none will the secretary please call the role mrs chu yes mr sismar yes mrs gloss mrs guass yes mr hong yes mrs lax yes mrs reese yes mr simmons yes mr winston yep president becker yes with the exception of on items ii bill is payments pending i need to abstain on two items purchase order e two zero zero two nine zero eight and p two zero zero three six five noted thank you motion carries we're up to our human resource agenda tonight as board members were informed before the meeting the list beginning on page seven and continuing on page eight up to summer esl programs has been deferred summer esl program list is as is can i please have a motion for our human resource agenda item move by mark second by levo is there any discussion will the secretary please call the roll this is true mr sismar yes mrs gloss yes mr hong yes mrs lex yes mrs reese yes mr simmons yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries our staff agenda staff development agenda can i please have a motion for the one i am goodbye todd second by mark is there any discussion all those in favor aye opposed motion carries on our student services can i please have a motion to combine items one and 2.
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dr kellis thank you mr president members of the board and members of cabinet earlier this year the governing board voted to call for an election of an override for the dysert unified school district this evening mr hicks will introduce this item and explain why this pro statement is necessary as part of that election mr president members of the board superintendent dr kellis colleagues community members thank you for allowing me to continue to present tonight tonight this is the pro statement for the governing board for the 15 uh continuation of the m o override um so as you can see from the agenda language uh for elections um it is uh different between a bond and an override election when a board approves a resolution for a bond election they are not allowed to approve a pro statement but for an override they are required to so a lot of times this will be attached to the resolution um i think that was june 10th and i had a lot going on and uh did not make dates to um the pre the pro statement that we had previously so i updated that and this is a requirement and this is our last governing board member before the required date board meeting before the required date so i've made the slight modifications to the attached pro statement and uh would be happy to go through it and make sure that everything is okay with the governing board or if we want to make modifications i can make the modifications approved as in and then i have to submit this um tomorrow to maricopa county for the ballot they're waiting i think i've gotten three emails from them in the last day and a half so i will leave it to the board to discuss and approve that is one way to improve your popularity statuses to keep them on the hook i've read it anybody else have any questions um discussion all right without any discussion all motion to approve the resolution of the governing board's argument in support of the continuation of the special maintenance and operations budget override election second motion made by jay leonard seconded by tracy sawyer sink belt let's go ahead and vote the declaration of the trust dr kellis thank you mr president members of the board and members of cabinet mr hicks will introduce the assignment good evening mr president members of the board superintendent dr colleagues and community members i do appreciate your time and thank you very much for allowing me to present this agenda item this is a slight modification to our current employee benefit trust board agreement this change what it will allow it will allow one member that's on the board to actually have a spouse or dependent uh that is an employee of the district so they themselves would not be an employee but they would have and um it is so that's the really the only change this is it's um one that is small and i also don't believe that it would hinder the trust's ability to make the best decisions and recommendations um going forward uh knowing that they're unduly influenced because they have a spouse or dependent that is actually an employee with this change with this change and if the board approves it uh tonight we will post our and advertise for our community to apply because we do have some open seats so we have technically two open seats that will be presented hopefully if we're able to post that tomorrow or friday get it'll be a google form for them to apply and then we will bring back to the board on the august 12th governing board meeting to recommend our new uh board uh trust board employee benefit trust board member so i'll be happy to answer any questions you have thank you for that do we have any uh discussion any questions i i had one question uh mr hicks the the folks that have been on the employee trust uh benefits trust um they've been on it for a while we've had some long-standing people so you don't think that there would be any issues in trying to find a couple of other people um mr president members of the board we do have one that is not continuing okay so um mr christie has done an amazing job leading and helping um he is asked to pass the torch and let somebody else please take so even though we have two expiring and we will be posting for two one will be renewed um and recommended but his technically his term expired june 30th so it's technically we did not bring him back to the board before so it's not a continuation we're making him reapply um and we will have one new board member because they've been on it for a while and um continuing to be on it is is a it was a great thing so i'm glad that they gonna miss him um if i could just say they provide a lot of continuity because of their knowledge and understanding so conversations happen quicker discussions so that they're able to make the best recommendations and to technically they're like an oversight and so they hold us accountable to make sure that we're doing what's right for our police um are we able to thank mr christie at a later date as far as the board i would that's a great idea okay apologize that i didn't think of that myself well yes thank you very much but no powerpoint when you do it and by no power point she means a very short presentation so i'll make sure we clarify clarified that after you cleared your desk earlier you any other discussion on this one yeah just a super quick question for clarification so how is this any different than um how board members aren't allowed to have a spouse or dependent is it because the trustee board doesn't approve have final approval over as far as then because i know like with us it's because you're voting on benefits and salaries so even though they're dealing with benefits is it because they don't technically have final approval is that the difference the difference of why this is uh recommended and our attorney reviewed it and approved it yeah in regard to just the difference because you're asking us to approve this now i'm just asking as far as like how it's different that the trustee board they're asking to say having one if a board member i remember on that board has a spouse or a dependent that but now that's allowed and i'm just saying how's that different from like a governing board cannot have a spouse or a dependent working in the district so is it because the trustee board doesn't have final approval where the board is actually voting on it so can actually um madam president mr president members of the board um so uh by that's by law in statute of that this is a trust board agreement that we've created as our governing board so we can control you could say all employees be on it um right now our attorney did not uh restrict that in that sense and so we're doing what we think is the fairest and having up to one allows for more people to be on it is hard sometimes to find people to serve on these boards and so we don't want to limit the number of people that would advertise that we're going to advertise to try to be on the board and so they would be on they don't have finals so the governing board has the purse strings and so um they could recommend something and you could overrule them so it does also have that extra layer just as you just described okay i'm just curious thanks great discussion thank you any other discussion all right i'll motion to approve the changes to the employee benefit trust agreement and declaration of trust second motion made by jay leonard seconded by ms sawyer seat belt let's go ahead and vote thank you mr president members of the board and members of cabinet mr hicks will take this item as well i knew there was going to be slides [Music] mr president members of the board superintendent dr kellis colleagues and community members i'm extremely happy to be presenting uh my final agenda item for tonight and here tonight i actually have a miss mr ben madison from mid-state uh energy well i think you're now verity there's a change in name change in the company we'll be here co-presenting with me on the item we actually have uh two others for uh that are online that uh give support and uh mr james gill with augusta rosenfeld is our attorney in this manner and he is watching online for two items one we've already done on the pro statement to answer any questions but he's also supporting online for this agenda item and mr brian lundberg who's with stiefel is also online by email or text message if i say anything wrong they're empowered to let me know to correct that but just wanted to acknowledge their help and support as we go forward in this so we will myself and ben will go back and forth over we have uh uh upgrades through equipment upgrades we're going to have savings but we're using the savings to pay for itself so that means budget neutral in a lot of cases here's our um what we're talking about um the simplicity of this is this actually has started um three years ago bendy remember how long you've been working it was before i got here yes yep correct uh you can chime in so we've been working on this for three years dysart has looking at it um reviewing it and it requires and i'll let ben go into investment grade audits and and other things that are required to be done but it provides just the simplicity is to save money through energy conservation measures to help pay for those improvements so i'm just going to hit it again of budget neutral and i'm hitting that again and i'll say many times over and ben's going to say it probably on the next slide and we'll say it by the end because um through many times and i've started some of these and stopped them and they did not pay for themselves or when i first started it the very first time i tried it uh looking into this was about nine years ago and the savings uh was hardly any savings and i just said why am i doing this i'm not going to go through all of this for almost no savings and just as a reminder we're not doing it to save lots of money because we're going to use the savings to pay for the equipment we're doing it to upgrade the equipment at no cost to our taxpayers or to our budget and so just as a reminder that's our goal safety comfort and energy efficient energy efficiency and sustainability so let ben talk a little bit perfect thanks ken uh mr president members of the board uh superintendent dr kellis members of the community thank you i'm ben matson principal executive with uh with mid-state energy thanks for the introduction ken ken told me i had an hour and a half [Laughter] but you do as long as it's a tremendous but i'll keep it pretty uh pretty basic so energy performance contracts at uh at their core they were developed they've been around for over 35 years in the last 12 years they've really been developed here in arizona they were developed by the department of energy the school facilities board arizona schools as you all know being board members are are usually drastically underfunded there's always budget concerns and most importantly districts have a hard time passing bonds so performance contracts are a way to utilize your existing uh budget of utility cost and if you think about your school and then there's these dollar bills escaping out of the school from inefficiencies whether that be lighting hvac controls all of that money escapes out we simply grab that money and then redirect it back into capital infrastructure so if you look at the graph here i think this is the best explanation of how a performance contract works um the utility costs column there on the left hand side then the energy project comes into play where there's the debt service that's paying for the actual upgrades themselves your utility costs drop there's additional savings above that and then after the project the savings is all there the entire amount it's still the same amount of money um and so that's that is why districts have uh have utilized these so much is to utilize their existing uh budgets um and redirect that back into capital needs so um a lot of times we call them self-funded capital improvements um but the best thing about these is its capital upgrades without increasing taxes uh and so that's why i do like the explanation i love this graph because when i first said no the nine years ago said hey it's not saving enough because it's paying i'm not putting a lot of money back into mno over the 12 years or 11 years that we're looking at that project and that and so i just said no but the goal wasn't to save mno during those 11 years it's to upgrade equipment that's 18 19 20 years old for no cost and so the savings is not instead of paying aps we're going to pay paying a financing institution for these so and then there's other uh uh soft costs that are also beneficial to the district which uh i know bob and his team are looking forward to led lights um have a warranty of 10 years seven years yeah ten years ten years and so if one fails uh they don't fail as often we don't have to change lights as often we get cases um from the warranty and if it does we don't have to buy a light bulb for the next 10 years we like that it allows them to redirect their time to do other things we'll move on to the yeah thank you um last thing i'll say on performance contracting the biggest thing for the statute is guaranteed energy savings so if we say we're going to save dicer to million dollars and next year we come in at 900 grand by state statute i would have to owe you a check for a hundred grand so we've been in business for over 35 years we've wrote two checks so it's not i'm not saying it hasn't happened but the risk is on us to make sure that the savings are there uh this is uh mid-state energy's ego slide this is how great we are so i won't spend too much time on this uh we're the largest company here in arizona we're a home-grown company we've helped school district achieve actually it's up to almost 400 million now we have three offices in arizona and we employ uh now it's at over 300 people actually some of them live right here in your school district we've worked from flagstaff to nogales to santa cruz the glendale union glendale al over over 68 districts that participated in our energy performance contracts i think well i don't want to keep talking to continue i was going to share some stories but let's just go on what are we doing yeah so ken mentioned leds this is a big part this is kind of a low-hanging fruit item i'm sure if you walk the the aisles of home depot or lowe's you'll see a lot of things about led lighting this has a great payback and most importantly this is where we really see an enhanced learning environment making sure that all the light levels at the desks are the same um 10-year warranty the actual hour rated it is actually over 75 000 hours which is over 30 years we get really positive feedback on our lighting as it has an impact in the classroom we hear a lot of great feedback in special needs classrooms where fluorescent lighting has a tend to pulsate and led lights really can help calm the environment and make for a better learning and better learning space in special needs areas kind of anything to add on leds nope they have a great return their roi is very good uh next thing um this is really a major capital infrastructure need of the district uh and that's the south central plant or by uh dysert high school uh this this is part of our project we're looking at a complete upgrade of the pumps the chillers the associated piping the control system this is really aging hvac equipment this is a this is a definitely a need for the school district and as part of our project we're going to be looking to to completely revamp what they call this central plant anything there ken the next thing is building automation or demand management um you may have heard the term smart buildings uh this is where hvac controls really come into play demand is really a topic of conversation uh with utilities right now um if you um mr croto there's got you know two cans two cans of coke there if he decides to chug the one on the left and then sip the one on the right the one on the left that he decides to chug i won't make him chug it but uh the one on the left could be you know would be five dollars and the one on the right that he decides to sip is only 50 cents that's my best explanation for demand but how you use your buildings is so important now it's not just about kwh savings or reduction it's actually how you're utilizing your energy and they the utilities company call that demand this is also an area where we're going to aid in your covid response uh mr hicks talked in the beginning of of the board meeting about fresh air and controlling that space if there is a cobia 19 case we can implement negative pressure strategies we can bring in necessary fresh air all of that has to do with smart building controls and so it allows district and the district facility to really help aid the building operations also your space is really changing right now and this is going to allow you to save additional money if you don't have to operate heat and cool and turn the lights on if there aren't teachers there and so this is really going to allow for some additional savings we first implemented this ken if you want to talk about maybe our case study that we did i was just going to share we have done this at surprise elementary and for the last year we've saved over 40 percent on their utility bills now it does create some confusion because we do have solar and so um what we have done looking through and we've uh created a connection with our automation demand management we connect it to yahoo weather so it looks at the what's the weather going to be in the next six hours and it makes automatic adjustments to control that we also super cool the buildings during the day so when we hear complaints that we're wasting electricity because it's during the day we're not we're using the free electricity that we're going to pay for no matter what which is solar we supercool it the block holds the temperature in longer and then we're able to shut the air off sooner so that we save money where we're going to pay money with aps and it has been extremely successful that we've saved over 40 uh on the year and so it's been a we're looking to expand that district-wide with this program great so this is uh uh final benefits really as ken mentioned it's utilizing utility savings to pay for capital improvements making this a budget neutral decision corrects a lot of building deficiencies and improves the student environment our main goal here is is bringing in some safer comfort and energy efficiencies um we're looking at a rebate from directly from aps of upwards of four hundred thousand dollars of free money that's coming from the utility uh so we're really excited about that we do offer ongoing energy sustainability training where we can help work with your building some of the culture we do a solar car race a wind farm exhibit where we can bring in some of the energy and sustainability into the classroom so we definitely will be working with the dysart staff on that standardizing equipment um as i mentioned aiding in some cobia 19 procedures and then the most important thing of why these work and how they work is that the savings are guaranteed and so yeah the total cost so this is a big project we're doing something at every single school at every single site whether it's leds or i think all but two of our sites i think two of them already have it uh ems our energy management system the demand peak management to adjust and manage that uh and then that central plan at dysart high school so which is a very big here's the utility rebate our estimated payment in annual savings and the payment financing and i'll go through the next steps as we get to that so as i've gotten a text already from mr gill about hearing and some choppiness online and it's been corrected our next steps we have already engaged an attorney to help create all of our documentation resolutions and forms needed financing is we actually will go out to the open market so we're hiring stifle to be a placement agent so they will put we'll we've already worked on some term sheets and the background to be able to go out to the market and collect uh bids essentially uh in the capital marketplace um that allows us then to place the money uh into an escrow account as we do the construction we'll make payments of that and then we pay the lending institution that did that it is actually a really good time right now to be going out the rates are very low and it's almost every two weeks when i'm talking to mr lumberg it goes down another 10 basis points in that sense so it is continuing to improve our financial situation and our savings guarantee is getting that much easier to reach so the financing as i just mentioned the walk through this really quickly that is part of what all the agreements and there is attached to this agenda item exhibit a which lists what is being done at every single school so that uh people in our community will be able to see what's all being done uh construction uh will be done over the next 10 months 10 to 12 months to be completed and then we'll start seeing the savings and start making the payments back on that um everything's been uh we're doing it in with our attorneys to make sure they're okay with everything to make sure we're following all the laws and making it sure that it's appropriate and so um just a little background how long we've been working on this it did require part of it i don't think we mentioned was the investment grade audit so mid-state had to come out for about three or four months and just inventory and audit wearing what we are how many lights we have how many light bulbs what systems do we have look at all of our bills for the last year to create the baseline and so the benefit is looking at this obviously we could do a lot more to conserve more and more but he has to give a performance guarantee that he's guaranteed to save it so the more things we throw in that don't have a quick roi like in led lighting the harder it is so sometimes we'll look and say you know that's not we're going to get the savings for that we can't do it because we have to guarantee it so there are some things that we move out of it but the benefit is is that this is not going it's not going to the bond a bond committee it's not going to be reviewed we're going to make all these capital improvements with the savings that we're going to be getting from these capital improvements and hopefully we've answered all your questions i didn't time it but i think that was a pretty good one we're going to have to invite the enforcer to be at all of your presentations so then they put that quickly so that you're always looking over your shoulder definitely appreciate that now i i love i love what you're doing the fact that we can you know see see these improvements and fund the equipment and make it a win-win is is amazing and i appreciate you guys and especially your company and for the oversight and just the vision that you have for for looking at this and making it something that that we as dysart can utilize i think it's an amazing program and and i like people that put their you know their neck on the line and and uh definitely can appreciate the guarantee and and how you have to walk the line as well so i appreciate that partnership that's very important for us any questions or discussions on this one i did have one question um as one of those folks that can't quite stand the fluorescent um any of it any offices that i have had um i've had them turn the lights off or dis disconnect they're very hard on my eyes so i greatly appreciate that but one of the things that you had said nine years ago it just wasn't good for you and i think it was at peoria right i was a little i was that little to that okay um what changed what specifically changed your mind from nine years ago to now i know that and i've read the presentation and everything but there had to be something specific that changed your mind from then to now yeah no mr president members of the board it was uh i looked at it as the total cost over a 10-year period and the total savings were almost exact and so there was no i i was looking at it as why would i do this i'm not saving that mno money i don't want to go through all this maybe i'll save a little bit in year 11 when it's all paid off but i have to wait 11 years for the savings and to me that was looking uh i i just was one of the ones looking at it wrong at the time you can get all your equipment upgraded it might not it's going to provide a little bit of savings on a annual basis but not a ton considering the size of the project but we upgrade all of our equipment at no cost and so i was looking at it why don't i save more money just net dollars when really i'm getting free upgrades to all of our capital equipment uh through the savings so i believe i looked at it wrong as well and i'll be honest i think we could actually save even more money and we've talked um we we least purchase our solar are we third party purchaser of our solar right now when i look at how much we pay and what the pbis are we could save more money on solar and so that might be something that would be coming down the pike in the next six months now all of our schools have the solar almost all of them but we don't own any of that and so but i thought all of them two sides two sides yeah okay okay all right thank you you're welcome i just wanted to add um you kind of touched on it mr hicks but rather quickly and i want to back up because we talk about fiscal responsibility and how that's a priority of dice arts i mean looking at the fact that i and i can't quote the year but i know there's a time or maybe it's ongoing that chillers for some school would be diced for high school or whatever it always shows up on our bond like there's always an issue with like for chillers the fact that you know you have found an innovative way or thought rethought you know another option without going to the taxpayers i really appreciate that i would just like to commend you for um working with our means and finding this option that once we had to go out and ask through a bond not not that there aren't you know still things out there but this is a big one and i just really appreciate the fact that you have um presented this as an option as as you're saying it's gonna it's gonna save us a lot so thank you for thinking outside the box that way too you're welcome we've actually uh from the last bond that failed we've taken a lot of things and said where else can we get funding for these and we've sent letters to the sfb you've seen our sfb building renewals go up as we're looking at every direction and this is one of the directions to find to get those capital improvements without having to go to our taxpayers well and as a board member i appreciate you but as a taxpayer in this community as well i appreciate that that you do that for us so thank you anything else um i i'm you know i'm just scanning through the contract here and all the information but if we were to expand um and add a school like say four or five years from now will this agreement cover those schools as well um mr president members of the board no so this is only the capital upgrades that we're doing with these construction that we will save the money and so what we would do is well first of all a lot of these are older so they're they're it's the timeliness new construction we'd incorporate to make sure we have demand management and other requests when we put it in a lot of these that we put in 20 years ago do not have those systems in place right now i understand i know the cost would obviously alter as we as we expand or grow but um i guess what i'm saying is it would it be an automatic thing that we would use this process for those schools or we need to revisit as we add yeah i think go ahead yeah um mr mr president um and uh i'm sorry i couldn't see your last name but uh to answer your question yeah so the one thing that this is doing is standardization of products and materials and so so there's not 20 different types of light bulbs across the district right it's your one there's one style so we do see that new construction or updated construction we want to use those standardized processes we're on phase 6 7 8 9 10 with a lot of different districts throughout throughout arizona so we have come back we weren't doing leds five six years ago but we were still doing these contracts so now if there's more opportunities for savings we would come back talk to mr hicks and his team to say hey these are some other additional opportunities so i hope that helps answer your question okay thank you yes um this dense word did he answer your question because i okay i thought you were saying as if we or when we at our new high school um were that was that covered under that's what i thought that you were asking yeah i thought that's what he said okay yes all right okay sorry maybe i will say okay okay thank you thank you awesome thank you any other questions all right i'll make a motion to approve the resolution to authorize the expenditure and delivery of the installation agreement a tax-exempt equipment lease purchase agreement an escrow agreement related documents and authorize the assistant superintendent of business services to approve and execute the agreement and any affiliated documents motion made by jay leonard seconded by chris christie christie pritchard thank you let's go ahead and vote and we pass thank you very much appreciate the presentation let's go ahead and move on to action discussion ifor the governing board resolution to honor in honor of the dysart unified school district centennial dr kellis thank you mr president members of the board and members of cabinet it's not very often that um i personally would recommend a resolution to the board nor is it typical for the dysart board over the history in recent years to adopt resolutions but this is a big deal um as we celebrate our 100th anniversary and well it only comes around 100 years and so we want to break tradition and request that the board approve this resolution and if the board would indulge me i would like to read the resolution that's unified school district resolution in honor of the dicer unified school district centennial whereas for 100 years the dicer unified school district has been a valuable asset to the northwest valley by providing an extraordinary education to preschool through high school students and whereas nathaniel martin dicert first established dysert public schools by donating land and convening a governing board on july 1920 as a one-room schoolhouse with one teacher and whereas in its early years dysert district served elementary students until 1962 when it opened its first high school dicert high school to accommodate growth and whereas the dysart unified school district was officially established as a consolidated k-12 system in 1977 and in 2001 hyper growth created an influx of residents which greatly increased the demand for new schools the district has since grown to serving over 24 000 preschool through high school students at 20 k-8 schools and four high schools a preschool and one alternative program and whereas die search schools offer a quality competitive education to the community has 17 schools with an a or b rating from the arizona state board of education and have had eight schools designated as a plus schools of excellence by the original arizona education foundation over the past 10 years and whereas the dye cert unified school district offers abundant choices and innovative programs to the community attracting jobs and economic opportunities for the northwest valley and whereas dysart plays a key role in training for the future workforce of our community by offering award-winning career and technical education programs signature programs and college prep and testing opportunities and whereas dicer unified school district will commemorate its centennial with special events and activities during the 2020 2021 school year and now therefore the geister unified school district governing board reaffirms our desire to continue to provide a quality competitive education to future generations within the dysart community we hereby recognize july 22 2020 as the start of the 100th anniversary year of the dysart unified school district and invite our students parents staff and community to participate in activities and events to commemorate the dysart unified school district's centennial year and with that administration request that the board approve this resolution thank you and thank you for reading that that's an amazing document any discussion i need to celebrate yeah what kind of events are we doing mr president miss tanner um we plan on having a host of virtual events [Laughter] i'll virtually be excited then i'll make the motion to approve and adopt the resolution in honor of the dysart unified school district centennial second motion made by jay leonard seconded by jen tanner let's go ahead and vote and it passes unanimously thank you i'm excited about that thank you so much for putting it together let's go ahead and move on to action item j1 request for future agenda items anybody going once going twice all right we'll go ahead and move on to action item k1 motion for the adjournment of the meeting and i will make the motion to adjourn second motion made by jay leonard seconded by tracy for our seat belt oh sorry don densmore motion passes will adjourn thank you everybody it's great seeing you
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so a primary contact yes into school has been a known contact has not developed symptoms then secondary contacts of that child should not have to self-isolate there's no indication for isolation of a contact so you're saying that child should not come to school but the rest of the people who were in contact with that child should be fine so i don't i don't feel that that's completely spelled out here that if a child or a school employee has a primary exposure to the virus but are not yet infected they should stay home that's correct i think that needs to be explicit it's spelled out by the c uh on their coronavirus website [Music] what it says is if they're sick they shouldn't come to school and that the parents should monitor the student themselves but i think in terms of them having a primary contact right with somebody who has the virus we ought to say you shouldn't be coming to school and we ought to say for teachers who may or other staff who may have had a primary contact you shouldn't be coming to school that's correct i just john i've read it through i don't recall that being that it wasn't we'll go dig in on that make sure that's in there yeah already yep dr ferrara yeah no so i agree 100 with what dr sullivan said and i think um we should call that out explicitly in the playbook because it will make it clearer for the parents thank you good one debbie tough questions i have something like go ahead uh some instructional questions um how are we you know cohorting dance level we talked you know we talked about special ed and uh el students things like that how we cohorting the advanced level classes such as math or in language spanish and french or especially uh students who are taking advanced math and a language so uh gene do you want to take that or do you okay can you hear me yes we can alright good so at the middle school level what we're going to do is we are going to have cohorts in each by each team and then within that team we're going to have sub cohorts of students that would be able to move maybe we'd move half the class that would go to either an advanced math class and the only other class that would happen for is students that take french but other than that we would not have students um so again they would be within their cohort but we would have two a few sub cohorts within that cohort to be able to continue to offer advanced um math classes and also uh french class hope that answers your question yes thank you i had one other instructional question um maureen maybe you can speak to this so i think what was left in everybody's minds as far as parents goes to was how we left in the spring so um to make it a little more clear more clearer than what the presentation um provided us was how how is instruction going to look differently now as opposed to the spring so are you talking how's instructional look compared to before we had um the the virus like what's the difference in the instructional model in the classroom is that the question so it i guess well i guess i should rephrase this so if we had to go to full remote learning or even you know or the hybrid model how is that going to look differently than our full remote learning in the spring well it the full remote learning in the spring we went to asynchronous um because we we didn't have time to do any deeper training than you know we're we only had three days we will we heard loudly and clearly from um particularly the high school students and the middle school students and um from some parents in the elementary school and there's going to be people who feel differently about this but in general that there was a need for synchronous instruction so whereas in the spring there was there were um curriculum plans week by week for the elementary students that were posted online and then as you um you would go into your google classroom and you would have be able to avail yourself of video lessons you know recorded lessons by the teacher etc and um kind of it was you could do it at any time that's not going to be the model that we have it was um we did that for reasons of one training and reasons of trying to be uh make things convenient for people who were thrown into this that's not that's not what's what's best for kids and what's interesting is that not only are students in k-12 the middle school in high school particularly telling us this but colleges did um surveys with their students and found the same thing that the students don't like did not like the asynchronous compo approach they wanted contact with their teachers they wanted contact with their classmates that's what we heard so that will be the major difference it will be synchronous so school will start you know at a certain time and there will be your morning as a for elementary let's say morning meeting and the schedule will you know be clearly defined there will be breaks there will be lunch obviously they'll be eating lunch on their own at home um it won't be it won't be like i said earlier sitting in front of a computer for six and a half hours there will be a variety of things but it will be it'll will be synchronous and um the uh the high school you know will be synchronous as well um i don't know if there's any other specific i know i'm talking in generalities if there's anything really specific about that um it no i think that's very clear i think um really defining synchronous for the community and make sure um but you explain that clearly enough i i hope that that's more clear to the community and parents thanks for that question uh mr belden i have a related question actually i have lots of questions but i'll take a moment to find and let other people have shots um so when we were describing the go back to at a hundred percent there was a there was a little bit of a reference to some children may not be at school right what is the situation when we're in the hundred percent in school mode right i i can understand the synchronous when we're when that's a hundred percent remote learning my question is about the situation where there's a hundred word where have kids in school and there's somebody who needs to be remote how does that look synchronous i mean what does it look like in the classroom do we expect a lot of that and how would a teacher manage both kids in front of them and some and a child who's remote so the what we're what we're thinking and what other schools are thinking is that if so if i'm in the classroom find the teacher and i have 16 kids that are in front of me spaced out in those desks and four kids at home those four kids are going to be um i i'm going to be in zoom now this gets into what john was talking about with technology that's where i'm going okay so so in the model that we have with uh for technology they would be on zoom they would not be able to see everything that was going on in the classroom okay because that with the technology that we currently have that's not possible um and but we would be doing what i talked to about before breakout rooms so won't we kids can't go over the kids that are in the classroom can't go over to a center or come to a teacher's small table for small group instruction but we can do breakout rooms in zoom where you know the teacher can give an assignment of what the majority of the students should be doing it might not all be the same work because they may be at um you know working on different problems but now i'm going to take i'm going to take debbie bob mike and joy into a breakout room to because we're going to do a small reading group or a small math group or whatever the instruction is and john burrell's mother won't have him come to school for whatever personal reasons he's also in your group and now we're in a breakout room and because you're all you all have your your chromebooks on your on your desk in the classroom and john has his chromebook at home you're all going to be in this room together where you can see me i can see the five of you and i'm working with you together so that's so that would be what would be happening if john burrell was at home and the rest of us were all including i was worried about was the senate you know i know we're sitting here working on a meeting we're focused on the computer screen right we're looking at each other we're looking at the camera on our computer and you can't be doing that and then teaching 16 people who are there in person to use your example because your eyes just don't work that way and i i'm just trying to picture the how it works for a teacher in that environment it's highly challenging mixed classroom i mean i could picture a world where if there was a camera and a tripod in the back of the room and they had good video quality that's the 400 000 option that's the 400 000 there you go you just made our case thank you very much mister that's an expensive option so and i'm just the curriculum management the the managing children who are remote the mix of students and i can't i don't even have a sense it is a large number we're expecting or a small number well on our s or our survey i think it was 18 john yeah yeah i think it was 19 18 across across the whole district and god you finished what i wanted to go back to bob was um so in a classroom as it is um when a teacher is um up in the front of the the room at like a small table with four five six kids believe me he or she has dialed into those kids and other kids are wherever they are in the room doing whatever it is they've been assigned to do um it's um so it'll it'll definitely be a culture shift um for being on the computer but they're not the kids for them for the majority of the time when they're in a um a room uh a breakout room wouldn't be in this brady bunch um kind of configuration that we're in now because the teacher would be you know using um online manipulatives and and doing you know doing things that kids would be doing it on their computers and the teacher could could see when they share their screen so i could say oh okay johnny share your screen and because we teach them how to do that and he would share a screen and i say oh i think you need to move the green one you know you know be giving instruction and then you could see what he was doing on this on the screen so it definitely is going to be different but it can be doable and that's why we need to have the the pd time because teachers will be uncomfortable you know it's something that they haven't done before the kids are usually a lot better at it than we are it'll it'll be it'll definitely be different but um and i just want to thought that thought that i just had about the kids are much better at it i've talked to a bunch of people in um in different meetings that i've been to and seen actually videos of it and there was something on wtnh tv the other night a summer camp with kids outside the other day when it was you know like 90 something degrees they had their masks on they were running around in this camp having a grand old time and the only people that were touching their face masks and pulling them down were the adults the kids were just you know they were great so i think um i think we have a lot of um a lot of challenges but if we remain positive we will we will get through this and we'll we'll support the teachers it's just going to be different but the other side of the coin is that all of this technology that kids are learning is in the in the end gonna serve them well because we're looking at we're looking at a real paradigm shift in how colleges and businesses and everything else is going to be operating and so they're going to be developing usable skills while we're teaching them the curriculum yeah i understand i just uh i i'm actually with my question was more oriented not as much about the kids as the teacher's ability to manage that environment yeah i think it's challenging i will say we're not there yet because we don't have the numbers and the data and the information from staff or families but should we um when you ask about percentages should we get a large number of students and um that are whose parents are going to choose to stay them keep them home for whatever reason and we have clusters this is why we need to get this information in the next very next few weeks and we have clusters of kids in a grade and we have maybe a faculty member who has a medical reason why they can't come back to work for some reason we may and i'm i don't want anybody to misinterpret that i'm saying this is going to happen but should the numbers work out then we start have to start thinking differently and we may have to assign a faculty member to be 100 remote right second grade yeah now we have to explore that a little bit more to see is that the best thing for kids to be in a 100 remote environment with kids who are 100 remote or is it better for children who are remote to be interacting with children in the classroom and you know we still may have a class of remote kids but then we have to find opportunities for them to engage with kids that are in school through you know other ways so we really need to be very interesting i don't want to i don't want to dwell on it i'll be really interested in hearing more about this as you develop it i just it's uh to me it's a fascinating part of what we have to do but we we should we i hope you asked um uh mr conklin about those cameras okay i'm gonna hold my up i'm gonna hold my other major questions and give someone else a chance um so i just want to jump in with a couple of um questions so i understand educationally the idea of kindergarten doing the initial half days that makes sense to me but i'm wondering about from a health perspective does it make sense to have 10 kids in the morning and then switch 10 kids in the afternoon because i know we're trying to not mix them so much would it make more sense to have them go full days like monday and tuesday and then the other kids go thursday or friday that would be a that would be a hybrid model and we have to have a hundred percent back a hundred percent of the time and kindergarten doesn't have a prescribed number of hours like um other grades do i know but are you were are you did you discuss sort of the health impact uh implications of having those kids mixed is that something you discussed yeah and and maybe a cleaning or something in between yeah yeah and so i'm gonna turn it over to mary rose because she's been working with her team um and you know coming up with these ideas that are developmentally appropriate to transition our kindergarten students so please we just actually met with kindergarten this morning as kindergarten teachers to talk about what this is going to look like um and we you know even though they'll only be 10 students in the classroom there will still be 20 desks set up they'll still have their own space um so it was they wouldn't be sharing materials and it would still be as if there were 20 kids there to interact with and that kind of thing so we did take that consideration i will also be looking at because it'll be modeled after our pre-k program as well so we've already spoken with our custodians we're going to need to have that mid-day cleaning we've talked about one of the things that was in the proposal that um in terms of budgeting were the uv sanitizers so any material that would be used again this would be pre-k kindergarten um midday would be we would need to use the sanitizers for to kind of clean it all up and be ready for the next group to come in so we couldn't have them back-to-back necessarily that's why we for that break in the middle of the day to make sure we had that opportunity okay great so i just yeah i just want to make sure that was part of the conversation and then i just had another question i was thinking about the high school when you said that the for example like the social studies classes are small so we're not gonna be able to you know have as many kids did you think about maybe just if uh moving where the classrooms are so if the spanish classrooms are bigger should social studies classes go in the spanish classroom so i just wanted to know if that was part of the conversation um instead of thinking well these are today's classrooms we'll let mark take that over but we've looked at yeah certainly so you know obviously not all the social studies classrooms are that small there's some that are i think one of the bigger issues with the social studies classrooms is that our classes is that we often double up in senior year because students have to take american government as in addition to other classes so that's one of the only subjects that core subjects they double up in you don't often see it everywhere at least it's not a requirement everywhere so that's why we see some of the bigger numbers in terms of what we can or can't fit in um you know the other piece would be you know we certainly looked at different options and i'm not done tweaking those um you know i look at them seemingly every like you know we all do at three in the morning four in the morning uh come up with different ideas and plans to see what we can do to to make it work um you know we we have to be careful i'm not careful but i think you know cohorting is always going to be an issue at the high school level uh in terms of what we're able to do um you know we're not like the elementary the middle schools where we can keep those kids a little closer together and keep them the same with the different uh subjects and options and combinations and permutations of what courses kids can take and we're really trying not to limit them uh we're trying to limit the number of of different rooms that kids are in throughout the course of the day or maybe teachers um you know certainly you know with off periods we might be able to put a bigger class in that room um you know but i'm looking at you know in terms of what we would need to do to run there's probably like six different extra sections to make sure it would fit so i might be able to find a different room to rotate people through you know our us history classes are some of the biggest that we have um but there's a lot of different options we're looking at jen to see if we can rotate through different rooms i'm not stuck to the idea of you know well room 233 was mine and that's all i'm ever going to teach him you know i know sometimes we all feel that way and we have ownership of those spaces um but absolutely we're lucky in the high school that we have at least one room per teacher um but this is one of those situations where we'll we'll certainly weigh in and talk to dr ferreira and dr sullivan and and just get their perspective as well um you know if we need to switch different periods or i just move people there permanently so we'll look at all those options great and you know one of the things i was thinking about because you have the block schedule at the high school that's that's much better because kids are only transitioning what three times or so maybe four times a day wearing a more traditional high school model you could have eight times a day and that's problematic so we've already had that in our favor yeah we do absolutely it's going to be you know we're trying to limit those transitions obviously as much as possible and have another conversation with dr ruby today you know in terms of the ilt which the board was awesome to to talk about putting that intervention uh individualized learning time into the schedule um that also creates a bunch of sub cohorts throughout so we might we're we're looking at can we do that differently do we have to just put that on hold depending on what model we're in um but yeah you're right jen having you know three or four transitions throughout the day is much better than having eight so mark what that was my second one of my second questions is you know i've i've been in that high school when uh when we're going through a class transition it's a it's a sea of humanity um what are you thinking about in terms of how well at the high school because high school is different than elementary because of the transitions and the fact that kids are changing classrooms and but more importantly they're at an age where there's more risk right than the younger ages what are you thinking about in terms of how you manage those transitions yes so it's it's it's it's a real challenge bob you're absolutely right it's it's quite the the sea of uh of of kids as you transition between you look at uh our enrollment this year will probably be somewhere close to 915 i think we're at right now pretty close to which is a significant jump from last year because the incoming uh incoming ninth grade class is relatively big um so we're looking at things like you know what hallways can we make one way sort of kind of like you would see in you know the grocery store things like that um you know what can we realistically depending on weather and you'll hear a lot of people talk about you know utilizing open and outdoor spaces um you know i was at danbury high school one of my first teaching jobs and one of the things the kids did for a while during construction was they transitioned outside they walked from an outside door so you know thinking about where we are in school counseling in the front of the building is it safe we need to make sure we staff security there to make sure that nobody's getting you know from the perspective of the outside but we may look to come down that social studies wing bob where school counseling is and maybe those kids are coming out that door and people are coming around so we're we're going to look at a lot of different ways i think the reality for all of us whether it's you know transitioning between classes or class arrival or lunch we're going to have that transition time for all those different things parent drop-off is going to have a significant impact on what on instructional time we're lucky at the high school because we have longer periods already so while it's not ideal um we're not looking at we're trying to figure out how to transition with only 45 minute periods of instruction you know we're at 80 80 minutes of instruction you know so it maybe i might have dismissed sections of the building at certain times but even when i do that the challenge is kids are going to different classes so they could be standing and huddling and so in order to keep traffic flowing and moving it likely is going to be some version of utilizing outside spaces and making one-way hallways is what what the plan is at this point stairwells cafeteria exits have you ever been to lunch it's been a little a little busy at lunch you know we'll make an exit and exit out and of course adhere to all fire codes as well so we've got maps and we're looking at different places and different ways we can make that happen to be the most effective yeah i just i i remember watching some of it the stairwells in particular right having those one way by themselves will help you so yeah absolutely mike do you have any uh questions comments yes plenty um uh my mine's gonna be more on the testing uh i i i heard you john that you said that that kids were going to be checked i saw the word random are they going to be randomly temperature checked in the classroom john you're on your journey thanks mike uh no so we we worked with both dr sullivan and dr ferrara on this uh the the there's no mandatory from the dph there's no mandatory temperature check for every single uh the reason they backed away from that is there was way too many false positives and so the plan would be to insure and do wellness checks on students and make sure that families and individuals are doing their wellness check before school because we don't want people coming with a you know 100 degree temperature to school that we will do spot checks random checks we might check bus 13 one day or we might check mrs jones class from another day or a certain lunch table another day so that's some some of the ideas we have that's how we would do random checks to see how people are going okay i'm assuming that's through thermal thermometer no touch thermometers yes part of the order that we uh placed over yes and you touched on the false positives there what is the protocol for a false positive let's say a student does test and actually i should pre uh do this uh what is are the students being tested at school like swabbed at school regularly that that has not happened the only thing would be the temperature check but i'm actually going to ask anna laforgia our nurse coordinator if anna could pop on to help answer dr murphy's question on that about the the false positives well no not really the false possible what does a pot like if we've used the term a lot today if a kid tests positive in school i just don't know what does that what does that mean well the temperature was off so anna go go ahead anna okay so basically it's not we're not testing for covet the schools are not testing for culvert itself we're doing a health assessment we're just checking for symptoms if the child has a fever then they'll they'll be sent home and any other covet symptoms they will be sent home so we're just doing a health assessment on the child we're checking a temperature we're checking for coughs fever like i said fevers and anything related and when when they're sent home is that marked as they're not coming back for two weeks is this an opportunity to get tested and let's say they're negative do they get to be allowed back in if they have a fever they need to consult with their health care provider they can return to school after 24 hours fever-free without fever-reducing medicine they need to return to school with a doctor's note and or a covered negative test is that i think that should also be in the plan explicitly that is in the plan i don't know the page but i believe that is in the plan i read through it and see that yeah it's in the plan mike but so you know the nurses are putting together um communications um that would be sent via the school's home to the parents that will explain all of those things but it is in the plan um my other like the false positive thing was to the uh the swab test uh i know that a lot of professional athletes are now doing a best of three so let's say the first one is positive then they get tested a total of three times if the two come back negative then they ignore the first positive is that something that's going on or being considered well we don't do any testing so okay i can't speak to you know what i'm talking about after let's say the doctors yeah that's a that's a really tough one right so the the centers for disease control when they looked at um initially releasing folks back to to work or to school they there's two options right there was one based on clinical symptoms and and the durations from the onset of the clinical symptoms and then there was a second recommendation that came back and said you have to have two negative cova tests you know to be able to return to work what we're finding in clinical practice is that's a major challenge so we have studies now that shows there are people who still have positive tests 37 days plus after their initial positive test and the challenge that we have right now is the the science is not there to tell us whether or not this is just you know rna material that's left within the person's nasopharynx or if that is actually still active infection that's in the system so because of that the the recommendation is really not to try and serially test people because you're going to continuously have these these positives and because of that we follow the recommendation the timelines the things that anna just talked about and the clinicians in the communities have been really trained up through the health systems on how to evaluate those patients and then make recommendations for return to work or uh and my other thing with the temperature checks is there gonna be some kind of uh you know parental sign off on how often you can check the child's temperature so i don't think there's there's any so so when you say sign of within us the same day well my question is you're going to randomly you know it's it sounds like it's random what if one kid gets tested like you know 10 times and one kid gets tested once no so i think what we will do with what dr barriel said we'll we'll create something that's completely random right so bus 13 one day you know the next day will be a specific table so i i don't think you're right but that that same kid could that same kid could be at both those things correct so you would just have my questions yeah so anna would and i would probably keep track of that for us within the in the nurse's stations so that we can make sure that we don't test the same kid day after day after day unless obviously that kid suddenly was on the bus yesterday and today they're exhibiting some kind of symptom in which case we would call them out and test some more or less anyone that might fall through the cracks not i mean the kid gets temperature checked but there's no no big deal that i mean but but one kid gets tested once in a week and one kid gets tested seven times i can see a problem so basically before the student gets on the bus the parent or guardian needs to do kind of a spot check you do a temperature check and if they have any other symptoms a cough or nausea that student stays home if they have a fever of 100 degrees or greater to ensure compliance and to be more accurate then we'll do random checks when they come to school okay um and my last question regarding the health is let's say a parent keeps their kid home because they were they looked sick they had a temperature the next day they don't have a temperature is there a log on that as well as far as contact racing well if a child has a fever the parent needs to call their nurse their respective nurse and let them know my child has a fever of 101 today he or she will not be coming to school we will respond and say check with your medical provider and he can return when he's fever-free 24 hours after that without fever-reducing medicine and then again with a note from your healthcare okay i'm good thank you okay sorry may i add something at this point this is ray sullivan i just i just want to add the fact that we are about to enter flu season as well so that there are a lot of considerations with regard to this temperature checking uh currently uh the advice is that you do have a temperature uh you stay home for a period of four hours off of people reducing medications and and free of symptoms you are certainly prepared to return to school that applies both to and to uh um but the big key is that uh there are going to any number of reasons why kids are temperatures from this fall particularly the flu season that we have no idea what kind of thing that's going to bring up well can i just ask one budget related question i think it's wishful thinking on my part but i thought i would try it are there any companies that rent desks or some of this equipment so we wouldn't have to buy them because i'm thinking we would need them for this year but we wouldn't need all those desks the following year um i don't even know if that's that's a service that that is out there again we will continue to explore that jared gary gay and ken have been working diligently on that um i can be honest with you i don't know if they've explained the last one thank you anyone else yeah go ahead bob no now you're on mute okay now i'm your community okay um so john when i read the plan um there was a section of the plan about other people using the school other organizations and things like that as long as they could comply with our guidelines my brain went very differently than i think you would have expected that i don't want anybody else using our school um i want i'd love to build a bubble around our school that it's only our teachers and our students and maybe parents who have to come in for a meeting like a ppe year a ppe with a ppp or something like that um how are we limiting it's a really odd year right so that we would probably limit it more than we would normally how are you going about limiting other organizations being in our facilities great question bob thank you so the one uh there's right now there's there's several organizations that more regularly use our facilities um specifically ed advance typically holds after school child care at huckleberry for students that are in either wisconsin or huckleberry or central school at the maximum about 20 students a day after school for their child care program we've been working with that advanced and that is one area where we don't we're putting our parents out enough so one of the things we've talked about with that advance is that we they adhere to the um office of early childhood and all the guidelines uh similar to what we adhere to and they would bring their cleaning products and so forth so we've had a conversation with them as to how we can um accommodate that program because we want to support our parents with significant work and child care needs um there are two other organizations that i won't mention that we're going to have some conversations with but really one of the things that's very important for everybody to know to start the year and i think i say in the document we talk about the first couple of months or first 12 weeks i forget how we referenced it but we really do to your point bob need to create that bubble and limit access extremely limit access to the building so some other organizations that we have wonderful and long-term relationships with they may need to be patient and hold off because there's so much else going on with just maintaining a safe school environment to try to accommodate any more visitors could be problematic so we're being very um judicious very strong on that i'm gonna get the quote wrong but uh somebody asked lebron james you know how are you dealing with this and how are you dealing with that he says every time somebody asks me it i answer it's 20 20.
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kamatovik he cannot send them electronically so also we are opened up 2021 budget on July 1st and who you are they have closed the year 1820 there is the enemy would team up also explore s work so we are approaching a great amount of supply definitely pretty much filled in the supplies friction it's our hope you get reimbursed but they're telling us we may be in a bigger pipeline that is 75 thank you two versions of the revised age running watch yeah shame on say no came up to the hut it's the same cut for 20 so they said the room in out and the provision with the deck now the final form of eligible to be on around another silly we'll say so we've already we've already gone into what 2021 budget isolated a certain line item present the capture of 429,000 but obviously have some challenges that money we lose important 25 down plus the coded which is increased on facilities budget hopefully be may help get the actual funds three first into 2021 school year but let's go one thing we can't control is 15 application in and this Spreadshirt spreadsheet in so it could be a challenging year well we'll keep everyone home I had it yes though if they were the same as July longest good but we do get those final numbers honking everybody okay what else so before we take a motion to accept the consent agenda I do have one question from the public that's related to virtual learning as I said during my initial presentation we are in the process of putting our what we openly plan together the still waiting for advisement from the governor which is supposed to about this priority regarding whether or not students can have all virtual learning or a hybrid of in-person and virtual zone and I know the public been waiting to hear about what days their kids may or may not be coming to school but they can just bear with us another week by this time next week we should have oil information from the governor and I will be able to post the plans in the public and I think at that time powers will be able to and community members beat through the plan and see exactly how we're asking students to come to school however s next day home there will be a combination of in-person and virtual right now that without the new guidelines that are coming out on the bar that we don't know yet what will it be required to do okay so we motion to accept except the tangle yes that was yes yep yes yes except that's meeting on a to earth Jonathan Gucci and big six and eight Kevin okay just before I ask for a motion to close just a reminder that our next board meeting will be August 26 we will be as the board they are now and we will unless otherwise noted will continue to scream to the poem so what is 26 and then the information regarding income on our website so thanks for everyone for attending stay safe and thank you everyone
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second by mark is there any discussion will the secretary please call the role mrs chu yes mr sismar yes mr hong yes mr zlax this is rhys yes mr simmons yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries our transportation services tonight again as board members we're told at the request of the administration items one through three were deferred from the agenda can i please therefore have a motion for the remaining item which was item number four is there any discussion all those in favor obscene motion carries are there any committee reports information items for the good of the cause for the board anyone wishing to speak have anything to say uh barbara barbara i just wanted to compliment uh our team uh they did a presentation for the new jersey school boards association today and uh we had they spoke about canvas and our team did a wonderful job speaking uh to which wasn't a surprise to the new jersey school boards association and uh they asked east brunswick to speak about our program thank you barbara anyone else um should i give my student report at this time i'm so sorry i didn't see you at first how are you i'm good it's been a long time it's nice to see you guys as well how's your summer going good it's been good uh last week i was actually sick not with anything coveted related but just food poisoning kind of knocked me out for two days so i'm sorry to hear that anyway please we'd love to hear your report yeah uh as i said it's nice to see you guys all um it's around mid-summer now and uh in light of the recent email that everyone received from mr velesky uh i got a little bit of confused texts mainly because people were a little confused about the details of the plan and i mainly told them like this is an uncertain time and i guess it requires flexible plans and um if it kind of ensues some ambiguity then that's just the tight rope that we have to kind of walk across for this for this time so most students are understanding of that and uh most of them look forward to when a more detailed uh response can roll out and they're very patient that's another thing that i want to mention um in terms of students as well most people are starting to go out now a little bit more often i think the stay-at-home fatigue is starting to hit graduation parties are becoming a little bit more populated uh beaches are also being populated it's starting to resemble a little bit like a normal summer but we're still nowhere near as close and um on more serious matter i did want to talk about uh in particular this one instagram account named uh i'll explain it's called racism at ebhs and how it works is uh students anonymously send in experiences detailing uh racism or racist encounters that they've had and of course you need to take this with a little bit of i just like since it's an instagram page there's a very well are very real possibility that some of these stories may be fabricated or completely untrue um but some of them may be experiences and the reason why i wanted to bring this up with you is because uh there's one common trend that i've been seeing which is uh a student has a racist encounter with another student or some some form of discrimination happened against them and then when they report it to their teacher coach or some other form of administration they simply deflect it or ignore it or makes it seem as if it doesn't exist and just tell them to get over it now obviously this isn't applicable to all teachers in administration i'm sure some of them take it very seriously but especially in light of the recent uh i guess race turmoil in this country i think uh one suggestion that i want to make to you guys is to make sure that all the teachers are being very considerate of these struggles and um to at least take them all seriously because that was one thing that as student liaison i thought i could present to you guys um to help solve some of the uh problems that some of the kids have in this school you're done uh yeah i didn't want to talk overview i'm a little hard of hearing thank you thank you thank you for bringing all this to our attention um is there anyone else from the board oh actually um if i may again sorry i just i just remembered um uh i remember i think it was miss ashman who brought it up in the for the good of the public uh about how she was a little disheartened about the preparedness of students when they enter college as a senior in high school myself and a person who has in older sisters graduated college and numerous older friends who are in college right now in both like top 20 colleges and state level colleges mostly east bundwick students are very prepared and more on the side of being over prepared for college education than uh on the lower side and this is mainly due to i guess our advanced mathematics because uh we offer offer classes that aren't normally available to other high schools in new jersey such as calculus bc and uh calc 3 honors so if ms ashman's listening uh i hope that can kind of quell a little bit of your concerns about east brunswick education thank you again anthony you really um very articulate and everything was well thought out and given us a lot of good information thank you for joining us tonight if there are nothing else from the board we do have a need for a closed session the board of education must discuss matters which are not appropriate for discussion in a public meeting i these subjects are as follows those items listed in tonight's agenda the length of the closed session is estimated to be 90 minutes after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene in action will not be taken can i please have a motion to go into closed session though moved nobody would second by mark is there any discussion all those in favor oppose abstain motion carries goodnight everyone stay safe board members please leave this meeting and log into the closed session thank you you
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it's a it's a different animal than we've ever seen before we will operate uniquely and differently and um i think this whole concept uh we have to hunker down um is a important one do you have to approve any use of the district facilities yourself yes that is one of our nations tonight to give the superintendent to ensure that the superintendent has broad authority which arguably i already do in terms of um being the the executive of the district but we can talk about those later in the meeting but we are absolutely um able to preclude folks from uh being in the building we have a use of bill building process and it is up to us to allow people in they have to have i would recommend you not delegate that right that it even you know if you have the authority but you don't now distribute it amongst many people who might do it because you know we use the buildings for a lot of things um and it's there's meetings of town organizations who might want to use the auditorium there's meetings uh there's uh parks and rec there's uh there's there's a girl scouts boy scouts you know whatever um and our facilities are broadly used in community and i as much as i hate it right um it might be the year to say we're just keeping the doors shut yeah exactly and and that there's some conversations going on about that strategic but other than that uh there's other places where folks can meet and so i'm leaning toward where you are at bob final discussion about that there's a process that is holding we have a secretary principal sign off on building use and it works uh with the facility director's office as well and so we're all there we're just closing the doors for the first three months or the first semester or through january one and then that's what we have to do then that's what we're going to do do you mind uh mountain chairman if i ask us another question i'll go ahead all right so a question on airflow management i mean you you mentioned that our air handlers are getting cleaned um there's as i've read a bunch on the on the virus the management of airflow is is a very powerful thing right relative to the spread of this virus and you know i've i've heard of schools who are telling their teachers open their windows open their doors you know take kids outdoors as often as you can um what are we doing about air management more than just cleaning the um cleaning the filters and making sure the units are working are we are we building some uh institutional knowledge and handling of air um in our schools yeah so you know what i'd like to do about we are and we the the uh strategies that you talked about with air flow and getting outside and those kind of walls our hvac maintenance mechanics role the incredible amount of work they do to to make the buildings run in that regard is it's important i talked about this at the school reopening team meeting yesterday it's very easy for pundits and others to in a cavalier fashion say well just open the windows and open the doors and probably go on it assumes pleasant weather number one but the other thing our security issues have not gone away during probing and we remain in a state of lock out all the time or people have to ring the doorbell and we have our sally ports and we have all of our computers so i don't want to give any false things for people about that part of it although all of the outside things that you mentioned are critical um that's why i asked my question the way i did i was about building expertise and thoughtfulness because i can't imagine you we we would want to just arbitrarily pick up the rules right it has to be based on knowledge and thoughtfulness yes and dan could explain how the ac and ventilation systems work with pulling outside air and that kind of thing and also some of the maintenance that's been worked on ongoing this summer so dan and by the way is ken back on in case he needs to speak because i know his power went out he is okay so go ahead dan okay am i on yep i did okay thank you so um so we're addressing the air uh in the buildings on a couple of ways foremost on the original uh prioritizing uh was to get our bathroom exhaust systems back up to 100 operational 24 7 is was the initial requirement for that so uh our mc de grande has done a great job we had we had uh two dozen of our our units were in failure and joe's been working uh diligently we've got the middle school and the two elementary schools back to 100 on bathroom uh maintenance and we're starting tomorrow morning at the high school with that being said a lot of our equipment is relatively low-tech our building management systems that we have are limited to the amount of equipment that they control so if you were to read the guidance documents where they talk about uh turning off economizers and we want to exhaust air bring in uh makeup air they want to eliminate recirculating of the air so that's something that we don't have a lot of control of but our equipment for the most part does not recirculate a tremendous amount one of the things i'm looking for is dr burrell forwarded me this morning that the department of education is hosting a webinar uh waiting for the the date to help us evaluate our system see where we can do the most benefit to the schools with the limited resources that might be out there so our number one goal is to make sure that our equipment is working as close to 100 as it should be and then to follow some of the guys that will get through the department of education is is what they know may work uh better for the district as far as getting that air turned over and exhausting it so a lot of these questions not just on this area but a lot of the questions i hear coming up tonight it's a work in progress and we're going to have to make adjustments as we go we have a target for equipment that we need to rehabilitate and we're making good headway on that so we can report back again and i think you'll hear it as i report to facilities and they come back to you if we see uh broader spectrum work that we could do that would improve it so right now uh it's we're waiting for more information and dan can you just i want to make sure we emphasize the point because it it it rang rang true rang uh very uh interesting with me when you talk about the you know older equipment that we have in our buildings but the lack of sophistication in terms of the recirculation it's actually better with this situation where we pull from the outside more often is that correct let me show you that's correct so we we have a tremendous amount of makeup air in the buildings and uh quite frankly is one of our biggest maintenance concerns as we transition from heating to cooling and cooling to heating systems uh seasons rather because at times you can it can throw some temperature swings into the classrooms but low tech in this case may be our friend uh and then we can look at we we do have an hvac control project coming up for the high school and certainly there'll be a lot more interest in the exhaust aspect of it as well as uh the heating and cooling as we move forward and develop that plan further thank you dad all right thank you dan go ahead mike sorry just one one quick question i have a question for the the nurse uh i'm very interested what's in like a typical school year like how often is a student sent home not not pre-covered how often is a student sent home with a fever like one a day one a week would you say no we sent a lot home during flu season um i would say i just give you statistics for the month of december at one particular school we sent home possibly 15 to 20 kids in a month that's a lot yeah again it all depends on the season right yeah i just was uh you know curious on it seems like we're well trained for this then i mean as far as as the nurses are they've seen this they know how to react to it very well yes we know all the symptoms to look for for covert we know all the symptoms to look for any other um health concern and we just triage as such i want i wanted to circle back to that issue for a minute i guess i don't i guess i'm concerned about why wouldn't we take temperatures when kids are entering the building i mean i go to my dentist and they take my temperature before i go into their office i think measures like that are what have kept the virus at low levels in connecticut and i feel like we're going to be ha we could be having parents who have to get back to work parents who've been out of work for a long time who might say you know what i got to go to work today i'm putting you on the bus and look it happens all the time we know it happens so why wouldn't we so it's it's that's the it's it's a tough one and anna and i talked a lot about this right so so if people want to skirt the system they're going to do that and there's a couple of ways folks can do that so doing a temperature check is going to be helpful but if a parent is smart enough to give the child tylenol or you know ibuprofen before school they're going to present and they're not necessarily going to have a temperature and again it goes back to what we talked about earlier right every kid should be considered infected because there's asymptomatic viral shred so i think following the the protocols doing some random checks right so that parents know we are going to look at this and then secondly making sure that we monitor for kids who show any symptoms during the school day is going to be the key but mass screening is probably not going to help you because you are going to have people who come to school and may not have a fever right they may you may screen them in the morning and they may have a temperature in the afternoon so there's just no no way to do that on a mass scale like that i will tell you in our medical practices for example now we are doing nasal swabs within our offices so previously we send patients to danbury hospital where you had to go through the drive-through right now we're bringing folks in who are symptomatic with cova-type symptoms and we're actually using a nasal swab not a nasopharyngeal swab and the requirements for those patients is social distancing the staff that's working with that individual wears a mask and we obtain the specimen so i feel fairly confident that you know if we follow the the recommendations in the playbook we will be better off than checking temperatures on kids because there are going to be people who will be giving children tylenol and they'll be getting into the school so mask hand hygiene social distancing those are the key things that will keep us safe through this season so my second part of that question is regarding buses because i just don't understand how if you know restaurants and other public buildings are operating at 50 percent capacity even libraries are considering opening by appointment only and we're going through all these measures at the school to buy new desks and put up face shields but then we're saying the buses are going to be full to capacity i don't understand how that's effective my i can tell you from my experience my kids bus is jam-packed jam-packed three in a seat they on days they have to bring their instruments i have to drive because there's no room for the instruments so i feel like we're spending all this money and doing a tremendous amount of very very good work and very necessary work but then putting kids on buses that that there's no way they can be you know one foot apart much less three feet or six feet apart debbie i can say i understand your question because i've asked the same question that's these are the these are the edicts that are coming down from the state you must have a 100 percent model even though to your point restaurants are easing in at 50 even though the governor has said we're not moving to phase three right now we're going to stay in phase two the schools have been mandated to ramp up and be ready to go full capacity and not i get that i get that i'm just talking about the buses can't we look at you know a two-tiered or three-tiered system for buses so they're not filling to capacity they're doing two runs to to pick kids up so well we i mean those are things we can we can talk about but again we start talking about impact on budget and i could actually turn it over to ken you could talk a little bit about that and all-star um some of those those issues there and that's why the state continues to encourage the districts to encourage parents to bring their kids to school and in our first round of parent survey 59 of the parents said they would avail their themselves of the transportation so we certainly wouldn't be we'd be at 50 60 capacity on the buses so we might avoid some of the concerns you just talked about that which i understand and see ken can you jump in a little bit there yeah i think logistically doing multiple tiers for each run you just wouldn't have the time in the day um unless you were able to expand the school day which uh would create problems with the with your teachers and everybody else who has to work during the day and if you were able to do it with the you couldn't even do it with more buses because you know the buses and the drivers just don't exist right now so i think that would be very problematic and i agree completely with your point about uh you know being able to why why are we able to fill up the buses and we have to keep everybody apart everywhere else john i have a question about um sick days and and kids so if a child is is there any sort of leniency that you see coming down from the state in terms of the number of days that a child is allowed to sort of be absent or if they legitimately are sick and not just exposed to somebody directly would they have to do the remote learning could you explain a little bit about sick days well um it seems like there's a couple of questions in there rosa so um the first thing there is um we have a policy that is aligned with with uh state requirements regarding attendance and so further direction will be coming from the state on that which we don't have yet so all the districts are waiting for that um in addition to that i think uh it may it may have been actually from the reopening team joy may have asked me uh over the weekend uh if a child is home sick can they participate in the online opportunity and the answer is of course on that so i think i've answered a couple of your questions there um was there another protocol question rosa about maybe primary and secondary uh exposure i'm not sure what the other part no i was i mean i i kind of understood that if a student was let's say um directly exposed to someone who is positive like within their family they don't themselves have it but they're exposed to somebody who does they would have to stay home and do the remote learning that's pretty clear if they were themselves sick and again kids are going to get sick for reasons probably more frequently than coped but um would they be sort of mandated essentially to engage in remote learning um during that recovery period or is there some sort of leniency in terms of you know the number of days that you know they're essentially allowed to be again a couple of layers there and i appreciate the question so we have in the plan we have um protocols in there that at any point the superintendent has the ability based on uh the fever and so forth to have someone adult or child not be in the building so that we have that authority but the other part of that is if there is a medical note from a doctor then that is an excused absence for the child so that is a normal thing that's different than no medical don't know the parent just has the child not coming to school those two very different situations and again all of the attendance rules and regulations apply um but because of covet in the situation we're in um the state will provide different development for us based on what the statutes are and so forth okay um the other question i had regarding specials i know i saw in the plan that specials would primarily be in the child's classroom and the t the specialist teachers themselves would um cohort perhaps how does that work for library so we are going to work directly with the library media specialists because there are as you know you know deb can talk to us we see her on our videos talking about um you know kids uh getting books and whatnot from the library the books uh we will have a protocol for how books will be returned to the library we're not going to have kids going into the library i can tell you that just taking books off of shelves um i'm envisioning but i i'm not going to make that decision myself the and the library media specialists have to develop a protocol that will work that will function with the school i've been in school systems before nothing to do with covid where when kids were studying a certain content or a theme the librarians are given that ahead of time and they would pull books and those books would be transported to the classroom and then um you know handled in that way we're not going to have classroom libraries either where kids are just going and picking books we're going to be very judicious about how books are given to kids how they're taken back how their how many hours you know there's some 48 hours how there's they're sitting before they get re-shelled getting wiped off but the the nuts and bolts of that have not been um ironed out yet because we we're not making any of the pro making any of the protocols in isolation of the people who are actually the experts in those areas and implementing them but i can tell you that kids will not be going into libraries um procuring their own books off of shelves and you know dropping you know we going back to return them can i say something maureen yes for whisking here i know that uh the screen spoke with even the other um library media specialists and part of it was exactly what maureen was saying was that we would have our online catalog and students would be able to send emails um to be able to say the certain books that they want and we would have like two creators like me at the hospital with um you know delivering um things to rooms we would have people uh delivering books to rooms for students and then also like dr ruby said we would be on that when we get them back we'd have protocols and how long you know we would have them sitting and then obviously wiping things down and making sure they were clean before getting back on the shelves so we i know there's been conversations started i can tell you at the public library we quarantine returned books for 72 hours before they get handled and put back on the shelves so they go and you know they stay in the return bin they go someplace else for 72 hours and then we reshelve them okay and i would say for many of the things that are in the plan you know that's the plan is like an overarching um kind of uh guidance document that just like other people were talking like the cleaning there would be there will be a protocol for the cleaning there will be logs for the cleaning so um documents that support our plan will be created and will be available and related to specials i thought i um had read something about potentially in order to keep the cohorts uh sort of doing one special for longer periods of time is that i just want to make sure i was reading that correctly so they would say have gym for i don't know that whole week and then so i don't know mary rose if you wanna where are you yeah okay the principal's watching she is do you wanna take that sure so we were um again with the the idea being to minimize and keep cohorts together and minimize exposure we were actually thinking of kind of adopting more of a middle school model um with specials in that you know they might students you know if we have 40 weeks in a school year or 177 days divided by five specials you'd have you know you know however many weeks of pe in a row then you'd have spanish then you mean that kind of thing cycling through so that the specialist teachers would not be would only be interacting with four classes at a time as opposed to at setter school as opposed to 18.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so that would you know again minimize the exposure it's not an ideal instructional model for you know of course especially you know for little kids and for um for our special areas but it would um serve the purpose so your uh students would be getting their entire art curriculum um in in a you know a span of six to eight weeks and then would move on to their music you know i mean that kind of thing so i say okay and that would be similar i could just say that would be similar with the middle school we would use we used to do a b schedules you know a day b day um our thought now is going to be where we have um the teacher specific the art school days again minimizing the amount of in and out of speakers and stuff like that again they would be going for the middle school they'd be going into the classroom also right does that help rosa it does thanks joy did you have a question yeah i know each building's gonna look differently but um if each administrator can briefly touch upon the restroom situations so how that's going to look and um you know will they go be going by class together is someone to be stationed is there going to be an adult stationed at each bathroom i i'll start at center i mean that and that's exactly joy what we're thinking about is that we will have um assigned times um you know obviously kids need to go when they need to go especially the little ones so um we typically not um that is our typical practice at the beginning of the year anyway because we are you know we're bringing in 170 new students plus our pre-k that kind of thing so we do typically um station staff outside of bathrooms for the first couple of weeks to help kids you know navigate know where to go that kind of thing so we'll do the same thing this year um and we'll just assign we actually started doing this last year because we found it was much more efficient uh teachers um were scheduling their bathroom breaks um so they were taking their whole class down at the same time you know doing some kind of activity in the in the hallway while kids moved in and out um and it just it actually ended up i think for some teachers being much less disruptive in general than kids just kind of getting up and going whatever um so that is our plan is to schedule bathroom breaks and and have um again staff monitoring at least initially um what's happening in the bathroom so what but that i'm saying as an initial discussion um you know staff will be meeting and i'm sure there'll be some other ideas and that kind of thing that we'll put in place but that's that's our initial plan for the middle school um what we've started to look at was a signing circus we have so many different bathrooms throughout the school obviously the signing cohorts or or rooms to only certain bathrooms and students would know that they you know usually walking down to the gym they can go anywhere you know any of the bathrooms in the way this time obviously it won't be that where they would be assigned so we would have students in certain home rooms in cohort they would be assigned to bathrooms and we would be looking um to be able to have someone monitor we would try the schedule thing but with again with middle school kids if they have to go to the bathroom you know if it's one get out at a time it's a little bit different um but that's something that we've been talking about and figuring out how we can do that along with the mass breaks and things hope that helps yeah and at the high school uh in terms of bathrooms um sad that we have some experience with bathrooms being misused in previous years so uh we've had to actually limit the number of bathrooms that have been open during the course of the day that's something we would do is limit to probably three different sets of bathrooms and then you know do our best to monitor those in terms of kids going in the actual um the bathrooms themselves some have hand dryers those are going to be removed um or at least turned off and replaced with um paper towels so kids can dry their hands uh we'll have a couple different uh ways whether it's we'll talk about how you know realistically there are some bathroom orientations where you might be able to keep a door open and still not see anything in the bathroom that's not the case for every bathroom but in those cases uh where it's not possible um we'll have to keep um you know paper towels and a garbage outside so kids can actually open the door that way and go back and forth um you know it is it's obviously you know from more restrictive at the elementary level all up to the high school kids the the busiest times are going to be during passing time um you know and so we expect that to be there um we're also going to limit the number of kids that are allowed out of the room um for bathroom breaks as well so there isn't a really great way to monitor 900 and uh what is it 17 or 12 kids going to you know at any given time but we're going to do our best and really going to have to limit the number of bathrooms that are open um at any given time and just kind of work through it so um we'll see what happens but that's our plan at this point the next question i have is actually kind of a two-part question um the first part of the it's not really a question but more of like a comment um i see a lot of parents maybe having a little bit of confusion they when they see that the districts have to release three different plans a lot of parents are thinking that those are their choices like they have the option to choose between going to school doing a hybrid plan or going remote so i want to make it clear and please just emphasize or correct me if i'm wrong but parents don't have that choice the state is going to be essentially guiding us in terms of you know right now the plan is to go 100 the state will be making a call according to numbers i assume um if we need to go hybrid and then go full remote if possible right and then the second part of that which kind of relates to that is um is d have you gotten any idea as to what those numbers might have to look like for the state to be making that call i mean are they looking for i don't know a certain number of cases to go up in a day or something like that so the first thing that i'm going to start with that last question and then i saw dr ruby raised her hand so i want to let her jump in and then i'll come back um last week i mentioned thresholds where you might move from 100 you know what tells us in terms of our infection rate hospitalization rate all the different things that the governor is looking at the commissioner looking at to say connecticut looks really good compared to the rest of the country and based on this data we should be able to open up school 100 so that's one aspect of it but moving from 100 down to hybrid or from hybrid to remote those thresholds have not been defined at least as passed down to the superintendents that i am aware of and we've been asking for that i think i shared last week that i had actually emailed the state and said we are still waiting on those thresholds do you have them yet and the email they got back to me right away and say we're continuing to work on them so dr ruby please jump in and then cornelius if you dr ferreira as well you're on mute maureen i see dr sullivan raising his hand too because i think i think the transition um the way i understood it everybody the the uh we got an email a letter from the um commissioner today's wednesday yesterday saying that um hey guys it was very professional but the message was hey guys if you think you're going to do anything other than 100 you are in violation of state law you are doing 100 unless you hear otherwise from us stay tuned so we're 100 the transition to hybrid or remote really involves the director of health and the the local conditions because we could have no spike of any kind in brookfield and we're at a hundred percent old say brook could have 25 people with covid and and teachers and and they have to shut down so the decision um they like john said they haven't really given us any definitive parameters but this decision the data that are going to be used are going to be um kind of overseen by the um the department of health and our medical advisor based on our incidents and i'd like to say before i turn it over to dr sullivan on this one is it's important and we mention it in the document that dr sullivan actually has the authority if data says we need to shut down to override the superintendent so checks and balances and all of this now dr sullivan could you share a little bit about rose's question sure um i hope i'm not speaking out of school but uh as as speak a new subcommittee is being formed in the rules for the rules committee uh and it's composed of uh public health people from yale it's going to be composed of representative dcmc um the children's medical center a couple of uh local health directors um the assistant commissioner of education our commissioner one of our commissioners uh in public health a couple of environmental health people that are going to be looking at this very very difficult situation of transition from one the other we do know that we would go to complete home learning um uh virtual learning if in point of fact we could reach that ten percent moving average that other states are currently seeing and for which they have placed the four uh travel in connecticut uh so going to uh the entire i could say going to full for virtual learning would depend upon that 10 10 percent weekly moving average with regard to positive press here in brookfield we're doing extremely well it appears that we had a very high of positives these i should say and of deaths early on uh but that has moderated considerably we've only had one case since the first of this month so um uh as dr ruby said it's going to depend upon the numbers that we see as to which phase of learning one is going to have to and that remains to be seen but uh you know preparation prevents intimidation and therefore uh putting out three different uh potential plans uh is is a really good idea at this point in time but everything looks good for brookfield at this point and we may get more information from that newly formed subcommittee on education for the rules committee of the state so uh stay tuned so at a high level at a high level decision on moving from everyone in school to 50 to uh fully remote a local decision or a state decision that's that's going to be a local decision okay good with advice that's all i wanted i wanted to make sure it wasn't some broad state average that we would be making decisions here in brookfield no we're just going to be getting recommended numbers from this new subcommittee with regard to at what point you transition from one to the other good thank you so can i just clarify is is the sort of the way to proceed is that assuming we're going back at the 100 level unless we hear something or will there be a definitive date that there's an announcement that on september 8th this is what we're doing so i think that's a great question so um it's a couple of things because it's it's not just the health data factor that goes into this um and you'll see where i'm gonna go in just a second so number one the governor um has stated i believe that by the second week in august he will let us know as a state where we are going again there could be local conditions um i think they'll let us know earlier than that and i'll tell you why last week all of the districts had to submit on the 17th last friday a survey to the state department of education with all of the costs we saw the budget today in our powerpoint with all of the problems for reopening at 100 and so we are all i mean i know relatively original numbers and what our other uh districts are coming up with for their costs to reopen crs is what i propose tonight is in the high 700 thousands if we add the cameras and everything else we get over a million dollars um other districts are in that range or even higher and so that along with can you meet the mitigation strategies of distancing in space and do you have the desks so there's a lot of factors that we are funneling up through the state so it's not just the health data because if we don't have death complaints and we don't have a budget or we get into a local discussion that takes weeks to make a decision to order what we need to order or we don't get all of things then how do we open because we can't maintain the social distancing along with them along with the hand all the other things so there's a lot that's going to go into that and then there would be the reality where we have to let the state know we are just not in a position uh to open even though our health data might be fantastic so that's that's the the real conundrum that we're dealing with so i wanted to just explain bigger context for you there right thank you did you have something dr sullivan to add to that no uh okay thank you i just wanted to say that which phase one is going to be in uh is going to be a local decision and it's going to be based on science we do know as uh that all probability if we do go back to that seven day moving average of ten percent positivity um that will change things that will change things considerably and it will definitely imply that they'll be learning but the middle phase there the hybrid uh we don't have any concrete uh uh numbers either of uh deposits rates or of uh hospitalizations or deaths to indicate when that hybrid would would should kick in but it will be a local decision okay that clarifies things for me um i do have one more question since we spoke so much about student safety i just wanted to touch on the teacher aspect of things so since students are going to be spending so much time as much time as possible in their classrooms and even you know for lunch bringing in monitors things like that are there places where teachers can go to get prep done to eat where they can be distanced as well or how is that part has that been part of the conversation or how is that being handled so i i will i mean i can just speak for for centers so i think and all this i think we've been we have been looking at that um so for instance at center school um our stat our gym excuse me the cafeteria is going to become the staff room um so that there's enough space to be socially distant so i think we're all looking at other you know spaces that we have that we can repurpose for that um again that's at center and then we'll also um our staff room with you know will will be used as our conference room um but we could still two or three teachers could be in there at the same time we just can't have it you know it's just not big enough to have the entire staff in there or you know even a small portion of the staff or lunches that kind of thing so our library will be available as well um you know if we wanted to do some social distancing in there as well so there will be spaces and that has been taken into consideration for staff similar at the middle school um you know assigning teachers if they want to turn their prep you know go to one of those designated areas again whether it's the library the one of our computer labs um that won't be utilized could be a specialist teacher's classroom but what we're thinking of is assigning you know specific rooms so it's not like the teachers are going to go i'm going to go to this room this week or today in another room another day we would have it assigned so that again the whole idea is keeping um you know smaller groups of people in those rooms or together at a time so yeah at the high school it's very similar um you know obviously we are going to be i plan to use our cafeteria so that won't really be an open usable space um we'll be looking at places like the library knowing that those arrangements currently have tables and and group work and things like that won't be possible um we'll always have the staff rooms that have always been in existence we're just looking to add the additional spaces places like the library looking what we can do in the mail room a couple side classrooms you know we're not gonna we'll maximize space certainly um you know some of these rooms that we're in like to mary rose's point you know you might get three people in there right socially distant six feet away from each other where they can um you know the bigger the and open more open the space uh the better um and so well that's our plan at this point it's uh but it really has been you know obviously students have been first and we are also thinking about staff i talked to our staff last friday and talked about you know we're thinking about different ways to help them as well um you know to make sure that they have the appropriate um space and time to get that stuff done but that's we're doing the high school thanks um any other questions go ahead debbie sorry um i just wanted to maybe ask ken with regard to hillyard about sanitizing particularly the bathrooms i saw i think it said the bathrooms would be cleaned twice a day is that correct they're going to be cleaned every day and then disinfected in addition to that disinfectant so you know my i guess my question is when we say twice a day is that two times within the school day or does that mean uh you know once at noon and once when kids after kids go home at the end of the day you know i guess i want a little more clarity on cleaning and sanitizing um because twice a day doesn't seem to really be adequate to me maybe dan can speak to that what the schedule will be sure so um our normal cleaning routine uh prior to this event has been one thing a day uh that includes disinfecting and so as uh we've worked with ken and i have worked together with our hilliard people looking at our our cleaning program to see how to address this and so it's a recommendation uh from the state that we clean bathrooms twice a day so we're looking to have a full cleaning disinfect that will likely happen uh on the evening shift because the bathrooms won't be being used at that time and then during the day the supplemental cleaning uh will be touch points fixtures faucets handles and and touch points uh will be done during the day as as the schedule progresses so we we do understand and looking at that that if if we have a custodian start in the morning that is possible that a bathroom was cleaned uh on the night shift and it's getting cleaned really before there's much use however when it comes to distributing the cleaning load and making sure everything is getting done we also have touch points throughout the building so we're going to stagger that and we're going to try to be as effective with our time management and getting in there as possible but the twice a day debbie specifically uh the numbers the additional custodial staff are looking for is is really based on the twice a day cleaning with those descriptions every bit of our cleaning program has a time stamp addressed to it so we're looking to to make sure that we've got sufficient people and we think a request for six additional custodians addresses touch points second round of bathroom cleanings and cleaning hard surfaces of desks and chairs and classrooms which will be done with much more frequency than it's as previous previously been done okay uh i just have a question about uh some special education students so if we think about more of uh our disabled special education students um who the whole mask uh wearing might be really problematic like what are our thoughts about that and then also students who have a lot of like one-to-one support like whether it be ot or pt or an aba therapist um what are we thinking in terms of those situations good evening jen um we are in the process right now of working um with the state department we had a meeting today and those were um a variety of questions that came up as far as students who cannot wear a mask um or can tolerate a mask and for the teachers as far as ppe and what would be worn if the students did not have a mask and then looking at the lre as far as the inclusion piece for these students and how we would cohort them so we are in the process right now of obviously looking at ieps looking at possibly cohorting um additional ppe for teachers who work with students who cannot wear masks and then we are also waiting for some guidance from the state department as far as um the idea and following the regulations to support inclusion and students who do have that one-on-one adult with them and the part of the social distancing that some of the students don't understand so we are working with the state department on that um as as we speak and making sure that we follow you know idea regs and making sure that we support students in a cohort and follow their ieps does that answer your question jen thank you jaina anyone else with questions i have a question about um if we go to the hybrid schedule of you know two days in school and then everybody doing remote learning and then two days home has there been discussion about cohorting by family so that you know all the kids from a family are going into school or just for remote learning on the same days yes so to be very brief because detail has to go into it the principles are actually have looked um in powerschool and really counted you know a through l a a k really looking at where our 50 devised and and how we would break uh the students up by cohort and the thought is that we would go by family and of course uh blended families that have different last names but our family together and we'd have to figure out to figure that out as well and make accommodations so i saw mary rose really nodding her head like mine as well so was there anything mary rose you wanted to share a little bit about on some of the details no just just that we have really that that's been a big consideration for us in terms of how to cohort what makes the most sense um you know through busing through family so we you know mark has been working i know with um with the power school team to just kind of look and see what that would look like um so that would be k-12 um and that poses other challenges but that really needs to happen before we can do some of the other schedules and classes and all that kind of stuff so big big project thank you okay anyone else [Music] okay so dr brill um you had said that there was going to be um q a sessions next week um do you know when families might expect some more details on that will be broken out by school yes so um we're we are looking to confirm it and i've got some communications this evening you know at the beginning of the meeting that principles are available and uh district team is available so we're going to connect uh tomorrow afternoon and talk about what that could look like and then a communication would be drafted and sent from each principal um talking about what the meeting would look like and the session would look like starting next week we might not get them all in next week but have a an opportunity for parents to meet like this and have a q a uh probably send out a form where parents could uh upon the invitation submit questions they have so we could be as prepared as we can to really give direct uh answers to them and again this falls into the larger picture and dr ruby talked about it earlier is we need to make sure that our parents are as well informed as quickly as possible because we need to get the second parent survey out to know who intends to uh attend in person and who might make choices to stay home with 100 model so we're trying to once once we get through a big meeting and a big night like this and we submit the the plan the work doesn't stop we continue to get ready and and so parents could be expecting a communication uh in the next few days it's great thank you all right without any other questions um we have some motions uh for tonight now that we've taken care of our big action item bob did you sorry i thought i saw your hand go up i'm having trouble with my mute button i'm sorry um are there any questions that came in through uh email from parents i i yeah so there have been i've i've asked um actually a lot of them that was my question is the questions you asked sounded like they might think a lot of them yeah a lot of them did some of them um were i can let me actually let me just um let's see um so one from pascal t there's no last name there but it says uh if classrooms fit 18 to 20 deaths why are kids on a b days and only in school two days a week a typical classroom wouldn't have more more kids than that right um i think we pretty much i think we addressed that question about the hybrid model from kylie dark angelo uh if we have to go to a hybrid model and our kids will be in daycare or in the care of other adults during their remote learning days and not able to access the live zoom classes how will they access the work for the day um so that's actually a good question um you know if they're choosing remote learning that synchronous component is a critical component of it right i mean they're not they're not going to get the list of assignments like they did in the spring um will that be different at the high school level or middle school level well i think i think the question that you know i think that she's going for is so if we're in the hybrid model and um you know my my children are at a daycare facility because they don't they're they're only going to school monday and tuesday but wednesday thursday and friday they're at daycare their ability to engage from a daycare facility or some other place the technology could be challenging i think is what kylie was getting to um in her question um you know certainly things we have to work through and and figure out but i think that was kind of that's my guess is what she was thinking of rosa and at the high school level um you know we're we're a little bit luckier and that students are a little more obviously more mature and able to really keep on schedules and self-regulate themselves so you know but i'm sure it'll be a point of discussion moving forward to find out what's what's the best for everybody but it's uh i agree it's a good question that actually leads me to another question maybe it was brought up before but if somebody is planning on attending school every day and hasn't necessarily chosen the parallel learning model but you know my kid wakes up with a sore throat and i keep them home can they jump on remote learning just for that day and and not fall behind or is it remote learning or 100 in person learning mark you were looking like you wanted to answer do you want to explain that feel free yeah certainly you know so you're absolutely right deb you know if if someone was kept home uh the idea is that these things are going to be um not only broadcast but we also talked about being recorded um because in in terms of to keep kids on pace moving forward we already have a significant amount of time that was lost last year with our response and and we did a great an amazing job to put a band-aid on it but we know we have so much more work to keep moving forward i think reporting lessons or allowing kids to drop in and be a part of that if they're home with something else you know it's unrelated to any flu or covet or any number of different things that could be going on with them they had a migraine that day that had nothing related to if they wanted to be able to you know we're gonna our plan is to make that available so the kids could you know have the link to the class be able to go in securely and watch what's going on from home great thanks um beth wetzel asked a question about the libraries if libraries to be still offered as a special and if so uh is there a plan in place for cleaning books and materials when they're returned um so i feel like that was one of the questions that i had addressed um monique matthews asked if siblings will be on the same schedule if we were go to if we were to go to the hybrid model so that was asked um let's see um there's a question specifically about um the school reopening survey and how many had completed that survey what percentage of parents had actually completed that uh about 1700 uh responses 2 700 kids so if you look at your parents and you figure out your math there it was a very good response and it was about as maureen indicated earlier it was about an 82 81 at the time said they would plan to send your children back 19 said they would not uh at this point send them to school and of the respondents said they would avail themselves of transportation and at what was interesting is that our data were very similar to data from um neighboring school districts and uh actually in uh nationally the the percentages that we were finding were pretty much um you know similar to other schools and other districts and even other states so um i i thought that was pretty interesting it wasn't yeah it it that school districts that are typical to ours it wasn't like you know 60 and 20 and 30 it was pretty much a an 80 20 plus or minus if you first went percentage point split um everywhere you like data and we didn't uh there was no way to break out how many households individual households had actually responded to the survey right because parents answered the survey um leon eric on that one he might be able to tell us that uh if we'd be able to find i don't even know it now but we could break that up the question we did we did not break that that up that way um yeah uh not at all at all what we did was we broke it up by uh by school so we asked parents to submit one for every student and specify this the building that that student goes to okay or actually i'm sorry the student that the the building that the student will be attending um in the upcoming school year that's that's what we asked them to put okay so i would imagine to find that out you would be able to maybe calculate the percentage of emails that you had sent these surveys out to had actually responded right well it was anonymous so yeah but but what was into what i wanted to add for the data nerds was that the data for across the schools was also pretty um evenly just you know dispersed so the the percentages but we when we do the the next survey is not going to be an anonymous we need to know like who you are who your child is etc um that was really to give us to not make people uncomfortable and you know feel like they were com even though we it wasn't a commitment still when you fill out a survey if your name is on it you feel like it's you're going to be held to that so we wanted to get as many people to participate without feeling any pressure to um like it was a commitment so that we could get a dipstick right but to that point rose the next survey uh like maureen said we're going to have to know names of children parents name and there's going to have to be a commitment if someone commits to keeping their child home you know we're working with the principals is that going to be for a marking period a semester because we're developing everything based on those numbers and so we really have to operate in uh good faith and commitment to these uh these figures thanks so those uh those questions were asked by michelle vicaro i'm just going to keep going through here jennifer pink asked will k-12 students be one-to-one with a device if not how will we be disinfecting technology are families expected to purchase technology when will the state be providing the criteria for when and if we have to switch to a teaching model that last question i know we addressed um and yes students k through 12 will be one to one with the device correct yes um i think there's a little bit of a caveat there and i'd like eric to just answer that but between byod uh program uh eight through and the devices we just uh set for order last week we're virtually um one to one but i'll functionally one to one but i'll let eric talk to that yeah you you uh you hit the nail on the head there uh dr burrow with uh with the byod component of this the uh grades eight through twelve one to one program uh will continue as planned as structured um as they have always been um we are uh with with the um support of the board of finance with their um uh um their their vote to allow us to buy the 300 chromebooks um brings us very close um to one to one we also do have to account for replacement as we do every year a portion of the chromebooks do go to not only go to the one-to-one program but do also directly replace uh chromebooks that i mentioned at the meetings um frankly are well beyond their usable life um both in terms of google um not supporting them anymore and in terms of the um duct tape that's falling off of them um so uh you know so we do have to account for some direct replacement um i i did give this number to the board of finance so i'll give it here again um it does put us at close to 2200 chromebooks in the district um not quite our our full one-to-one um however we we do um support and will continue to support uh the byod um i know a good number of families that have responded um that either bought a device during the spring semester uh or um have actually offered to return the chromebook to us because they went out and bought one um i don't have that number to quantify right now we're we are quantifying those numbers and working through that um i feel like that's an important um piece of data to to have going into this uh but between uh one to one byod and our available devices um you know i believe we can get there we need to look at a model that um either limits or eliminates device sharing um for the exact reason um of sanitizing and cleaning it it's one of the reasons why mr renda mentioned earlier that um one of the computer labs will no longer function as a computer lab at least for next year um because we a it's tough to social distance in a in a computer lab with stations so close to each other and then b we'd have to account for um sanitizing and cleaning between classes um so with that we're looking for the more mobile approach um with chromebooks um you know available to students in in every classroom um you know should we enter a model where you know we're doing more in google classroom or you know we're we're doing more assignments in a hybrid model um you know we understand that these devices are going to be used more and more by students every day um so we know so we also need to account for having devices on hand for an immediate repair and replacement um you know we we do not have the ability to tell a student oh this chromebook is broken we'll return it to you in three to five days fixed um it has to be a direct replacement um and my team is working tirelessly on on a plan for that as well as making sure that we have um as many chromebooks as we um can um ready to go for the first day of school and also um fingers crossed hopes and prayers that we see that fedex truck really really soon thank you tara artebani wrote about a home wellness screenings her question was i can rely on myself to scan my child every day but it's very troubling to have to rely on every other parent every single day so can the schools take temperature every day i believe that question was answered by our two physicians that were on the call tonight um tom tottolo wrote did i hear that there was no social distancing on the buses doesn't that defeat the purpose of social distancing and compromise the safety of our children a question that debbie had also asked eileen to tolo wrote how will the high school students handle volunteer hours so that one just came in um yep that's that's a great question um you know right now with uh current with the class graduating class of 2021 they've been required to um acquire 50 hours of community service in term and would be awarded credit for it um that will all be prorated so um you know and to some degree the challenge will be i mean i'd like to say that it was over the course of the first two years you had to get 25 if you're a graduating senior 25 for the first two years then another you know um so many but realistically some kids maybe may have planned on waiting and i have to plan on that until their senior year to earn all their hours and to give them the opportunity so that's something i'll be going back probably to cape and the board of ed um you know to talk about changes in some of our program of studies um and dr ruby alluded to earlier that's not the only thing i might be going back to but um that's certainly one thing that we will be uh be absolutely flexible on and figure out you know what that needs to be because kids can't volunteer in the community or do things like that like they had in the past okay um she also asked what about children that have covid19 but don't have any symptoms um without doctors sullivan and ferrara on the phone um not sure we can answer this one directly right now and i will be getting back to everyone who has written into the board of ed individually but i don't think we can speak to that question dr ruby what about um i don't know if anna wants to chime in on that one yeah i think we'll refer that question to the physicians okay just didn't want to leave you out anna no thank you okay jamie clavin's uh asked we don't live in a brookfield bubble how can we just rely upon brookfield numbers when we're talking about our kids that's also another question that we might want to refer out unless anna please feel free to speak up whenever you um whenever you'd like i will again refer to the physician she also asked how can our kids transfer outside of the building um school shootings are still a real concern um how is this an option and that's why i wanted to bring that up with those outside again it's very easy for people to make statements about leave outdoors open and get the air flowing and walk outside um it's weather dependent and school security dependent so i wanted to make sure we didn't forget about that in the era of covet and so i think we answered that to jamie's point oh dr ruby do you have something it sounded like that question also might be um referencing mark what you were talking about with um passing so yeah in particular i think you know the question is about passing so i'm not i want to be clear i'm not looking to open every door in the building and kids walking multiple spots uh what i talked about in particular was uh for one example was the school counseling in the front of the building um you know opening those doors possibly have kids transitioning there through the front doors if that's going to happen whether it be our school resource officer parked outside and being able to monitor that to make sure that we're um if that's even a doable thing so that's an option it's not necessarily what we're going to do but we have to keep every and all option open while keeping in mind school security and what that what that entails okay um she also made a comment about the surveys um that so many had been filled out multiple responses per child perhaps um or that the husband and wife had both filled out a survey for their kids so there may be some uh duplicate data that we have and that was her comment uh jessica juska wrote do parents have the option to enroll their children in remote learning only if we are going back at 100 percent or do we also have that option if we are going back in the hybrid model well i think the state the state has made it very clear to us that if a parent chooses to keep their child home when we're in the 100 with a 100 model that we would provide as best we can the opportunity to participate um and i imagine they would if they made that commitment for a semester for example through january 15th that they were going to be a at-home learner remote learner then if at some point the 100 model adjusted to hybrid that remote learning child would remain in that remote learning status thank you trina caprone asked four questions uh the first will the desk shields be up all day at each student's desk or only when they're eating i'll let um either dean or mary rose jump in but i think i would start by saying not necessarily all day because of the mask and social distancing it would be for mass breaks and for eating but mary rose do you want to chime in i i think we're going to see what it looks like logistically for the kids because we need to see what the shield for them to put them up at least at the elementary at um at the k-1 level i'm not sure they'll be able to logistically put them on and off um and we were also thinking that it would provide a good kind of reminder of where their space is so i think we need to play that by ear a little bit a little bit a little bit different with the middle school um you know the idea of being able to move it up and down i don't think it's as big of a deal for the middle school students but yes definitely for the lunchroom time for the lunch time um and mass breaks but other than that it probably they would probably be down okay uh the next question has a few parts so if the desk shields are up all day is it necessary for students to wear their face masks when surrounded by the shield in space three to six feet apart again the desks shields may or may not be up um at learning portions of the day a concern is that it would be difficult for young children to wear masks the entire school day so could the shields be utilized for greater portions of the day the shield the shield isn't a substitute for the mask um it's very clear in the in the guidelines and we've been over this with um the the doctor oh anna you want to take that exactly what um maureen had said the shields are not a substitute the mask and the face covering will prevent those droplets by spreading so the the shield is basically there as an extra protection okay and i just want to say we're also you know where we will schedule in mask breaks we've i think we've been told they can be about five minutes without the masks at a time they'll be having lunch you know i mean and we're also and to john's you know mentioned before of outdoor space you know we're not going to just send the kids out you know on the front lawn um but we'll be making sure we have the two courtyards at center school um you know during the school day the gates are closed so the entire back portion of the of the property is um is is fenced off so we'll be using that space and really trying to be thoughtful and when we create our schedule to make sure that everyone has access to um to being outdoors as much as possible um as well okay i just wanna um just because i'm still getting a lot of emails so i'm just going to um let everyone who may be listening in the public know that i i will accept emails until 1005 which that is in literally one more minute um otherwise because it's turning into a dialogue and um that's not really the purpose of this meeting so i'll just read the the remaining emails that i have there's just a couple of them um i'm still on trina capone's um email so if a student has the common cold not covet it would be difficult for students to breathe through their mass and also unsanitary what would be advised for this scenario um i believe if any student has symptoms regardless of a positive test or not they should be at home correct correct okay uh if we were to move to a hybrid model will it be taken into consideration for siblings to be on the same remote learning schedule we address that is the district looking into any grants or other ways to provide each student k through eight a chromebook and we had addressed that as well okay um kent gemmell wrote given that the high school deaths are shared among students will they be clean and disinfected between classes yeah that's um you know we've talked about that they will not be able to be clean and disinfected between classes with the number of kids that we have uh and the staff it'd be it'd be impossible to clean every desk between classes okay um and a rodriguez wrote about synchronicity in the hybrid or 100 remote model how will more structure or synchronicity synchronicity be maintained with younger children and working parents um flexibility was very helpful during the time during this time for those with elementary students and also trying to work from home will this be considered when trying to have a better schedule if need be are you leaning in maureen i didn't want to want to go marry rose i don't know what i was trying to get off of mute it's very challenging at this time of night to unmute yourself um so currently we are looking at a synchronous model that's that's where we're at at the present time um because we had while there unfortunately we're never going to have a model that works perfectly for everybody we had so many people that really needed to have a schedule needed to have synchronicity and these things will be recorded that's not that's not going to be the best option um from our point of view in terms of educating the students because then there's no give and take with the teacher we really want to provide um an opportunity for there to be give and take for it to be live for it to be synchronous for kids who are at home if if we're in the hybrid model or in the 100 for children who are not there for family reasons to be able to participate with their um grade level peers in the classrooms um right now that's that's where we are um i don't know if you've had anything to add john or any of the other administrators that are here that was very clear maureen thank you thank you um jamie clavin's had another question about the high school and shields um the desks are three feet apart are there going to be shields there there will not be so the deaths are you know from mouth to mouth four feet apart is what they are so as and students will be asked to wear masks obviously so there there will not be dust shields at the high school just for clarity this is from both dr sullivan and dr uh ferreira that it's the it's the social distancing in the masks that are the mitigation factors the shield is is there and it really is a function of mass breaks and launch and um that 15 minute less than 15 minute exposure time for the droplets that anna was starting to talk about so that's why the shields also to mary rose's point it could be used as a you can have a little fun office space for the children the younger ones it defines their space um and we can actually embrace the situation rather than looking at it as a major chore although it is and so um but but the shield is is not um it doesn't stop the droplets in terms of long-term exposure and things like that anna does that cover it or is there anything else you might want to add on that no that pretty much covers it okay thank you okay and the last question is uh again from jessica juska are parents allowed to enroll their children in remote learning if we begin the year in a hybrid model and i believe the answer to that is of course yes correct believe it is yes first time getting that question not two times tonight but that would apply to the logic okay um so for everyone else listening obviously if you still have questions you're more than welcome to continue to email me but um public comments we're going to conclude that portion of tonight and hopefully after such a lengthy discussion future q a's will be more focused and um shorter for you hopefully and your team john um so we do have some motions to take care of tonight i will go ahead and move that the board of education grant the superintendent authority to take any lawful action necessary to ensure the continuation of public education provide for the health and safety of students and employees or to respond to direction from the state of connecticut and or the local health officials second thanks bob any discussion on this okay all in favor all right all right i also knew that the board of education can grant the superintendent authority to limit access to public school grounds and school buildings during school closures or elevated levels of transmission in the area thanks bob i think you got it again all right let's keep working on that okay all in favor aye aye thank you and i also moved that the board of education has approved restricting access to the school buildings during the school day by non-essential visitors and minimal use of school buildings outside of school hours okay any discussion on this okay all in favor okay is there any other uh topics that we need to cover tonight rosa um can we go back to the first item in the discussion uh is there someone who would be willing to make a motion to approve the actual reopening plan for submission to the state sure i will move to i move that board of education approve the plan for school reopening as presented by dr john burrell and team welcome okay any discussion on that okay all in favor all right okay thank you thank you any other items for tonight you can't do that special meeting okay all right well uh without any other announcements then um without objection the meeting is adjourned thank you everybody for hanging in thanks everyone thanks everyone thank you
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
hello again chris cooper superintendent of clearwater schools want to give you a brief update my last brief update was way too long this one will be shorter i'd hope to have more definitive information by this friday to send out to you but we just don't have it on here friday the 24th of july some things did happen this week the state board of education voted five five on a resolution to uphold the governor's order to delay the start of school until after labor day so that did not pass that leaves it as a local decision which has created a lot of different scrambling modes for different districts and what's going on um i would say we do plan to have a delayed start our original calendar for the developed last year would have had a august 18th start date we will be later than that how much we're not sure yet there's a calendar committee that's working through several different options i would expect a week and a half to two week delay from that august 18th original date that two weeks would put us at september first i'd say that's highly likely through that process the where we've come to that decision is i've met with sedgwick county health department as well as all the sedgwick county superintendents to to try to get some guidance there dr minz uh was very cautious tonight not uh tell us exactly what we had to do to leave that a local uh decision but he also said he does not believe that the numbers will be decreasing significantly by the middle of august and that he didn't feel it would be prudent to start school with the numbers where they are so that means middle of august start for us uh is probably not going to happen the other thing is we really need some time to plan to have really robust good remote learning and to just have our logistics of how are we going to keep everybody safe when we do come back in the buildings so all of the calendar options we've we are considering uh lump a lot of teacher work in front of our start day so teachers will come back much sooner than students probably a little over a week earlier the other question of the week is do we have to wear masks for little kids do we not and the governor's order is different than sedgwick county's order and in one day i got four different answers from the same person at an attorney at the county level so um and the the final answer was we're not sure yet they are meeting now so we may have more answers about that soon but as of right now we're not sure which order we would fall under on the mask for 11 and under we do have graduation this sunday i want to thank mr mellon for all the work that he has done to make sure that our 2020 graduates get to have an amazing ceremony even though it will be different and unique outside with all our safety precautions in place so that we know that we're keeping everyone that participates safe so again i will provide these updates when we get any new information i'll try to i'll do one at least once a week even if it's like this that i really don't know much but if we get definite information particularly a start date for school we want to get that out to folks as soon as possible so i hope you can all have a good week weekend stay safe and we look forward to getting school started and we do want the time to keep everyone safe and to start in an amazing way and have an outstanding education no matter what form it takes this year so thanks and take care
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above