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[Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] do you want me to stay good evening football fans that time has finally come it's time for some ihsaa football calling the game tonight i'm jacob pierce pleasure to be with you tonight with all the uncertainty going on around the season will they play it will they not it's such a joy to be here at stafford field for the season opener of olympian football tonight the fans will be didn't work for my producer our fans will be limited tonight there will be 250 fans each for each side of the stands 250 for east 250 for our visitors the whiteland warriors social distancing will be required in the stands alleviated to the 250 per side anybody outside of your family will require to sit six feet away from each other a bummer to our fans that we're expecting to get a quick snack tonight at the game there will be no concessions tonight for either side a mask are required no exceptions in the series the visiting whiteland warriors and the columbus east olympians in the 2010s the east olympians lead the all-time series against the warriors three to two the first time they played was in 2010 where whiteland defeated the olympians 59-22 and this will mark the third consecutive year these two teams have opened the season against each other the past two years they've split the season series one to one two years ago the warriors came into stafford field and upset the olympians and last year the olympians came into whiteland and defeated the warriors and both of those games as i noted we're on the road whiteland hails from the mid-state conference while the columbus east olympians hail from the hoosier hills conference last year whiteland finished six and four with a loss to new palestine in the sectional to end their season and the olympians ended their season against center grove in the sectional ending at seven and three total while columbus east comes into this game in number 19 in class division 6a the warriors come in number seven in class division 5a despite east being in a class division higher than the warriors whitelands middle school clark pleasant has a larger student population than columbus east high school a little bit of an interesting tidbit there but that's class division football for you folks are three keys to the game this will be a general overview of what these teams need to do in order to win this football game number one for our season opener whichever team makes less mental mistakes will probably win this football game although these teams had a scrimmage to open up the season last week there will still be mental mistakes made in this game offsides false start illegal formation whichever team can limit those penalties will have a great chance to win this football game number two both of these teams love to run the football although their styles are different the end goal is the same keep the ball on the ground and in the hands of their running backs whichever defense will be able to stop the run will most likely be able to win this football game and stuff the other offense and number three this goes right along with making mental mistakes whichever offense can take advantage of those mental mistakes and get big plays down the field those cheap touchdowns and the chuck plays will definitely pay dividends towards the end of this football game tonight we are joined by a host of sponsors we'd like to thank each and every one of them ruloff mortgage ovation technology group first financial bank columbus wealth jolie rentals and julie development and overhead door of south central indiana we'd like to thank all of our sponsors for sponsoring this game tonight we'd like to thank those who are able to make this game possible tonight through live stream our film crew tonight consists of ashland bergman and our producer josh burnett we'd like to thank each of those go outside [Music] please [Music] all right sports fans josh burnett here bcsc communications coordinator i'm sitting here with jacob pierce our announcer for the night i want to say a special thanks to him and all of you who are watching obviously we're in a a really interesting year an interesting time with covet 19 but we want to make sure that we can do everything we can to bring some live sports uh to you so you can watch that from maybe the comfort of your own home as well as uh wherever you feel most comfortable obviously we've got some covid 19 capacity issues and we appreciate your patience as well as your support with this live stream we are going to be live streaming both the columbus east game versus whiteland as well as the columbus north against gibson southern game that'll be starting at 7 30.
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meeting is called order thank you oh flag wow how convenient thank you i pledge allegiance to the flag honor god indivisible with liberty and justice oh yes comments from the audience yes i do have one this evening if i could ask everyone to mute their um systems thank you this is from greta brone first i want to thank the bolton public school administration for their exhaustive work over the past few months ongoing adaptability and continued communication with parents greta lives at 58 tinker pond road i next want to make the case for students and families from the perspective of a parent and a public health professional and reiterate the notion that our current viral climate supports in-person learning for students who choose to do so taking this step towards normalcy is critical to the overall health of our community remote learning for families that find it impractical and infeasible due to employment lack of education instructional skills young children and elderly to care for at home etc will continue to foster inequities widen achievement gaps and damage our social determinants of health economic stability education health care housing the things we know substantially impact health outcomes both acute and chronic we need to carefully weigh the burden of cover 19 with the increasing burden of the unintended consequences that impact our children's health now and in the future i secondly want to support the notion of giving families choice for those families in which copa 19 would be a high danger they should continue as is being provided to have the choice to keep students learning remotely lastly i want to remind parents students faculty and staff to enter the school year with a positive attitude about the changes put in place that will keep teachers and students safe as upbeat as we can be at the present moment this is a high anxiety time for everyone masks are the new norm and the most effective mitigation strategy we have right now let's make sure to let kids know it's okay to wear a mask to wash their hands frequently and social distance as appropriate these shouldn't be frightening or negative measures albeit a bit uncomfortable let's continue to focus on social and emotional health and be reminded that children are in fact our future we need to rally around our teachers and students support them bring them back to the classroom while always remaining flexible to our ever-changing environment again our case transmission and positivity rates are so extremely low at the present moment that it will be difficult to even suspect cover 19 as a diagnosis among ill students entering the classroom this fall it's time to give in-person learning a try that is all i have for public comment this evening you um in addition to the agenda i know we need to add a personnel committee report and board buildings and grounds committee report is there anything else no that is all i have so i thought we would add buildings and grounds under 2a and personnel under 2b yep got it under board of education committee reports 2a2b onto routine business items uh the approval of minutes do i have a motion to approve the june 11th 2020 board of ed virtual business meeting this is chris davey so moved sir second pike second uh any discussions edits carrying on all those in favor of adopting the june 11th minutes say i i i i opposed uh abstentions was there someone who was not there i don't recall i don't think so uh that passes uh do i have a motion please to accept the july 22nd 2020 board of ed virtual special meeting minutes this is chris davey so moved al second anne decker thank you is there any discussion or editing on the july 22nd minutes hearing none all those in favor of adopting july 22nd minutes please say hi hi anyone opposed is there any obstacles hearing none that also passes and finally we'll be looking for a motion to adopt the august 3rd 2020 virtual special meeting minutes that would be august 5th please oh i'm sorry that's okay yeah that date hasn't happened yet or today actually maria makes a motion to accept the minutes thank you riaz or a second super second do we have any discussion or editing or questions on the august 5th meeting minutes hearing none all those in favor of adopting please say aye hi hi hi anyone opposed any abstentions those also pass uh routine business number two board of education committee reports uh 2a was that personnel did we say buildings and grounds please okay okay let me unmute um so building and grounds committee met today um and john gave an update on um just some of the happenings and some of the business that the school has had over the summer um first off he talked about how the custodial crew has been daily cleaning and disinfecting the entire schools they've been working really hard doing this but working uh split and alternating uh shifts to limit exposure to a coven they've also done normal summer cleaning and stripped and waxed some of the floors of the school with a future goal of doing one quarter of the school per year so that in every four years they would strip and wax the entire school [Music] they painted classroom door frames at bcs rooms 1 through 22 were completed hvac has been checked and fixed several times recently there was a motor seized at bcs which to my understanding does not have a cost at this time but they're getting fixed vhs carpet has been replaced uh in several areas including the library the office and guidance a couple of things related to cobia 19 plexi was installed in the offices desk shields for both teachers and students supplies and disinfectants were delivered and distributed classrooms were reorganized and excessive furniture was removed to maximize social distancing when students come back and full ppe kits were ordered and hopefully won't be needed uh additionally relating to the recent storm there was no uh nothing major on the school grounds uh regarding the storms um the tennis courts uh work is underway on the tennis courts uh concrete will be poured next week i believe um and then finally at bcs 28 of the 44 windows that need to be replaced have been replaced um i also wrote in my notes that kristen really likes john what i really meant to write very highly commends john and uh his group for all the work that they've done recently and over the summer and uh in turn john also really had very high praise for all of his staff also um and then one more final thing uh the the new position in administration that we had talked about uh will free up andy to give john some more support um as needed thank you there was a lot of stuff i was kind of writing quickly if there's anything i missed i apologize but i think that's a pretty good synopsis that's a great synopsis and i'll add a few more things under my part i think chris has a question yeah a couple questions um what was the purpose of replacing the you said the bcs library carpet because i thought that that's vhs perfectly that makes much more sense um and then what is the purpose of disinfecting the entire school every day if there are currently no students there no that i think that was um maybe just yeah what i meant was that cleaning of the school was taking place every day to clean the area of the school was cleaned and disinfected every day so cleaning has happened routinely throughout the summer including deep cleaning as well as stripping of floors painting things like that and back when covered first when we first went out and the guys went to a split shift and we're doing a lot of deep cleaning um so if there's been cleaning right that general summer cleaning that happens and we are prepared to do uh you know a a deeper clean if you will each night once students and staff are back in the buildings okay uh personnel yes uh personnel committee has met over the summer and of late a number of times and all these meetings were in regards to our upcoming teacher negotiations yep thank you and and now we are on is there any community meeting reports a correct pta not none of the above very good um i'll turn things over to superintendent heck for the superintendent of schools report thank you so as uh the board is aware uh the bolton public schools will be opening in a hybrid model this approach blends traditional face-to-face instruction with flexibility of synchronous and asynchronous online learning to curb the spread of coronavirus we are planning this phase-in approach with the hopes of returning to a full in-person learning on october 14th the decision to return to in full in-person learning on october 14th or to move to a full distance learning model at any time will be made in collaboration with local health officials and driven by health metrics in bolton and our area the hybrid model is a phase in return to school model similar to the state's reopening phase-in model it allows for the focus on proven mitigation strategies including social distancing cohorting wearing a face covering by all and enhanced cleaning and sanitizing our goal is to keep our staff and our students as safe as possible and to prevent community spread on wednesday bcs and central office administrators hosted parent meetings for grade level bands 2 3 5 and 6 8 in the morning and at the high school for grade 9 and then again for grades 10 and 12.
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today is august 20th 2020. uh mr oginski have a roll call please mr crippo here miss helen here here miss ham here ms harrigan here mr martelly here mr peregini here mr white here mr chair you have a quorum thank you everyone uh i asked that uh we stand for the pledge and jeff i assume we will display the flag as usual i will so i pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all uh fellow board members administration staff steve and i know more will be joining us too thank you so much for being here tonight uh especially steven moore for taking time out of your busy day to join us this evening we very much appreciate that for those watching again thank you i know mike will give us an idea of how many are watching tonight uh before we get into the agenda just a couple reminders that uh we are streaming via youtube live uh public can and should submit questions via email and the email address is cps cover 19 that's your seat uh the cheshire k12 that's ct.us we'll guess there's a correspondent section audience section in the agenda but as we go through the presentations i know carol and jeff are monitoring mailbox we'll try to get to all those relevant questions throughout the meeting but please don't be shy send in your questions we received some already um and for those that sent questions to the board or administration the last couple weeks on reopening uh administration has all those and i expect most of those began so after the course this evening so with that being said um our agenda we decided to do a couple couple things this evening one is you've heard quite a bit from the administration some members of the reopening team over the last couple months in particular about uh reopening options and plans for the schools and i know jeff and marlene team are going to take us through some updates to that we thought it'd be great too to have um uh representatives from help the front chest book out for the health district uh primarily as a number of questions we're receiving really comes down to protocol procedures uh contact tracing some other white scenarios that i know our health business will be working with with the administration on so um when maura joins us i know she'll be able to walk us through her presentation steve is here as well uh i i don't have any sports parents out there as we saw some uh back and forth or the last two weeks whether sports being played not played but um in lieu of that um you know we thought we thought having our date to help kind of walk through what a dana life of that might look like and may talk a little bit about some of the protocols and things that to consider so we have some esteemed colleagues tonight to help us through this journey that being said um jeff i'm gonna turn it over to you and i'll let you kick off the presentations under section two thank you tony uh you mentioned uh some of our guests tonight uh with maura running a little bit late i know how tight her schedule is these days uh i'll ask steve if it's okay with everybody to present first on some of the reopening [Music] with the the athletics for the fall and i know this is all subject to change ciac happens to be meeting this evening but i know steve will get that that too but uh mr trufone if you wanna present screen you can walk us through it please thank you jeff and thank you everybody as jeff mentioned uh there is a meeting going on as we speak at the ciac with department of public health i do have my other computer on because they said they will shoot out an email as soon as we get information so you may get it hot off the press as it comes comes up to us but what i'd like to do is present some information of questions that have been asked by me by parents and things that i've shared with athletes and coaches so far uh hopefully they'll answer some of your questions and and maybe prompt some other concerns that people may have that that we're addressing as well so i'll jump on here and share my screen with you can everybody see the screen there yes yes okay perfect okay so all right so what i'd like to do is just kind of give you an overview of what we have put in place so far and some of our concerns as we move along uh as as this season either comes about or or does not come about so uh we'll begin so the big question that i always get i probably get this asked about four or five times a day will there be high school sports we'll find out tonight uh so the ciac with along with the department of public health they're making the decision on a recommendation um and that meeting is taking place this evening an earlier meeting with ciac stated that we may get information tonight uh possibly tomorrow and of course i'll make that available to everybody as soon as we get that so another question is through this pandemic why would we want to continue sport activities uh there's a lot of reasons why obviously we realize that sport activities provide outlets for kids uh it helps with their social development probably the most important part of it is their social social emotional innovative their mental health teens will structure we found that they have shown an increase in depression anxiety and substance abuse university of wisconsin did a study in july 2020 and they found out that over two-thirds of high school teens without structure have shown an increase in these items of depression anxiety and substance abuse so we do want to offer these kids some outlet and if sports is an outlet then so be it so the ciac allowed us to set up a summer resocialization plan to get kids back into some type of resocialization with either their coaches and or their friends so we assembled cohorts starting early july and it was the purpose was to acclimate them back into sports back in the hot weather as well and also condition our athletes under coach's supervision it was optional it wasn't part of a team tryout and the good news is that with there were 39 000 athletes in connecticut that participated in this and there were no cases reported during the summer cohort training so that's good news so the cohort organization it keeps our numbers low they're easier to social distance there were no more than 10 or 15 athletes per cohort those athletes remained in their cohort once they were developed there was no crossover athletes could not change because they wanted to go with a friend or they couldn't make that night so they had to stay within that cohort uh every athlete there was recorded health status of each athlete and i'll get more into that and of course they needed parent permission sign off for a child to participate which also gave us access to their physical and given parents information as far as some of the guidelines that we would be doing to protect their their child what the ciac developed along with athletic directors is we did a self-reporting cohort so student athletes would report daily to their coach and the coach would record their current health status we would uh find out things about were they feeling feverish sore throat headache etc you can read those there were a list of things that we checked off for yes or no any yes that athlete was sent back home to their parents and their parent was contacted we kept all records and we're still keeping those records and the reason why is because it's a cohort should we have a case that does pop up positive we have that record of what kids were involved in that cohort of course any personal information is not disclosed with anybody it was all confidential so what are the responsibilities of each athlete they have to come to and from practice with a mask on they have to check in with their coach for their self-monitoring report they must bring a personal water bottle marked with their name on it i'm requesting that the bottle has a minimum of 32 ounces we're requesting them to come with a drawstring bag or a backpack whatever is available to them would like in that a towel a small sanitizer bottle their own personal personalized sanitizer bottle and also a spare mask i have additional masks and will keep those available for athletes should they need them and coaches have available masks as well they cannot share any items with other athletes it's important that our coaches really stress to our athletes that outside of the team we really want them to reduce this social contact with other kids their cohort is their team and if they really want to play sports they have to avoid going to any parties where there's a large group of kids where there's no social distancing taking place etc if they're feeling ill we do not want them at our cohort with the team there to notify the coach and all personal equipment whatever is brought must go home that night for daily cleaning and sanitizing and that's where parents can help us to make sure that their children are cleaning and washing their their clothes that they've worn to practice every day what about our coaches they have responsibilities as well they will always have a mask on in the presence of athletes they also have to have a personal water bottle we're asking them to bring a bag with a towel a personal towel for themselves a small sanitizer bottle for themselves as well and of course a spare mask they will supply a water jug or jugs for teams to replenish their bottles and only our coaches fill those jugs at times in the past maybe we had a manager or a team member fill up the the water jugs only a coach will handle the jug and only that coach only will take care of of the water jugs coaches will sanitize all items at the end of a practice or a game whether it's balls or shared equipment uh i've been working with vince masiana and rich clavette about getting sanitizing equipment so those are available to our coaches of course they will complete the self-screening of our athletes at the start of each session and our teams are divided by cohorts with coaches and the coaches will stick with those cohorts throughout the entire season so they are responsible for those 10 or 15 students and make sure that they are self-screening prior to the start of each session the nice thing about this is that we are doing a self-screening on a daily basis of students so i think that helps as far as school and not only uh sports but it's for a school as well those records would be kept throughout the season and of course coaches are not allowed to share any personal items with anyone none of their personal items as well if if a student does not have a mask they're not going to share a mask out of their pocket they'll have to go and get one of the newer masks also we're asking our coaches outside of their team we're asking them to reduce their social contact as well we want our coaches to stay healthy again if we're going to ask our students to be socially distant and stick within cohorts we're asking our coaches to do the same and also coaches are to remain home if not feeling well and notified the athletic office uh that's why we have assistant coaches that's why head coaches can fill in where assistants are missing etc what are responsibilities for masks master not required when an athlete is participating in a drill during practice any conditioning activities aerobic or anaerobic and of course during a contest they're more than welcome to wear a mask if they want to but they do not have to when they have to wear a mask is coming to practice and leaving practice so as they leave back to their vehicle or home they should have a mask on if they're sitting on the bench or a seat if they're in a team meeting on the sidelines standing there they must have a mask on sorry i jumped ahead there folks so and coaches and managers are going to be wearing a mask at all times so how do we enforce all this i've met with our fall coaches on numerous occasions so far and and they're all in agreement of what's going on they want the season as much as anyone else coaches are responsible to enforce all mandates and we call them mandates these aren't recommendations these are mandates they need to enforce the mandates for social distance masks when masks are required make sure the teams are properly hydrated and monitoring the health of the team sideline management is just as important of everything else that's going on so when kids are on the sideline we have to make sure that they are social distancing if you stretched your arms out that is six feet approximately about three feet in arms so if kids are stretching their arms out their three foot arm and my three foot arms has given us about six feet so now your side lines are no longer 20 yards wide they may stretch from 20 from 10 yard line to 10 yard line depending on how many kids we have there but they are going to be social distancing i am attending team virtual meetings to re reiterate mandates to parents and athletes recently i just attended a football meeting where we had probably uh 95 percent of our athletes and just as many parents and we were able to go over all these rules and regulations i will also visit practices make sure and observe mandates make sure they're being observed my supervision or anyone who's filling in for me at all of our home contests i will constantly be meeting with coaches to review any updates as they come through either through the ciac or through chesapeake and parents can really be assistants to us uh as i mentioned when those articles come home every night make sure that the athlete is wiping down their equipment making sure that they're changing their clothes that they're going to wear for the next day washing what they brought home that night and of course any athlete that does not follow these mandates our coaches are going to send them home if they're non-compliant or contact their parents so our coaches are pretty serious about what's going on and we've noticed that the feedback from our cohorts saw our athletes so there's a good foundation in place already we have created a sports advisory so it consists of district administrators our school nurse athletic trainer school physician myself and coaches are represented on it we will meet regularly once the season uh begins uh should it begin and during this season as as well and the purpose is just to maintain constant communication among the leadership make sure we address any concerns as they arise because things are constantly in flux and say and keeping everybody informed on the best practices to help our athletic programs question always comes up has come up about transportation first of all our contest the league has regionalized schedules to cut really cut down on travel time so we are going to be playing schools around us and schools that we've played before in the past that are just over 30 40 miles we will not be playing them our schedules have been reduced the season has been shortened so we're playing a reduced season a shortened season everything will be pretty much over by november 15th and unfortunately if football does does go on there's no thanksgiving day game transporting athletes uh we will transport athletes per our district busing guidelines whether that requires certain amount of seats being taken masks will be worn on buses parents may opt to drive their athletes to and from contests and this question comes up uh quite a bit with athletes they cannot drive themselves to to and from contests so it's either a parent or they're taking the bus that's going to limit also the size of teams that we take just because the number of seats that are available on buses we will probably most likely not be using locker room um but at times we will have to use a locker room uh and it will be minimized example would be our swim team they start practice at 2 30 that's just when the pool is available there is no locker room at the pool so they will have to change into their bathing suits at the high school we will make sure that a locker room is available for them and that locker room will be marked where they can and cannot sit and space them apart in that locker room there's no overnight storage in locker rooms and we are going to ask our athletes we are sending all of our students home other than those teams that may have to use practice that may have to practice right after school such as our swim team the other team that will practice right after school will be our cross-country team only because we don't want our athletes on the road late at night so every other athlete we're going to send them home they're going to come back and they're going to be dressed for their sport and they will leave and not leave any equipment here so all clothing equipment must be taken home and cleaned that night what about spectators so this is always a hot uh question deck that comes up and i get asked this daily as well right now spectators are not allowed in any indoor event we are not allowing any people inside the school building other than students and faculty so therefore we we don't want to bring in spectators into our buildings in the evening as well ciac is recommending those spectators at any outdoor contest but districts may develop their own plan so the southern connecticut conference we are looking to develop a common plan whereas if we were traveling to amity high school our spectators will have the same option there as they would at art school if all of us decide no spectators then we're hoping that the entire league does does the same because of that what we did is uh i had installed what they call national federation of high school pixel out camera we have one on our game field and this summer we put one into our main gym basically it's a camera that follows action it's a high-tech device it's um it'll allow movement to take place without the camera moving it's pretty cool so parents can sign up and and join into that and view all of our contests live as they happen if they sign up for that any school that does have the pixelot camera they can watch that game as well so if we're playing hamden at hampden they have pixel art cameras if they are signed up to view it they can watch games at hampden high if we're playing there i'll get information out to parents uh if and when um our fall season does begin so again i i information changes almost on a daily basis we update the high school website under athletics with information uh as it comes in we send emails to parents who have registered their their child for support so far as it becomes available we're sending email updates to parents and we do ask that parents remain in contact with their child's coach they have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns like most parents do with with their children not only athletes but just kids going to school and also i ask parents contact the athletic department i'll be more than happy to meet with parents uh i'd be more than happy to go on a virtual meet with them whatever need be just so we can kind of make sure everybody's on the same page if and when the season moves along and we're just trying to keep our kids safe so that's kind of a summary of what i had there i'm not sure if anyone has any questions i hope it helped answer some questions as we went along so what i'll do is steve thank you definitely help i know some questions uh tim had one followed by faith so we got tim oh um yeah thank you tony uh i'm just looking at the questions um yeah was it was you had mentioned there was uh there was a summer program and there was nothing reported during it was there any testing done during it we did not do any testing so i don't know if individual um students were tested uh we wouldn't get that information but the ciac didn't report any information to us of any positive cases it within the cohorts okay did sorry did the ciac do any testing no they did not okay um in general you're talking about fewer kids playing it sounds like because you said you're gonna have limited space on buses so you're going to be going with like a varsity team maybe a jv team but you're probably talking is that fair to say you probably have fewer kids playing anyway or at least going to away events you're right tim that that's what happened so our travel teams would be smaller okay our varsity teams will be smaller and what i mean by that is normally example we may dress a freshman jv team to attend the varsity game that would not take place we don't want all of our athletes along the sidelines if at all possible so probably just be a varsity team traveling to a varsity event so kind of people's numbers below right now our numbers uh that have signed up are pretty good um they're a little below average right now but of course the season hasn't begun and school has begun and a lot of people will probably sign up and register as we get closer okay and one more question i don't know if this is for you steve or for jeff i actually i basically asked jeff this question like a month ago but i want to revisit it um so at the beginning of this year there were several families contacted me about high school coaches lacking permits one thing led to another and it was obvious that at least one specific coach had not been permitted for eight of the past 10 years for several different reasons with that in mind i recently had a resident tell me that he had visited the state department of education website and looked up our current head coaches he mentioned that probably half of them were not listed on the state website as being permitted suggesting that the other half are not permitted how can parents be confident that the high school coaches are properly permitted right now tim i can tell you that all of our coaches going into the fall season are probably permitted some of our winter and spring coaches will most likely have to update their first aid and cpr in which i do so i do that once the season begins and we'll make sure that those permits are updated as well we've developed some guidelines to to follow those um they're in place so i think we're in pretty good shape okay when you when you i would also add that when you look on the state certification website which isn't just coaches any certified person in connecticut it asks you to enter the district sometimes when you enter the district district name they don't show up if it wasn't keyed in if you leave it blank sometimes they do show up it's kind of finky that way for teachers and administrators for everybody okay okay um and the last thing i'm just going to put out there and this probably would be better if maura was here is i'm looking for a way to just reconcile five months of social distancing with extracurricular activities that have contact it's i can't figure that out in my mind it just doesn't make any sense and and i appreciate everything i want to say that steve i appreciate everything that you just went through and it sounds it sounds like really good things that you're doing but to me the bottom line is contact or no contact and and that's difficult for me to to figure out how that would work we're all um you know this is all new to all of us yeah so uh we all are really trying to help each other guide through this of course we want to do it in the safest way for kids if we can offer them extracurricular activities so be it um so a lot of times it's baby steps tim as you know no i know and i think there's i mean i think there's certain things you can do i ran cross-country with with rob schaefer in high school and it's always crowded right at the front of the line you could actually space it out more than that it wouldn't a lot of the runners wouldn't like it but you could do certain things um that could that could improve the situation i think so that's a great example so each sport committee has come up with new guidelines under covet at least for the fall example for cross country you have to have a minimum of a six-foot path for uh cross-country races our current path our home meet is not six feet wide so we are looking to change it we may be running our home meets at bartland park we've already walked it we can utilize chapman the chapman field over there so that's a perfect example you're only allowed to run certain amount of kids at a certain time they're going to be spaced so those are good points you know each sport is going to have its own unique change that's going to take place this year okay thank you thanks tim steve uh faith and i think adam after and then and but we'll start with faith okay thanks steve for your presentation um question in your summer program was their face-to-face head-to-head contact or were they all socially distanced no it was all social distance it was just conditioning so there was no skill work taking place that's thanks and so specific um you you said you're trying to develop a team can you give us an estimate with specific if this sounds like an oxymoron specific numbers what are we looking at especially for football because six feet um with you know even 40 players because yet you got offense defense and all that times two teams you've got to have a lot of space for social distancing how are you going to do that in a game you do it's um games games will be interesting you know that that's something that's a concern of people because you've got 11 on 11 you're not going to have social distancing per se between everybody but what we can control is we can control our sidelines we can control the number of kids that are just standing around so as i mentioned before varsity teams will be practicing varsity jv will be practicing jv that separates now you're taking a team of 60 kids and you're breaking it down into probably 30 kids so you're going to spread them out a little bit more so practices can be a little bit more controlled than contest and i think those things right now are being discussed at the ciac office okay and then just sorry um if uconn is calling its football season and what it what message does that send uh us and i understand and the need for social emotional welfare but if we are doing going through hoops in school um i think we need to take a real serious look at what we're doing after school as well it's a good question faith you know and and i'm not going to disagree with that um the one thing that we we know about colleges versus high schools with colleges kids are coming from all over the country and a lot of those states that they're coming from are quarantined states for us our kids are here in the same town uh that's why we're trying to regionalize games we're trying to keep kids playing the same people a little bit different but there's there's still some concerns i i i'm not going to argue that okay thanks thanks faith and i think you're recognizing that uh maura is here maura thank you for joining us this evening we're just uh talking about the sports part of the presentation so again we appreciate you taking time out to see and we know you're very busy these days so thanks for being here um adam you had a question um i did have a question but now that moore's here i think i'll wait to ask her because it was about testing because it the governor gave some new information today that i thought would be relevant to athletics so i'm not sure how to ask it to so i guess i'll i'll wait to ask more to see if maybe she presents something about it and i'll i'll i'll hold my question thank you can you hear me yes okay sorry i apologize that i'm late and i'm sorry if i missed something important i just wanted to give a very fast five-minute update as many of you know the health department has been working in covid mode pandemic since december starting with the cheshire academy and the their students with international i want to say that through all of this through may march april may june we've had many different businesses um organizations have openings at different times so just like the school is opening we had to do that with the salons we had to do that with the food we had to do that with the camps and i will tell you that you are not like unlike anybody else except you're much larger and there's a lot more to it but it's kind of the same thing in my eyes um that i'm sitting here as your guidance i am not dr uh fauci um but i am uh you know i i took epidemiology classes um but i'm not an epidemiologist but i've been in public health for a long time and i understand the mitigation and i understand the studies that help if we do these mitigations lower the risk of people spreading the disease and contacting the disease so we i have been working with all these different people all through the different steps schools have been a little challenging because you have your own issues with your sizes and your infrastructures but i want you to know that working with your nurses and your medical director is not like on nothing i've done already i you know opening up camps was very challenging i had to sit there and hold holiday hill which is a very large camp and they were having students without masks so that was very challenging we went through five or six moments where we thought we had a close call but we didn't and i explained earlier to dr solon that they were kind of our guinea pigs we were going to see how they did and they fared really well i will tell you sports when it started opening up we were very hopeful we walked every time there were sector guidelines we went through all of them with every single agency that was going to enforce them i want to remind all of you that you know i have three towns three different school systems three different everything so and only there's only eight of us so it was a lot for me to digest so i am not an absolute expert on necessarily the cheshire public schools plan but i read it to make sure that the public health mitigation was present and there because we know that if that plan has that we are going to be much more successful and having gone through and having these camps go through and we've been having really great results now i will say in the last three months we have seen an uptick of cases in the ages of 20 to 29.
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call the meeting to order it's on the screen um dennis here uh donna uh donna davis here maria yes rick rowe absent wilson here okay now maria would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance please ready begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands [Music] i'd like to just thank everybody for their patience there appears to have been a technical difficulty that may have included a lot of youtube but thank you public comments on the screen okay we do have a public comment that i believe follows within the closed session category the comment is from mr bill thomas president victor valley naacp carl willis a 21-year public safety transportation employee officer with the adusd and a member of the victor valley naacp has been trying to get his job classification and assignments reviewed and the changes repealed in fact he appeared before the board at your january 2020 meeting requesting your consideration on his reclassification being repealed the board ruled in his favor and he thought it was the end of the matter a month later in february 2020 district administration removed him of his truancy officer status this appeared to be retaliatory action due to him coming to the board mr willis is the only african-american male in the school district police unit and it certainly seems peculiar removing him from his law enforcement duties at this time he has had an impeccable career in the job receiving excellent employee evaluations good attendance no disciplinary action and completed work assignments as directed he is well respected among his peers and other district employees and parents at issue is mr willis was hired as a school police officer 21 years ago he has recently been involuntary transferred from his law enforcement duties and effective august 17 2020 assigned to the transportation department we have some serious concerns about the processes and fairness of the actions taken phil thomas president naacp victor valley branch 1082 thank you um another one closed session we go to closed session oh second all those in favor all right okay um just as soon as they left what's another one yeah i was just here's what i was saying you [Music] uh ready again one nation under god indivisible with the christians okay and will the clerk read out any close session report conference with labor negotiator on a motion by mr bender seconded by mr cell the board of trustees approved the following approve the apple valley unified teachers association avuta memorandum of agreement regarding advancing from emergency credential slash intern ba column dated august 20 2020.
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mers rating factors however that effectively uh deal with covid 19 particles according to ashrae the minimum can be a 13 filter which they say is at least 85 percent efficient in capturing particles to protect from covalent 8 19. however we have units which are only capable of 8 mers and ashrae says they are only 20 percent efficient at capturing these particles mers 8 filters are not acceptable to the association in protecting the spread of coven 19.
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and essentially what it's doing is requiring that we post on our website a statutory handbook of parental rights so we have to have it and the the state has to have it on its website and and it refers to certain sections of the law [Applause] and then they recommend us the section that starts with the district plan under this policy may also include and there are items a through k that is the new part added to this policy so essentially it's giving us some direction about what we need to make available to parents both at the state level at their website and on our website many of these things by the way are already on our website but we would make sure we had everything on our website so these are the changes for this policy once again first reading you do not have to take action tonight item 4.1 future topics do we have any future topics the board would like to see on future agendas mr president we need to you know promote somebody or i don't know if it's a promotion but to be our delegate oh yes yes we do and we just got that information this week for the delegate to for you all to have a delegate and i'm sorry it came out we got that information after we had posted the agenda so you certainly can you know informally decide on somebody to be a delegate we can always go back at our next meeting and reaffirm that we did this made this decision but i think due to the timelines doesn't that happen before the next meeting or am i wrong and the meeting itself does not happen i don't think before our next meeting although it might but uh uh yeah i think you're going to have to affirm you know do the do the actual formal part of that at your next meeting but yeah there's it's coming up the ti the timeline is very tight all right what are the duties of the delegate to become familiar with the what the governing boards in the state would like to be have the as the primary legal things they want to push with the legislature for the current year and to represent our board in terms of what those items might be so if that actual uh assembly is before your next board meeting one of the things we can do is send out an email you know a poll for you guys and then pull that information together for the delegate my thought is based on what they sent it's probably going to be a virtual meeting i don't think it's going to be face to face in years past didn't they always provide us with their list of things that they want to talk about and we're supposed to put together what we're our board is yeah but they didn't do that this time they didn't send that um i think they're i think they're in this in this case they're waiting for more information back from boards on on what to do with you know what they want to have pushed in in terms of this but i know that they do it they get the information initially present a list send it back out to the board say is there anything else you want to add to it and then the delegates are the ones who prioritize them say you know okay based on what information we got from all the boards here that you know here are the top three or here are the top four we want to push and then asba's lobbyist if you will that's not what he's called but that's essentially what he does we'll push those those agenda items with the legislature and asba has a very good employee who does that right uh do we have any members who would be interested in volunteering to be our delegates ah doesn't work real well for me sorry all right you're in the same position pretty busy i guess i'll try to defer but sure i guess i i'll do the next thing all right thanks corey um and and i'm glad you all are doing this because there was nobody representing our district last year so uh you know it's it's a good thing to have somebody representing our district all right and then we'll just make that official next meeting yeah we can make it official on that email i just opened it up and looked through they didn't provide us with any dates to have it done by now that it was a pretty vague email so i will follow up with them um and find out what exactly what's going on and i'll send it i'll send it to corey but i'll send copies to everybody else so you all are aware thank you thank you all right uh item 4.2 date time location for future meetings we have listed september 17th 2020 at 5 30 pm does that date work for everyone doug does that day and time work for you i think so yes all right you may want to uh kind of leave that open in case you want a workshop about the legal stuff so for right now you can say that's your meeting but you you might decide a little bit later that you want a 30-minute workshop to talk about legal because we don't know where that's going and that's just a suggestion for me and if it does run into an issue we could always agendize it exactly that's what i thought but at least if you kind of keep that in mind that that might be something that you would want to spend a little time talking about all right does that work for everyone yes genie good with that all right okay then we'll keep that set september 17 2020 for our next meeting all right now we just need item 5.1 our motion to adjourn make a motion we adjourn a second all in favor cory burgess aye douglas randy dubois aye genie borland i we are adjourned you
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so i mean um it just worked out that some people weren't comfortable which i'm fine with you know um and so it worked out that our numbers were so low so i think that was also why we could go ahead with it okay on to any other questions from inspectors on to assistant superintendents report i just want to before i talk about remote learning just piggyback on what ms becker said um i walked around parkview today uh just peeking in on some of the google meet sessions but there was a lot of recording going on and it's now become instead of when we used to have state testing you'd be like testing and now it's video recording you know everywhere there's signs um but you know the teachers were very positive they had a lot of good things to say about the experience i did end up talking to quite a few parents of various age groups and everybody pretty much had some were impressed with the teachers organization their communication and just also how the kids are responding to it and how they are have a different vibe than what we did in the spring which is what we were hoping so very impressed with the first day of course we have technology hiccups here and there but everybody's working on those so these two days are kind of working out all those kinks so we can really kind of get down to business on monday uh the remote learning plan itself even though we have gone from a hybrid to remote that you guys looked at hasn't changed very much however it is updated on the webpage that you can see and it's just changing of some wording specifically to address when we are all remote so the remote learning plan that you initially saw was for those families that were opting into it or when they were on the hybrid section of the you know the remote component of that and so then we just needed to put some further details on this section or on this type of remote which means that we went in and we said okay this is what eagle view schedule looks like this is what park used so that the families knew what it was going to look like from day to day um and gave some very uh specifics for procedurals for attendance and what do they do if they're kiddos sick and all those kinds of things and then the buildings themselves put out very specifics for how their building was going to operate so there's a district one that just kind of gives a global picture and then each building uh sent out communications so as you know we have uh kindergarten through fifth grade is asynchronous and then six through twelfth is doing synchronous and both of those at the moment seem to be working okay but any questions um so we went all remote when the numbers were going up when what is the plan for going to hybrid what kind of numbers are we looking for that's going to be he's got something yeah he's got a whole section good question okay any other questions for dr stelling seeing then we'll move on to the superintendent's report all right uh do you need to update you we had one foia um stephen dublain asked us for the names titles emails and salaries of our employees we gave them the names and the salaries we did not share with them the emails email addresses of our employees so that was referred to in a timely manner so we've got that off summer projects hvac units are coming in big ones for the main main hall of the high school you know the line that kind of goes through the library when those come in they're going to start installing those they'll do them on a friday and saturday because we don't want to have to move cheap teachers that are in the building and whenever they put those big ones on those units they're going to have to use them roof works moving along nicely gutters and tuck pointing is going well mr reeves did go out and ask a gentleman to stop um digging the tuck pointing out because it was bothering the teachers they were kind of jackhammering the wall and it was a little loud because again we've got those signs saying videoing under progress so um but that's going well we're hoping to be done this month with our projects now to the key question return to school our enrollments 1940 um as of today lots of ends lots of outs it's really rather balanced um talking with dr costelli earlier we have a lot of people that move to home school i think that if you know looking at it with the copay we have more homeschoolers than we do normally and i i'm attributing that to the remote learning plan and just the situation of people going to school um right now we are all remote and we changed because of the numbers going up we were on a conference call today with the superintendents the regional office mr davis and the illinois department of public health our counties and randolph counties and saint clara's counties and right now the big worry is our numbers keep going up so the department of health is kind of focusing in on how to mitigate that and get those under control once that level's off it'll start going back down um once we get it starting to go back down and we're off those lists that's when we will say okay is this seem to be something that's going to continue and if it is then we'll go back to the hybrid plan once we get in the hybrid plan i'm i'm hoping to get all in this year i've had people ask me are we do you really think we're going to get back into school this year i'm still very optimistic i do think we're going to go back into school um the one thing that i will say and you talked about it a little bit on the call labor day is coming up we've got a big three-day weekend showing july 4th did not do the region well july 4th really caused a spike in numbers as everybody gathers and whatnot i'm hoping that labor day shows um much more of a level and not a huge spike because those are the things that we're looking at um we want the kids back in school i've said that so many times walking around today it was surreal it was one of the oddest it still felt like we were on something right you know we said at the end of last year you just didn't get the closure i don't know what to call the starting of school um but as an administrator when you're walking through the halls and you see the teachers and you talk to the teachers and they're having great interactions with the kids they're getting to see the kids the kids are excited the kids are seeing each other but walking through the schools and seeing the teachers sitting there at their computer you don't feel that interaction you don't see the students as the administrator and so um i'm happy that the teachers were enjoying it i'm happy that the kids were enjoying it i'm happy that it went well but i'm having a bit of a morning crisis through this you know it i missed it yeah um looking at our computers i mean we deployed close to 2000 chromebooks having just one or two in every building that maybe didn't have a camera working or whatnot is that the standard the um number of of people that logged in that morning and were calling saying i've got this issue and then they're getting rectified before second period outstanding fantastic um you know in hindsight as we talk about hindsight we probably should have told everybody after you pick up your computers log in go into the classrooms make sure everything's working do a little bit of quality control before that you know so really right now the state the illinois department of health is not giving any guidance as to when they should return other than they'd like to see the numbers level off they'd like to see us get out of the 8 area and once we can do that and hold that for a while we can start bringing people back into small groups and then go from there one thing i don't want to have um the schools that are in as soon as they close and go all the note it's like a snow day you know and i want to encourage the parents that if once we go back to hybrid we're going to need to be prepared because something could happen and the next thing you know we've got to go back to remote so we need to prepare for those moments i think that covered everything so i guess to answer your question about when we still don't know um the people that are best to guide us on that decision making aren't at the point where they're thinking about getting us back in they're trying to figure out what to do with the numbers that are going the way they are though well i wasn't thinking an exact time but just based on numbers like we're looking at to be at seven percent under eight so does that mean seven doesn't mean like four percent so people kind of can watch it bit yeah that meeting and i mean a lot of the metrics that they look at like they brought up the uh number of icu beds and they they brought up that's a hard number for us to look at because anybody in our region that needs the icu is one across the river and so they're not here that's not a good good metric for us in this region because of the hospitals across the river um we talked more about that percentage and that growth rate and being underneath that eight percent and then but they also said that that's more of a regional number that they're going at because even if we're less and we're doing pretty well in this county you know there's the other counties around us that we do move toward and move in and move around and so looking at it in regional we all have to do our parts to try and keep those numbers down and so going back in is going to kick those numbers back up so i think if i can jump in one of the questions that was asked and what i think a lot of people would like is some kind of rubric right give me this and i can check this box and i have this number and when i get this formula then that means we can go and it was asked a variety of different ways in our meeting and the answer all always was we can't give that to you um we would like to have that clear-cut line and nobody was willing to give it to us um and but they did try to explain to us the metrics for you know um they said the hospital beds and the things that other people may be using we can't use so um and they you know it really it gets into a very complex situation because our school is one long line at the high school you know and so in the elementaries the passing periods aren't as bad um at the middle school they're kind of they're they're in their wings so it's a one long line and everything you can make one side one way and the other side the other way but it'd be nice if the school was a circle and so you just went to your cla and everybody walked in the same because it's that passing when people are facing the same way you know they even say in your classrooms you're supposed to have everybody in line so they want the germs just going forward and you're passing it's a little more integrative and so depending on the size of the school depending on the year that the school was built and how wide their hallways are based on that becca code that was guiding the width of hallways based on the flow of traffic in your building there's a lot of individual things that you need to take into account so that you can try and mitigate for those contaminations thank you are you looking at another metric internally i know the the reason of looking at the positive test rate which to me is really kind of stupid because you're no one's getting tested we're not doing random tests we're getting tested if you think you have the disease one out of ten people that think they have the disease really have that means does not so i just think it's a really poor metric to judge our whole philosophy on i understand it's hard to come with a number of them yeah and you i'm comfortable in saying with a reading score i'd like to be at this area and i'd like to see this amount of growth and whatnot when it comes to health data i have a hard time um i know there's metrics and there's there's you know graphs and whatnot but i understand how the normal reader learns reading and what kind of growth you'd expect to see we talked about this they don't they don't have any school based metrics and they even said um they've added a question to their their contact tracing do you have a child in school you know and that's one of the things like if i get you know where have i been what have i done now they're asking you know do you have a child in school what school do they go to and trying to figure that out as well because looking at it from a county perspective there's no metric that really looks at it as a you know they can do a zip code but they can't really do it as does to the columbia people that have kids in school and columbia people and that's the metric that i really want to look at is are our our groups and so we are looking at you know like our athletics that are going on as our coaches going to get sick and trying to see is it spreading in those small groups like what's happening with the pre-k it's not that we're experimenting with these groups but it's we're trying to get people in and as we get them in we're going to watch them watch them closely and see what happens so that we can then maybe bring more people in that answer your question metrics are how we do any other questions for mr seeing none we'll move on to item seven items for action the first item is the approval of the chemical um bid for food service and this would be with the same company that we had last year got it okay thank you any other questions same then i'd entertain a motion to approve the chemicals for food service bid to go to industrial cell promotion by greg o'connor second bye second second by karen anderson you do a roll call vote morning please come on tammy hines hi john long yes greg meyer scott little camp yes craig o'connor lisa schumacher yes karen anderson yes motion carries on to item b consider applying employing short-term and uh short-term educational support employees did you want to talk yeah as we've discussed before we have two nurses when we need four nurses um there are some issues with our uh securing nursing staffs and we're working on that through the negotiation process however as we were looking to try and fill our immediate need which we do have we came up with this opportunity to hire this individual this registered nurse on a temporary basis and so the recommendation is to allow us to hire her it'll go just for this semester she will not be able to be employed with us next semester or for a certain time period after this because she is a temporary employee [Music] they are still doing all of the paperwork all of the physicals all of the the work that kind of got piled up from last year i want to add to we've had a lot of turnover in our nursing staff and particularly at the high school and so there was a lot that just was not done in terms of all the you know the logistics of just the running of a nursing office and so she has been you know in there getting it organized and then once that's finished we'll help out wherever else is needed but we're we're getting caught up i will say under this uh at will so as soon as we run out of work yes but honestly from the work that i see this semester and we're hoping to get somebody for the next semester as well and this individual's okay with being an emperor either yeah it's actually um you know her situation she had a position that fell through for whatever reason and um you know she might find another job she's a nurse practitioner and so that's what she's going to end up doing so i mean hopefully not that she could notify us and say all right come on [Music] any other questions from mr grody on the nursing situation seeing none i'd entertain a motion to um to let's see and entertain a motion that the board in accordance with the illinois educational labor related relations act 115 illinois statute 52q employee jody janey as a short-term educational support employee in the position of registered nurse effective immediately through december 31st 2020 at an hourly rate of 35 per hour with no benefits and work hours determined by the superintendent i'll make promotion motion by lisa schumacher second bye second by karen anderson will call vote for me please john long yes greg meyer yes scott middle camp yes greg o'connor lisa schumacher yes karen anderson yes tammy hines yes on to the next item on the agenda the approval of the 2020-2021 budget display you have a copy at your places um i will say as you review it the term that comes to my mind is sticker shock okay this is the worst case scenario this is the um most ugly i could think of the revenues and the most extreme i could think of the expenditures this year it's been tough planning for all the contingencies trying to do a budget for all the contingencies is also tough that said you will see that the education fund 510 has quite the deficit however i will also say that um i looked back last year and at the beginning of last year we passed the budget that had it was going to be in the black about 73 and it ended up when we amended the budget to be in the black seven hundred and fifty two thousand dollars so this deficit um of seven hundred thousand dollars is actually probably going to end up even okay um there are still technology things that we need to do there are still uh some staffing issues that we've got going i mean there's to say that our world is in flux right now is is an understatement so when you look at the budget please call me um the other thing that i say that those numbers that i talked about with the ultimate is on page two page two of the budget where it creates down all the funds you'll see the revenues you'll see the expenditures and then you'll see the expectation of a deficit or a surplus on page three all of our fund balances end up being positive and so when you compare this budget to other budgets of the past we are roughly equal i'm going to spend more time kind of digging into it this month and really kind of looking at and comparing all the little line items but from the big picture as we go through and we did the revenues and the expenditures and we looked what we spent last year we look what we've done last year we made adjustments to try and be very conservative we came up with this bunch if it's now on display and uh it will be amended at the end of the year questions concerns comments please direct them to me but i don't expect you to read them establish date and time for 20 20 21 budget hearing we need to have this budget on display for 30 days and we normally do this during the regular schedule board meeting in september and september gets moved to the fourth to fourth thursday instead of the third because of the three days and you know looking back we had normally or we have done at least the last three years i looked back we actually had this budget hearing at seven seven pm and the the meeting the regular board meeting immediately following so i know i think there was a suggestion for 6 30 but i think everybody else is good with that we just have it at seven like we normally have done come here do that and then we just go into the regular report meeting yeah he's going to suggest seven just because everybody's in tune to seven o'clock and people that are coming online will be looking for us at seven o'clock and then that way we don't have 10 minutes or 15 minutes or however long lag between that and then all right so i'd entertain a motion that the budget hearing be set for 7 p.m on september 24th immediately preceding the really scheduled meeting for september all second promotion by tammy hines second by john long do a roll call vote for me please kim greg meyer yes stat little camp yes greg o'connor lisa schumacher yes karen anderson yes tammy hines yes john long yes on no motion carries on to the next item on the agenda is approval of the first reading of ford policies the press issue 104 those are in your board packet again these are this is the first reading so does anybody have any questions about this at this time seeing that and entertain a motion to to approve the first reading of the board caller or policies as presented second bite karen anderson roll call vote for me please tim scott little pants yes greg o'connor lisa schumacher yes karen anderson yes tammy hi yes john long yes greg meyer yes motion carries on to the next item on the agenda is discussion items i didn't have anything here and board president's prerogative i really i just want to say first day of school like you said it's different way different but i've had to i had had some good feedback today already from a few students and parents around them so i appreciate everything you've done on to [Music] item on the agenda is item 10 an executive session i'd entertain a motion to go into executive session for the purposes of the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of dismissal of specific employees of the public body or legal counsel from public body including hearing testimony and a complaint lodge against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public's body to determine its validity and also into the executive session for purposes of discussion of collective bargaining items do i have a motion to go into the executive session as i've stated emotion motion by lisa schumacher second bye second by gregory connor kimberly greg o'connor lisa schumacher yes karen anderson yes tammy hines yes john long yes greg meyer yes scott middleton yes for those folks that are online right now we do have items possible items for action as a result coming out of closed session so if you hang if you want to hang out and wait for us to come back we may have a few things to go through all right we're coming back out of closed session it is 8 15 pm on the 20th of august and we have items for action coming out of closed session item 11 items fraction as a result of closed session i'd entertain a motion to temporarily reduce the work hours of educational support personnel here we go i'm sorry and entertain a motion that the board approve of resolutions temporarily reduce the work hours of the following educational support personnel to zero work hours as a result of unforeseen reduction in the student population pursuant to section 10 23.5 of the illinois school code the the names are as follows edward henke elena schaefer lisa scott sandra dressler sanders judith carter christina scheibel steve ray nancy nichols jan tune kelly hoffman cynthia friedrich david gumersheimer joe truckman sean wilson williamson nikki nolte sarah karen gross laura fitch john jeske michelle swann kathy walker cindy ragcheck john kramer susan garland pauline dowell sharon kneesack karen eckerton rebecca fields amanda hower deb heine deb bollinger and tracy mclaren do i have a motion motion by gary o'connor second thing second by karen anderson karen would you um do a republic for me please karen anderson yes tammy hines i have one of these people as a tenant of mine so i'm going to abstain john long yes greg meyer i also have some employees and comments on who are referring their upstate is that middle camp yes greg o'connor mr schumacher yes the motion carries on to the second item on the agenda it entertained a motion to approve brad goacher as the district treasurer it's a part-time position motioned by john long second bye second by lisa schumacher did you roll football please parents tammy hines yes john long yes greg meyer yes scott middle camp yes greg o'connor this is schumacher yes aaron anderson yes okay on to item 12 adjournment let's entertain a motion to adjourn i'll make a motion motion by tammy hines second five i'll second second by greg meyer can you do a goal photo for me please john long yes greg meyer yes yes lisa schumacher yes karen anderson yes family hines yes motion carries and we are adjourned thank you all for joining us you
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we're here at stafford field myself jacob as well as ashland all east grads and proud to be over here announcing for the columbus east game jacob talk a little bit about what you're hoping to see from our olympians tonight well it starts on the defensive side of the ball week one there's going to be some mental mistakes on both sides but one thing that travels to home games and away games is the defense if the olympian defense can stop the run that whiteland pins its hat on the olympians will have a great chance of winning this football game and making a 2-1 series lead against the whiteland warriors the past three years very cool well jacob i can see our olympians starting to walk up to stafford field getting ready to announce the whiteland warriors right now as the players come out we're going to start with our starters for tonight now these are projected starters for our week one game since we haven't had a lot of film to go off of we'll start with the olympian defensive starters at defensive end number 59 chase harrison sophomore at defensive tackle number 57 km shrum a senior at noseguard number 50 trent henry senior defensive end number 52 jayden durnell jr at the sam linebacker number nine trace bergman senior at the middle linebacker number kai stidham senior at the week linebacker number 16 tj barkheimer senior at corner number six tyrell bowers senior and at the other corner number 14 rocco duffy who is a junior in the far secondary free safety number elliott koopman who is a senior and roaming at the strong safety number 33 parker harrison who is a senior now on to the whiteland warriors offensive starters at left tackle number 73 jacob mccarthy at left guard number 67 ernie powell at center number 71 jackson bolton at right guard number 56 ethan myers at right tackle number 72 tayton schlackel at tight end number one max sullivan at receiver number 27 desmond singleton and at the other receiver number 24 dalton de bonne at one of the running backs number 21 chase valentine number 33 landon wood at the other running back and under center for the warriors number eight brant coons those are the projected starters for tonight's ball game as here come the olympians out to center field and we are almost underway for the ihsaa regular season season opener the visiting warriors and your columbus east olympians those were your columbus east starters for the defensive side of the ball we're moments away from the national anthem and right after that we're going to be playing some football [Music] [Applause] great job by our olympian spirit marching band and we are moments away from the opening kickoff please coming out to midfield are the east and whiteland captains for our ceremonial coin toss beautiful weather tonight for the football game a great way to open our season the sun will be setting towards the end of the first half and it'll mostly be dark by the second half so we'll see if the teams decide to kick away from the sun towards the first half or elect to kick into the sun to the second half [Applause] [Music] the warriors have won the toss and have elected to defer to the second half that means the olympians will receive the football to start our 2020 ihsa football season kicking off for the warriors number 34 chris dewalt and returning for the olympians number 24 mark mcdonald [Music] [Applause] we are moments away from the opening kickoff to start our 2020 ihsa football season dewalt runs up and we are underway at stafford field the kick is caught by number 22.
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the purpose of all of these meetings was to share information and to answer questions from parents the meetings were very well received and appreciated school will begin for students on wednesday september 2nd the first three days of school as a reminder are early release days for students only wednesday september 2nd will be the first day of school for students with last names a through k in the buster group the first day of school for students with last names l through k in the bulldog group will be thursday september 3rd all students will be working remotely on friday which will give us an opportunity to test out our technology which will have been handed out in the first two days the following week is labor day and the buster group will be in school on tuesday and wednesday the bulldog group will be in school on thursday and friday of that week while we are in the hybrid model our regularly scheduled early release fridays will be on wednesday afternoon of that week and uh both mr misselli and mr giard will be sending out reminders as we go along we've extended the survey for return to school for parents to share with us their plan uh until this friday august 21st i would like to thank debbie wagner and our wonderful ladies in the cafeteria for the great job they have done since this pandemic hit feeding our families in bolton they have served over 22 000 meals i would also like to thank john buttremovich and our custodians for their outstanding work getting us ready for the start of school i would also like to thank our administrators who have been tirelessly working over the summer along with the numerous staff members who are so dedicated who have been part of our reopening committee our teacher leaders who have been working tirelessly as well to support our administrators so that we're ready to go for any of the three plans that we have for this year whether it be the hybrid full opening or the distance learning model we have amazing staff in bolton and i feel so thankful to work with such amazing people i would also like to thank the board for your ongoing support and i would also like to thank the community for theirs i'd now like to turn it over to mrs malinowski for an update on curriculum and technology good evening as we prepare for this school year our work will focus on continuous learning and equity for all students in order to ensure this we have secured the important instructional technology tools that will assist our teachers and students we have secured chromebooks for all students in the district now that's great news even if you can hear that over my dog barking first time all day sorry um these devices will be distributed by classroom teachers on wednesday and thursday of the first week of school students use and technology expectations will be reviewed during the opening days to assist with instruction for both in-class and remote students we have stationary webcams similar to the separate webcams many of us have on our computers for all classrooms and microphones have been ordered so as we may have heard on the news technology is a hot commodity things have been ordered our bags for the chromebooks and our microphones are ordered so we are getting them as they come in i will assure you that the microphones on the webcams will suffice it will be better with the microphones as we get them the webcams are stationary as i said and will have limited scope where the teacher will control where the camera is projected for students on the remote parallel learning track chromebooks and supplies will be distributed distributed and coordinated through the buildings a communication about this will be forthcoming in terms of curriculum last may we began the process of reprioritizing our standards content and skills at all levels and with all subjects i have to thank our staff for getting ahead of the curve it's set up has set us up beautifully for the start of this year we're not starting from square one teachers met to identify standards contents and skills that were most impacted by distance learning and communicated this with the receiving teachers this information was documented and we would be able to pick up where we left off with this planning we have time dedicated during this teachers first six days to revise their opening lessons which will also include an added emphasis on developing a strong classroom community mrs goldschnider will speak more specifically about our lessons and other social emotional supports that will be included with our opening units this year grading will return to a traditional standards-based report in the k-5 level and a numerical grade in 612.
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these are our college kids coming home not following the rules you know i'm assuming i'm not out there chasing them down um but we saw that tick go up that's where my department is going to be assisting almost hand to hand holding the school nurse's hands as we walk through each time some something happens um but sorry um i forgot where i was going with that but we have developed these relationships with the school nurses we've provided lots of information and lots of guidance to make sure that you are implementing things to be successful um we did recently have oh i know i was going sorry so our camps did really well now on sports it was a little different for me i have three towns so i have a lot more people doing different types of sports a lot more private um i did have an outbreak um i had a child in a camp in sports camp who did test positive being that we know what to do it was very clear to me i needed to do those 25 people that were in their cohorts that's why cohorts are so important to keep them small because those 25 people then had to be quarantined also the person also played on another league which gets a you know let's let's face it a lot of these kids that do that do that and we did spread the disease did spread so that is why there's been some hesitation um with the sports i'm gonna be honest with you i know cic i'm sorry steve i wasn't paying attention i wasn't here for your presentation um but i know that the department of public health had issued the letter on the 13th with their guidance after cic ci caic had presented theirs so right now we're waiting for them to come into agreement as to what they are supporting to happen and i would imagine that's coming out in the next day or two and i know that each of my three towns have taken a pause we need to wait and see what's going on yes our numbers are low but the goal of our numbers keeping low is to get these kids back into school that's been our ultimate goal is to get these kids back into to school and hopefully then functioning and keeping these numbers low until we can get a vaccine and i'm very hopeful that through my conversations with cdc and dph that we're going to be doing vaccine uh our critical workforces hopefully by mid when uh end of uh this year so just wanted to give you a little background mark again thank you so much for that just uh again and be after the board administration team thank you for joining us tonight we uh we all know trespass playing a huge role in all this and we understand that uh you're silly you know you're not dr falchi but definitely you know um a um a soothing voice in our town and uh i i know maura a little bit just from the food services business has a great reputation in there and as well as this so thank you for being here uh and giving us that it helps a lot i steve i thank you for for the details and presentations um i have a quick question i'll check the chats before i run but i'll get back to adam and tim in a second so you know more touch upon one thing which is you know i can imagine steve for you and jeff and team and you know the the the disconnect between the ciac and the department of public health we saw the last couple weeks you know with one coming out one guidance then you know not really being on the same page is doing a wrench with a lot of school districts plans you know we're all in a wait and see mode i know some other school districts postpone sports some are canceled they seem to make individual decisions um but it sounds like i'm listening to a presentation that if the cic gives the go-ahead then we're ready to go and i guess my question is for you know for jeff really in in uh speed is you know should the caac come out with guidance that uh it's okay to start fall sports and by some miracle the department of public health agrees with that are we good are you guys gonna be supporting the decision to move us forward what you know where's you know i haven't heard from our leadership team yet um on this thought stars i know they're also dealing with constant changes in direction would i unite support sports moving forward if ciac did yeah i would want to work through maura and our local health professionals um rather than just take ciac guide on it um i think it would have to be a collaborative decision at the local level after the state says after the the governing body says it's appropriate or not right um for the fall season no i as soon as much and i want folks to get an impression that uh you know that's the case but it's glad to hear i mean we're all in that mode we're not alone um is there any thoughts given i know one of the things that the department of health put out there i was last week was you know postpone or wait till the spring is there any advantage to us for waiting for spring for this point or is that is going to depend on the situation as it evolves i know so tony the whole jeff excuse me if you don't mind please take please a lot of that is based upon the fact that we know the vaccines are coming and we are very hopeful that um in new haven county i have to vaccinate 11 000 first um critical workforce that is in phase one when phase two comes out that is the general public now they haven't given us details of how that's going to be implemented but that is when your general public your kids are going to be getting their vaccination the vaccination is a two dose vaccine and so it will be time but they have been providing me information that they have several vaccines in in in works yeah no i uh thank you more for that i i i work in the drug specialty sector uh most ways to data and i know there's a lot of there's quite a few promising vaccine works and you know we always talk about that you know until vaccine has been tested and administered um and the time it takes to do that you know it's going to be a pro-on situation but so again i'm not trying to put it on the spot i uh this is the first time as a board and administrator a chance to talk about sports so i know steve said that cic is discussing tonight maura will see what the department of health comes back with in the next hopefully couple days uh i appreciate the in-depth analysis and i i know the board has gotten many questions from sports parents and not sports parents and i think a lot of the questions tonight we will have is really around the monitoring and enforcement of whatever we do be in the classroom or on the field and so one last question for you steve i i'm glad to hear that i i'm not surprised the coaches are you know taking it seriously i know they they're offering the best interest of our kids i'm glad they're behind the protocol and procedures but how's who's gonna monitor what's happening during the practices and gains like if i know the coaches of mine the players but who's mine i think the coaches who's monitoring the gates to stop people from coming in that shouldn't be i mean how do we that's the question i've been getting is you know how do we keep eyes on this and this even goes into the classroom which we'll talk about later but the monitoring aspect of it how are you going to you know keep grabs on whether people are following guidelines or not great question tony you know it i'll be busy there's no question about it you know a lot of responsibility is on me um and of course that's one of our concerns with spectators that it's easy to say no no spectators therefore we're not monitoring who's coming in um we know that you have your sport junkies that you're not going to be able to keep them away they'll be hiding in the bushes so those are things that as a league we are constantly meeting and discussing of what are the best options for that not every school has the ability to close off their facility um people can walk through our woods as you know to get to our field so um those are those are obstacles i think that we're gonna have to address as as we get closer and closer if in fact we do have a season got it thank you steve uh uh adam you had many questions i know tim has a question but we're still in a sports aspect so for those watching i'll i'll try and limit uh my my initial volley of questions uh to uh and they're all tomorrow obviously um so today uh the governor at his four o'clock briefing i mentioned gave what i thought was a fairly shocking statistic it seemed like three weeks ago or during the height of when when florida and texas were going crazy that the turnaround time to get a test in connecticut was 14 days today the governor said that if i have it right here that 70 that that the average is now two days and that 75 is around one day turn around for a test if that is true should all of our students and teachers be tested do we have that capacity to set a baseline before school begins okay so i can answer that because i myself was tested during that time and yes it took me 10 days and that was basically because all of the labs were directed to prioritize the hot states okay my son was tested the day before last right here in cheshire to go back to school and he got it back within two days um so in that respect i think that things have kind of calmed down a little bit and we're slowly getting labs to start because honestly there was a hiatus when that happened um in this in the state that the health directors were going crazy that we cannot do correct contact tracing and stop the spread when we have such a long delay so we did have a very large loud voice to get that back so i'm very happy to say that we are back where we should be now as far as testing everybody goes we will i will tell you that there is not enough reagents out there we are still low i i sorry but it is the way it is um so i i we've been saying yelling that there's not enough testing since march um we need more um we need more fast but the problem of it is is that there's things coming out with all the different testing medias so the most accurate ones that they really want us to do is that um where you go to the actually like the drive-in and you're getting a nasal swab um the rapid tests are right now what the cdc has changed that if you get a rapid test and it's negative that's a presumable so you need to then go get another pv sorry i'm forgetting the names um go through the regular drive through and get a nasal swap so as much as we've been pushing a lot more for the rapids they're still not accurate and we still don't have enough testing medium so that is what is happening i just want to add one little thing adam today so for what it's worth more you might appreciate this so my daughter's going to fairfield university all the students before they moved in had to take a mail-in saliva based test what they all did actually took us sending thurs they got the results monday came out great tuesday fairfield notified all parents to disregard that lapse test results they lost faith in them and that uh during the move-in day specifically all students they get the nasal test would result within 15 minutes so it's kind of goes to show you that you know it's still evolving um but yeah i don't envy the testing scenario yeah we all know the testing scenario has not been been perfected um and we are that we're doing the best we can and the still main thing that they really want people to do is that if you have symptoms please get tested got it we'll get a little bit of that later mark thank you for adam back back to you um and so uh my second question is so since we won't be able to set a baseline um and i know there's been a lot of chatter you know i i i guess i it's just i guess my job to to read facebook as it is tony and all the rest of us to get a pulse on on the community um all of the the you know you see on the news all the all the recent studies are saying that the now the kids who are below the age of 10 or through the age of 18 or whatever can carry a a larger viral load than even an adult can and that but they're not sure if they can spread it or not and i'm just wondering if the studies if you're aware i'm sure you're aware of all the same literature and you probably have access to much better stuff than i do um is that are those cases where the the children were wearing masks as like our students are going to be i i will tell you adam unfortunately i don't know that specific study um i've just had so much that i have to rely sometimes on my experts at dph and they haven't really updated us on that remember this is a novel disease this is very new and the studies are happening now um we learned a lot from h1n1 and a lot of the lessons and the recommendations are coming from that time but it is still new and we don't know a lot so i can look it up for you and get back to you but i just don't know that specific study okay yeah i was just more concerned that you know because just wondering what the context is because if if all the kids are supposed to be wearing masks and it's supposed to you know decrease the the spread by 90 or whatever you know all these other demonstrations are showing then i'm just wondering if we're in a better position than we think we are um that's all i'm wondering there i have one more question but i'll wait i'll let others go and i'll come back uh tim had a question and i'll ask another board member thanks tony um yes i just i just want to say to be clear on this is that um i'm skeptical about sports moving uh contact activities moving forward at this time i with regard to the ciac i appreciate what jeff said um they have their own priorities and they're not necessarily the priorities of the cheshire public schools they may be aligned or they may not be um so my question for you steve is when do you expect contact activities or close proximity activities would start and i say this simply because so my question really relates to we're back to school on september 11th and it seems to me that you know we we want to stagger these things and see where we are this is kind of what i was hearing for maura if we had some time to know where we are whether that's two weeks three weeks four weeks make a decision somewhere into the future do we have a flare-up as soon as we get back because you know somebody's older brother was off to college and now they're back because school got closed there in that state or whatever it is so when would you expect contact activity to start or has it already i mean it i think tim that that's what's being decided tonight i know that the the department of public health is looking to start sports two weeks after school begins to let schools open up and so what is that date because schools there are schools starting on different dates when when sports if they do start up there's a three-week cohort period where we're slowly going to increase the time uh that cohorts are meeting and also increase the amount of kids within that cohort so what we'll start doing is start combining cohorts as we go along so you're slowly bringing the team together and creating a new cohort and of course the goal at the end is to eventually play a contest so it's probably once you start if and when sports start it's probably three to four weeks out from when that actually begins and in that period of time we're able to really monitor what's going on if we start to have setbacks as maura mentioned if we start to see some flare-ups it's going to back it's going to just back down or shut down so the goal here isn't to win championships you know i know i've talked to kids about that the goal is to give them an experience in their in their athletic choice that they they really like if we can't do it safely we won't do it okay so you're saying that uh games or meets whatever the whatever it might be that they would start three to four weeks after the 11th or the activity or the like contact activity would start three to four weeks afterwards three to four weeks uh actually three weeks after the start of when the ciac and department of public health say we can start if in fact we could right okay so that would be the scrimmage that would be your first contest etc as a team okay okay okay all right thank you austin thank you uh any other questions from board members on sports uh steve you're certainly welcome to stay um and again i want to thank you for coming this evening putting the presentation together bearing with us all these questions uh you know we're just we really support our you and our our administration and our educators and getting a safe school opening whether it's we're opening schools or sports activities we're just trying to be very um thorough because we do get a lot of questions and we're trying to funnel these into the folks and i hope folks that are watching if you're just tuning in to the meeting we're almost an hour into it uh we just covered uh sports as well as the school opening steve took us to a great presentation of all the protocols and procedures i'm not going to recap or being said but uh jeff i did get asked already if uh if it's possible meeting to have any presentations available for the public i know steve mentioned that a lot of materials sports uh website and uh we'll make that information available in case folks want to revisit that steve thank you jeff how do you see this going forward i don't know if moore has a presentation to give do you want to talk about school you're opening maura wanted to share um just a few items and then i know you and the public had some questions for her so we'll you know facilitate that and then we can move on i i assume your your voice is well rested right now for now right yeah it's nice to take the break anyway more it's all yours when you're ready so really i thought that was my five minutes yeah what i gave originally so i already gave my presentation um i will be honest with you i i i'm more here to answer your questions um if i wanted to start talking about covid in our experience we would be here for no you know we're confident that more it's you know we're we're trying to funnel a lot of and you're getting these things i'm sure you're getting the same questions too i'll start off with one since you asked um i know um as a parent of my daughters i'm going to junior at the high school and my senior daughter has graduated and i still still very much invested in chester public schools my daughter's going in and they get the email uh from cheshire high school that you know we're going to be able to pick up thermometers they'll take temperatures one of the questions i get asked a lot is why are we not checking temperatures uh at school when kids arrive and i i know there's some back and forth in that is there a reason why it's not worthy to check temperatures at school and kids walk in or uh well i'm going to give you a little background in the fact that when this first started we were really using thermometers and basing people's temperatures as the main issue because at that time that was the top illness symptom it isn't anymore um especially amongst kids it's not so that is why we got the thermometers and we distributed them to the schools and the department of public health had really recommended looking at the data that we really didn't need to base it on that symptom that temperature because the kids symptoms were different so that's really why the temperatures were taking off now we're still doing that in different places it gives people a sense of security but it's not really an accurate especially is your thermometer been calibrated is it a you know there's a lot of variables in this so we are just really emphasizing that the parents really should be knowing the one thing we really want to emphasize is that if your child is not feeling well your child should not be going to school that's really the message and a strong message that we need to be sending to the parents so we're going to give you that thermometer but you know for you to check your child but also we want to make sure that the parents really understand their children's symptoms and we want to make sure that when they come in and if they get a tummy ache or if they're not feeling well there's still other viruses going around everyone uh it's all you know we didn't just uh only be exposed to covid viruses we still have other viruses around with mimicking symptoms and we're going to be in flu season uh right around the corner with with the same exact symptoms so it's really getting to know your child and knowing when to keep your child home thanks mara before i go on andrew you had a question mark how many confirmed cases do we have in cheshire now is it higher now than it was in the beginning of the outbreak or i can tell you that in the last three months um i'm sorry i don't have the exact data with me but in the last three months we've had over um 99 cases um i i wanted to see the trends and if you want to go on to chesapeake's facebook page or web page you can see that the trends have clearly been steadying down since our peaks were in april um but we've been a pretty steady five to ten case new cases a week so even as businesses have reopened sports and camps have gone on the cases have gone down uh they've stayed steady if you go look since may through now we have been pretty much staying low we are following the rest of the state great thank you thanks sam any any other board members questions for maura so far uh faith um um just some historical just to help me put this in perspective um what is the most common form of transmission is it just public to public family to family what's going on can you tell well i can tell you that we've had over 400 cases and i can tell you we interview everybody can i just stop you that's 400 for all three towns correct yes yes can we deal with just just cheshire specific that's really hard for me to say because i just listen to me for one minute if i can just start from there because i will say that about 90 percent of those cases had some connection to medical people so it so regardless if it's cheshire wilkin or prospect majority of them when you start digging down as to where they came in contact with someone that they have some connection to some medical person now not all of them um but i would say that i only have about maybe five percent that have no clue where they were who they were exposed to okay or where they got it all right and so um so it's a medical it seems to be a medical transmission um we were in school for 10 weeks before we finally shut down and you're saying too that in december they were actually seeing cases and that's what i'm reading too is they think it was there probably late december beginning in january so we went almost 10 plus weeks can you trace any of those um in 80 you know and cheshire we had 83 cases is there any way to trace any of those back to a school related to cps related infection either through students or teachers there's no way because you don't know who your cases are okay i've just been trying to allay you know our first concern our first cases didn't occur until march 25th and schools were already down to two weeks by then right yeah i don't know you know we were not prioritizing at that time on children we were seeing it big time in the elderly and the nursing homes in mostly nursing homes that did not have the equipment the ppe to stop the infection well we had a we were in a very dire situation where we did not have enough ppe not in there not in the hospitals it was all over okay and then do we have a number at which point we will close our schools down is it one case is it five cases ten i mean i read what the governor has sent in terms of guidelines what does that translate to we don't have that data or they have not provided us that guidance at this point um so i i i don't know that answer yet all right thank you yeah let me think about it more i'm glad the answer that and faith you brought that up because uh the state department of education did publish an addendum i i was number four number seven but it talked about uh and jeff knows more than i do on this but talked about how to handle situations when there is a case or someone showing a symptom but they haven't released anything yet on non-one and so i you know again for folks watching i know that's probably the top three questions we get is at which point you know does the school decide to close down is it the entire class is it we just we don't have that guideline yet um no but that is why the the importance of these cohorts you want to keep these small cohorts and make sure that everybody is following the public health mitigation strategies washing their hands um keeping six feet apart wearing their masks you know we know that if these mitigation strategies are implemented the rates are the chances the probability is lower that they will you know there will be at lower risk for contracting great thanks um adam had a question um yeah so that's kind of the buzzword is cohorts and so that unfortunately leads me to this this question of so it appears that in the elementary school and in the middle school schools um that cohorting of a sounded like a being tuning 20 25 or you know whatever class precise is at the elementary school and a class and the cohorts i guess if they've come up with the middle school where they're keeping passing and re-passing down uh especially to elementary school and i guess to a minimum at the middle school so then that leads me to even at a 50 occupancy at the high school where there still will be hundreds of children in the halls passing at what was it was it three or four periods a day i i i forget exactly um uh with all those kids intermingling because it's not like you're gonna take one cohort and march them down the hallway to their next location or anything um how is that going to work since we're stressing cohorting and that does not seem to be possible at the high school well mary i i'm going to push in a spot but i know mary sent out uh communication to this this evening to all the parents in chester high school detailed some of those numbers i don't know if mary if you want to talk a little bit about the what that and if put some color to it that that's one of the reasons why we one of the central reasons why we moved to a cohort i'll get into my presentation or move to a hybrid model um we have you know 1 365 students uh bringing 50 in puts us roughly in in the high 600s uh so just to answer your question specifically adam when when we do have students passing with 50 of students in i'd be moving half of that half of the school population so i'd be sending moving 341 students to their next class in an alphabetical rotation that's why it was essential to have four class periods and a block schedule model so that we would have time um and could extend our passing time so we could split those groups further as we move students through the hallway and have a chance of keeping them separate our hallways are 11 feet wide um so it really made the thought of all 1300 plus kids plus a couple hundred faculty if they all need to move um extremely challenging uh and next to impossible to to cohort i don't know if you want me to get into more um well so in essence then dr gad um you are kind of you are breaking up groups and moving them around or at least staggering the timing so that you can achieve some form of isolation as the population moves around the building and that is so that would be my interpretation correct okay great well i feel a little better about that i guess uh thank you absolutely um andrew got a question sure i'm not sure um who could answer this one um it's kind of a specific question uh that fellow middle school parents have asked me understanding that the dodd teams will be cohorted by groups of 20 or so within um where the teachers will rotate will those students also be cohorted based on their athletics based on ciac's decision tonight can uh address that question uh first of all right now at the middle school level most all the schools that we play against uh have already gone to an intramural program we have decided to postpone all uh activities at the school after school activities until october 1st so at this point uh we won't have any after-school activities at dodd that are going to be occurring in person but just virtually for the time being then after october after act we'll make a decision later in september um once you know we'll have a lot more information on the ciac at that point we'll have a lot more information how school opening is gone what the data looks like and i think we'll make a more educated decision toward the end of september rather than right now got it thank you sure thank you andrew um tim thanks tony so everyone here at the meeting including uh people watching on youtube just so you know i actually have a work meeting a paid work meeting at 8 30 so i'm gonna have to leave i don't know if i'll be able to come back or not but i will have to leave at least for a little while more a question for you generally speaking based on what you know about the cps plan right now which is again generally elementary and dodd a full reopen high school a hybrid reopen are you comfortable not necessarily thrilled with it but are you comfortable with it that we should be moving forward with it you're on mute more oh yeah you're a mute sorry there have been studies done from back from h1n1 that looked at when that was occurring and they looked at cohorts and practicing public health mitigation strategies and they showed in those studies that they were able to keep the incidence low so as long as we are doing that and following the cdc guidance and doing the best that we can which we are i mean those plans i went through and made sure that all those strategies i've been meeting with everyone talking to them staying up to date with the nurses i really feel comfortable um going with the model that you guys have chosen where one to eight is going full time and the older kids uh the high school kids are doing hybrid i i no one said this was going to be perfect nothing has been perfect through this pandemic there is nothing normal about this time but it is the best practice for this known from experience i can't say it is foolproof it's not perfect believe me i'd rather not have it you know but it is what it is and i know that if we need to really emphasize to the parents and to the students the reasonings why we are doing this and if they adhere to it we should be okay we did that it's already been proven look at my salons i haven't had any outbreaks in my salons look at my camp i kept very close tabs with holiday hill we did not have one camper so and if we practice this and practice it and practice it practice makes perfect thank you thank you maura um actually i'm going to skip ahead to ann and i'll go back to adam so ann if you have a question you're up yeah i do and this question is probably for jeff um so in our do we have plans that if an outbreak were to be identified in one school does that necessarily mean that we would across cps close things down or would we deal with that one community first yeah i think that's a great question and i um in education uh and often in life we like to be able to have a real clear black white if then sort of scenario there's definitely comfort in that unfortunately this is a situation that has wild ambiguity so if asmara was suggesting a student was participating in some out of state sports situation you know thursday through sunday and came back it doesn't have to be sports it could be anything theater or whatever they come back and they realize that they're sick but they've been there with kids from various different buildings that's going to be a much different scenario than if it was i visited one person and then you know i got sick here and i could i could pinpoint what happened i was at a hospital or something you know the this is where um maura's team and our team and families and the community will have to work closely together to identify the circumstances and make good judgments about what has to happen next um and we're not going to take chances and you know unfortunately we had to adjust the high school graduation because there was too much ambiguity to feel comfortable moving forward and and you know to be ensure that we were safe we knew there was a positive case um at least one um and perhaps others so you have to move you have to be be sensible about it but we'll work together as a team to figure that out thank you jeff i wrote down that quote wild ambiguities yeah um i'm gonna skip adam again catherine sorry adam um i just had a question for maura um you know i think that there are some concerns or questions about the plan as it relates to the adult staff in the schools teachers and and other adults in the buildings and you know from my understanding of the plan i think that we've sort of contempl you know we've we've paid attention to that as well it's not just um safety of the students but i didn't know if you had looked at the plan sort of from that perspective as well um and and sort of you know make sure that we're doing the stuff we have to do from that point as well yeah when you are when i'm looking at any of these plans i am looking at everyone um it's it's from the janitor all the way to the top um because this disease does is not pick you know it doesn't pick a certain person um so yes i look at you know everything from how everyone's coming in the building to how everything is being cleaned how is we've gone through all of that and making sure that i understand these teachers some of them are extremely nervous and rightfully so that is how everybody is about opening up the salon owners were nervous the food service were nervous the holiday hill staff was nervous and it isn't just a cheshire thing that was throughout the whole state everybody was nervous about opening up and i think that you're gonna find that once you're getting in and you're going to see all the the things that cheshire school system is done and going to be doing to protect them um i think they will be surprised and it takes it's it's a fearful event they've been home they've been protected and they're watching the news sometimes the news can uh put a little fear in everyone uh but this is we're on low rates and we want to keep it that way and so that is why they are doing mitigation strategies the sanitizers increasing washing your hands taking the time they've we've had many discussions about the time that these steps that they're doing are taking out of the day but it's to keep everybody safe not just the students the staff the administrators everybody top to bottom thank you thank you uh adam thank you tony uh well well my questions turned in more in into more of a statement because both the ann and catherine kind of uh have covered the the topics that that i wanted to ask about um so i'll just say that uh i think that for everyone who's watching um i think they're really happy to hear that you and your department uh have i feel feel good about the plan that jeff and team has put together as far as the reopening for each level of of our school system um and i i'm also happy to hear that that you uh and at least i won't say i don't know if endorse endorse maybe a strong word but at least are agreeable to having the hybrid plan at the high school i know that the governor uh at least even today was still hesitant about the hybrid plan uh when he because he made comments during his his four o'clock uh when he spoke to the uh um i want to call him superintendent cardona or a commissioner cardona um where cardona was was endorsing hybrid and the governor wasn't so uh so happy about it so i'm hoping that the governor isn't going to put a kibosh on this plan because i think the the plan that uh all of you have put together uh as i think um as cutting edge as can be given the resources that we have uh and and i hope this goes a long way to to to really tamping on a lot of disinformation that's been out there about um what what what we are doing what we are doing and you know even to say as board members you know there's been a lot of accusations about us uh and you know some of us uh are are going to be uh you know have the rubber meet the road our children are going to be going into those schools and we're going to be uh subject to these policies that you're all going to be putting into effect and um so we're we're praying to god every night too that this all works out and that um that these these uh well-laid plans uh work to the to the best of the ability so i i thank you for for all the hard work that you've done and that the jeff and team have done in putting this together thank you first of all i just want to say uh by no means is uh is anybody on the board putting more on the spot to uh you know bless the plans uh set forth that the board uh is moving forward but it is reassuring yeah i'm not surprised i know uh chesapeake has been very involved in a number of aspects of community on this so um and uh and and just uh i'll turn over to katherine she had another question but um uh and i lost my train of thought um it's not just the folks aware so you know my monitoring enforcement you know and i don't think i don't need more for this part uh or else jeff has more to present than reopening just some questions around the reopening in general you know hybrid things like that but uh really the question that we it's probably the number one one i've seen lately is tony board of ed school district um you know full well kids are going to be there all day long pulling out their masks and i got full transparency i sat in on a negotiation meeting i had my mask on a half hour into him already doing this with it and uh i think it was jeff that's like inside the head said don't do that and i'm i'm a full-grown adult although my wife will argue sometimes about that but with the little kids um you know the teachers are gonna be the front line in the classroom and you know so they had a responsibility but the monitoring enforcement i guess is what parents come down to is you know the questions we get is um tony you know what's gonna happen teacher can't do a damn thing about it what happens in that case and that goes back to jeff's you know flow chart right people want to see a flow chart if one else do this um so i hope little every time a little bit more about you know what parents and students even teachers can expect around enforcement that the mask of being worn someone wasn't aware of what happens um if teacher has a legitimate concern who do they go to how does it get resolved i think that's more than a minutiae of the detail but that's um certainly not chesapeake's area it's gonna be more of the internal mechanics of of the school system so it is a team effort that's that was my point so i'll i'll end there um katherine i'm sorry i need to bypass you you're up no prob no problem um so i just have one question because another um i think some people are confused about the fact that um you know the k through eight students will be going to school in person pretty much every day and the high school you know we've we're doing the hybrid model um which i think is probably one of the few ways we can try to you know control things as much as possible at the high school um but i just to ask the question would you have a lot of confidence in our ability to keep the infection rate low if in fact the high school went back to all the kids went back every day all day long i mean do you have a sense of whether that is even something that could be uh managed very well door at all are you asking me yeah you know honestly i think that the hybrid model at that age group is a much better more manageable if we were going full time we had this discussion and they knew that when they first gave out the the um planning documents that it was almost going to be impossible to do cohorting with going full time you need to get smaller groups to be able to control and manage because again it goes back to the mitigation strategies if you have kids going everywhere you're not going to be able to manage them so the managing them that's dr gad's area of expertise of how she's going to do that um so i'll turn to her for how she's going to do that but my suggestions again it's easier the smaller they are because you can k you can control them better you're watching them and and uh you know if something happens you only have that small group you don't have the large masses and if you have the large masses that's when a huge outbreak in her occur and that's what we're really our goal is not to have that right i i think it was just would i just thought it might be helpful for people to hear from you you know as the public health expert you know sort of what the possibilities might be so thank you very much thank you um any other questions specifically for maura from the board or anyone else yeah there are a variety of questions that were submitted i would just want to try and roll through those if we could um let me just pull those up yes please excuse me for 30 seconds i'm going to run to the sure um a question from rob ricato do we know when tested is it coven 19 or other coronavirus are we 100 sure what strain it is yes yes okay we know what they're doing there it's the dna so yes that has already been the next question is um from a parent ritu dar uh how transparent will school districts be in communicating about any infections in school i would like to know about any cases even if my child is learning remotely and i can decide on what numbers uh whether to go in or not in the future so basically uh the reason i read this is even though it's i think that's kind of a school question but we work in such concert with chespercott through that process in the case of contact tracing you know maura's office would be contacting individuals in the case of just notification to the community we would notify of a positive uh the people in that school of a positive case um a question from uh parent slash teacher taryn desorbo uh the use of plexiglas dividers uh particularly in cafeteria due the fact students will not be wearing masks is that a possibility for inside spaces when masks will not be worn um i can talk about the lunch piece a little bit but more do you want to talk about the value of uh perceived value of masks or the excuse me the the shields yeah we actually were looking at the shields yes shields have a value um any kind of barrier has a value to pr to prevent those droplets from coming to the next person so that they are inhaled and that is how you you get the virus we did have speak to doctor our medical director because we were investigating into that who did not feel that they were as protective the masks are a tight fitting mask sorry that goes over your face and it's supposed to go it goes over your nose over your mouth because it's going to be collecting those particles versus a shield your particles are still out there and whether or not then you have to worry about the cleanliness of the shield because although it isn't a high rate of spread through that it is a known spread that you can spread it from your hands touching that and then touching your face the other thing i would add around the lunches and just to build off of that maura's comment there in the um in the conversation with our medical advisor who meets with epidemiologists from yale on a weekly basis for updates really the thought was unless that um shield goes floor to ceiling and basically encapsulates the individual there's there's really limited value to that what we've done in terms of lunches is uh mr maciana and i did a whirlwind tour of our schools and um in the places where it's really hard to maintain more social distancing at the high school where we have calf commons east gym senior courtyard where there's more space to spread out it's not as much of an issue but in our k-8 buildings we've secured tents uh which was you know really hard to find tents and when i say tents i'm talking about massive commercial tents that the one at dot is 60 by 120 for example so we can move a lot of people outside with great social distancing during dining so that's really our our uh effort there to to maintain the distancing another question um uh from david cadugan who's a teacher my question is primarily for miss esposito can you summarize this is a multi-part can you summarize the risk assessment and modeling data that evaluated the cps plan to reopen what's the probability of spreading covid19 through people in our schools under the current plan also can you quantitatively destroy describe the effectiveness of masks in schools the chewed all lancet paper suggests that masks mostly n95 and surgical might lower the chance of infection about five-fold in medical settings while we seem to be operating under the assumption that mass reduced the risk of infection to zero so i'll try to answer this one um i there is no when we look at the plan my role as the public health director is knowing that through lessons learned like i've said before through h1n1 and other studies that we know that public health mitigation strategies and i don't have my notebook here have worked in the past again i want to reiterate that they have worked in the past they've slowed the spread and that's what we need to do so when i looked at the plan that's what i was looking for were they taking every little bit and examining it pulling the layers apart is there a different solution for something can we do this can we do that can you you know so that's that was my role in helping the school system look at that plan so there was no probability model it was just simple public health methodology and really honestly it was from chesapeake's been in the trenches we have been fighting this with all the different places and i've learned a lot when we're doing the restaurants when we're doing the businesses when we were opening all those things i was out there visiting the sites i visited almost many of the public buildings in town and walked through each one to say you know what that would work that wouldn't work just knowing i i don't know how to tell you my little spidey senses it's just what my public health knowledge is um yes n95s are probably one of the best ways it's not a hundred percent effective uh you have to be fit tested but unfortunately those n95s are only earmarked for the hospitals there are devices that are more effective but they're they're very expensive and good luck getting them studies are going on right now talking about different masks and that i don't want to get into the whole mask thing because there's a lots out there um but we have there's some good studies that but the whole big logic behind a mask is if it is fitting tight and it needs to go above the nose and around your mouth mouth and be tight then it should be okay because it's gathering it's about catching the particles and holding the particles so i agree with you it's not you're not going to be they are not 100 there is nothing 100 percent so exactly yeah there's a and i think that you know like we said um masks are one mitigating factor space is another mitigating factor air circulation is another mitigating factor the the question arises about air circulation i know i've received questions about hepa filters in classrooms the uh department of public health doesn't recommend them the um the uh i did contact many other surrounding districts of 13 that responded back to me none of them are using them so i'm thinking that it's probably because they're not very effective our health provider says they're not very effective any um suggestions for you know what might be possible for air circulation uh i know that they've just said you know fans on low perhaps can be used to circulate air away from individuals in the room but i wanted your take on all that wow now i have to be a plumber okay let me get my husband in here so you know plumbing and airflow is not my expertise and um i understand you know that i would definitely have one of your you know have a consultant come through i don't know what you have done so far but yes they've talked about increasing your ventilation and i know that was questions we put out to vinnie um and the schools you know can you increase that airflow because that was one of the questions but i believe the school is looking at this especially the safest place to be during most of this is outside so i understand that a lot of your plans rely on going taking the kids outside a lot which is another mitigation strategy other than you know increasing it and getting it done by a professional i would look to your facilities yeah and you know obviously our facilities is something that we as a school system and community are working toward and recognize that you know they need to be improved not only for you know else air circulation but for a myriad of other reasons but um you know just to move on to some additional questions um mask wearing it's just this a question about whether or not schools should be open full-time i think you've already addressed that um in our plan uh the the variable of three feet versus six feet of social distancing at the elementary grades um i don't know if you could speak to that issue so originally um when i went back to when this was all happening we were look we looking back at the mitigation strategies and even in the older mitigation strategies they had talked about three feet um during that got changed by cdc they went up to six feet when the pediatric association took a look at all of this and they gave the schools and public health some guidance they had recommended at the lower level that they could go down to three feet um it wasn't you know it was a guidance tool to help you assist you in the worst case scenario if you can get six feet that's what we want you to get but you know this was guidance based upon you know every school in connecticut and some of them just can't do that so it was going to help you guide um so that was what the pdf pediatricians had recommended and you know obviously you know we've talked about in meetings previously there are only two ways to get much more space in a room and that's either to you know have less students or bigger rooms so when we look at all of the uh test data all the infection rates balance that against the benefits of students being in school other mitigation strategies we've employed this strategy to have our students in ka in school with tents outside to create additional space in that way because we can't build permanent buildings now um uh for that are larger additionally you know the the other uh piece of that is you know bill is going to talk about his finance report that we've hired moving companies and taking all extra furniture out of classrooms that wasn't uh and ship that off to a storage facility to kind of make the room bigger even though we can't make the room bigger um so there is additional space in rooms now um for for social distancing but jeff it is part of the state prior education guidance that um six foot where possible right yeah maximize the the greatest extent we can that would not be in violation of their guidelines or nothing thank you no and that's why i think it's also important that for families who don't feel comfortable with that that there is a remote learning option that's also available and um you know it may not be their preferred maybe they want their child to be there with six feet distancing but um we're not we just don't have the facility space to be able to do that all right stop a little just to check in it's about 8 40.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
on a vote of four zero dennis bender yes donna davis yes maria ocara yes rick rawley absent and wilson so yes thank you i haven't finished uh conference with labor negotiator on a motion by mr cell seconded by mr bender the board of trustees approved the following approve a memorandum of understanding with the california school employees association csea chapter number 828 dated april 15 2020 regarding article 14 creation of administrative clerk 3 and modification of low voltage specialist job descriptions ratified on august 14 on a vote of 4-0 dennis bender yes donna davis yes maria oppara yes rick rawley absent wilson so yes come down okay thank you so much uh now are we on staff reports adoption you're on the adoption of the agenda okay on page three number four okay i moved have we adopted the agenda second all those in favor aye aye okay um comments let's see comments kyle do we have any uh public comments today we do this comment is from jay lovato vice president apple valley communications inc dearborn it has come to my attention that avusd has opted to remove the intercom systems from granite hills and apple valley high schools i can only imagine the rest of your sites are slated or have already opted for this option my concern is that taking this option will be eliminating a key feature that comes with an educational intercom system two-way communication into a classroom is a critical function of this system in the event of an emergency being able to communicate over a classroom speaker in the event of an emergency is an essential piece of providing a safe campus for your staff and students an intercom system allows school administrators and first responders the ability to listen into classrooms without having to send a runner or put a human being in danger i have attached a copy of nemasb40 for your review it not only states that two-way communication is critical but that all locations on campus where people assemble should have a message display capable of providing visual sexual emergency information and two locations with call buttons one standard call and the other located elsewhere in the classroom emergency call button that can be used to notify someone at it consistently during school hours attended location that the classroom is in need of assistance i also want to include that the intercom systems in these campuses are a failover communication systems for schools in the event there is a network or voice call manager failure the systems installed prior to the paging system being installed have the ability to make pages and contact every classroom individual from a dedicated console unless these paging systems have a dedicated hardwire console or microphone connected to it they will not be able to function at all in either of the two previously mentioned situations the paging system being installed may be able to support some of these features but the best of my research that is not how they are being implemented they are being used as a paging system only the telephone devices and classrooms may provide some of these abilities but that device is too easily disabled the one telephone in the classroom can easily be disconnected for the cabling infrastructure or the person in need of communicating can be blocked from using it i do provide this comment with concern and more than just a business interest i am a parent with four students attending awsd schools as well as the vice president of apple valley communications we employ over a dozen team members with many students in the district i strongly believe that an intercom system should be a part of every campus avusd should really consider what's at stake when they choose to install a system that does not take into consideration the emergency applications of a true intercom system the ability to communicate two ways the ability to listen in as well as having two call buttons in every room is what the nema sb40 standard suggests please reach out to me with any questions or comments respectfully jay lovato vice president apple valley communications and there was an attachment that's a 30-page document i can provide to you as well um is that it that is it that's it um i want to make sure i understand what's happening we're doing away from the intercoms and just using cell phones right so that was a public comment and um that would not it would not be cell phones is what we've gone to um but i am more than willing to ask um staff to put together a presentation that that represents the concerns that have been outlined in this public comment yeah that's we don't need to react today but it's good that we receive the cop suggestion so yes i think we should uh look into this okay okay what's next here superintendents superintendents comments ready i'm gonna wait until the end of the board meeting because i'd like to talk about um some data having to do with coveted 19 in the waiver process so we'll go through the agenda first thank you okay we need to go to number four because we haven't got that agenda yet number four um they did adopt the agenda yeah did we you did okay we did and then we did public comments okay we've done public comments we've done trinity more comments word comments uh wilson do you have any comments today yeah i i think that superintendent is going to talk about we're going to talk about the opening schools but but i just want uh i didn't mention briefly that mr schoenberg's not here i've been talking to a friend that that's in the past my daughter that's working emergency hospital the second youngest and what i saw on the tv you know these every classroom after class and people go in there and it's classified to wipe with sanitizer or other stuff i think that's gonna be a lot of clumsy work we got to come up with something more innovative maybe see any way that can provide a quick sanitizing system and and i did mention to uh briefly to mr bender the many systems now using a called diluted you heard about hydrogen peroxide chamber maybe we can look at there's something that's quick and and it's not harmful to the students that that was something that i would suggest to our staff to look at into that okay that's why we could research we are currently utilizing some of those quick um sanitation products including um a device that sprays and needs to sit for about five minutes and then um it it it is what we were using in our preschools prior because you have to completely sanitize all of the um manipulatives and all of that so we have been using them and we do have several on order yeah yeah and the only point i'm making is that these products that for example i know for sure high improvements peroxide was used even during world war ii okay and i use it myself as a central engineer in treating order and a bunch of issues and it's not harmful to the kids especially the little one so just i just say we need to look into some innovative way to just makes things apart our jobs easier and we can certainly do a presentation regarding what we're doing um for those steps later as well right and maybe i don't know if there are any new innovative things that maybe we haven't heard about in apple valley you know just search and get the best we can get well remember we also need to follow the cdc guidelines because otherwise we won't get the funding we don't we can't just say spend our money we need to get funding from the state sure that's another issue well it's always that money thing and let's see rick's not here mr bender yes mr bender well we're in uncharted water here we're just going to do everything we can to stay ahead of at 19 do what we can to deal with it that's it thanks thanks stannis and maria uh well i i'm very interested in the apple valley communications concern that they brought up to attention um i'm more i'm also more interested in the fact that uh if we're doing that i need to know what the district is doing to replace it um so what is the replacement um and why did we choose the replacement option uh the other thing that comes that i've heard and i think i need to bring to our attention is i've heard quite a bit in the community that when they make contact with the district they don't get a response uh and i would like us to keep in mind that we are here to serve the community and so when anybody that is working for our district gets a concern or a question or an email whatever it is give it a response let the person know that you heard them and and you're either you're going to get back to them or you're going to transfer the information to the appropriate person person and not just let the person just hang we are in the business of service and we must remember that no matter where we are in our title um i'm i'm also interested in how we're going to open school um because um of of course quite a few of us don't have children in the school district but we chose to be uh trustees of of this school district and i want to be sure that people are aware of the fact that our job is to protect the children and the uh and the families that they go home to and to protect our staff um sometimes we think um we can do a better job of just saying go in and teach the kids i am of the opinion that unless we have a very clear things to put in place to protect our staff and to protect our children we should just take it a little slower and not be in a rush and that is all i have for now excellent comments um i think maria has exactly the same idea i have i want the absolute best procedures we can have for keeping our staff our students completely healthy uh the worst thing we could do is say open a school and not do it right and have lots of sick people that's the worst thing we can do so we just have to be 100 aware of what the circumstances are today and what's down the road and we have to be a mile down the road before we get to make a decision that's so serious it it you know when i when i was teaching we had clues and stuff like that this seems to be very deadly for older people and i see more grandparents taking and raising children than i ever did when i was teaching and so we have to be not careful we have to be super careful but we don't want to deny students the education that they deserve so it's it's it's a pickle okay did i miss anybody no pat has the school startup okay thank you okay some a request was made for a presentation regarding school startup let me get back over the microphone since we're not in our normal public session so what what is before you is just some initial presentation initial data on school startup i'll tell you from the outset that we don't have the exact same kind of obviously the same startup but also we don't have this exact same kind of data to query because we're using a school information system to do something it was not designed to do which is 100 virtual online remote instruction so i'll walk through what we do have with you first just a reminder that's schools we did open 100 virtual although there are very few things that do still happen on campus for example adaptive pes some students need certain kinds of therapy or one-to-one interaction with the therapist and that has still that is still happening in some cases at the school site with the appropriate person with appropriate physical distancing safety protocols and with the approval of our risk manager in addition some assessments have to be done in person psycho-educational assessments cannot be stopped we are continuing those and the english language initial assessments the elpac assessments are being done actually here on this property by appointment and again with very safe protocols in place so remember we're moving in phases and i really appreciate the comments you mentioned earlier because that is obviously our concern too and there'll be more about that but we're far on the far left of this diagram at the moment and it's our goal to move ourselves more in person and to the right as the situation allows with proper safety and protocol but given the stage we are what does it look like remember the law says daily live interaction or instruction a combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning and we are we are ready to um hear feedback we've been asking parents all in every venue we've had about how that's going for them and of course teachers as well got some good feedback from them and a weekly log of engagement's the other state mandate they want to know each week kind of how much time students are getting live how much time is independent for them they have not yet given us the document they wish us to use to quantify that but we will be watching for that as it's coming out we think in the next week or so we of course have documentation and scheduling for that but we don't know what the state expectation is just yet so it is so much different than the spring i know probably uh if you're hearing from parents you're they're hearing that they're telling you that this spring we remember we were given a mandate for a hold harmless in their grading we already knew those students that went home so the teachers had relationships with them whereas now these are new classes with a mandate to do new instruction rigorous demands for connectivity and content and time and so um we're hearing about that so we've built initial schedules with school leaders and teachers and came up with the time schedules that we have and by grade segment we have um you know the state minimum of a minimum day for some grade levels is um 240 minutes and so families are experiencing at least that much time of work some of it live some of it not live or asynchronous and so um the district advisory committee we got a chance to poll them on just how they were feeling and they had to do with um did they feel as though the balance between live and independent work was about right too much too much live work or not enough live with too much live time or not enough the great majority said it was just right we had a small group though so we do need more input but it was a great initial piece of feedback when you said small group how much was it we had 60 people but only about 20 of them were parents and that's about the con the regular makeup of our district advisory committee for the lcap so a small group of 60 total participants and about 20 parents some of the staff are parents as well true true i want to point out that when i was looking through it i do know some of the staff did respond um because they are parents they did as i looked at the list of teachers and administrators that were there many of them have students in our system but they weren't there as paramounts next the next slide i want you to take a look at something we're very proud of in our system we in the instructional technology department and in the conjunction with um the listed group of uh certificated staff members and classified staff members in a coordinated effort have put together an incredible amount of professional learning you can imagine that teachers needed time to get used to this new method of teaching and these new tools and so a quick look at an overview of what's happened in this last couple of weeks we've had one-on-one coaching for um almost 15 000 minutes of coaching they keep a log so 14 700 minutes of one-on-one coaching for teachers as they needed it 5.1 000 um have participate are minutes of training provided to teachers um with the so a total of over 21 000 minutes of help 40 different zoom sessions offering topics ranging from how to use zoom how to use other tools like ed puzzle or pair deck or some of the other things we put in place and my favorite one bottom middle the number of smiles created and crises averted is infinite it's been so awesome i have a chance to drop in on these sessions from time to time and it's just wonderful to see teachers getting what they need and questions answered and their their proficiency is is ramping up quickly we're noticing that right away they're really getting good at this um live video connections we get some data here from from our uh various uh platforms so we use a couple of different platforms for this we've had over 14 000 live sessions since august 5th think about that on a given day right now we're hitting right over 1500 sessions 640 teachers hosting 600 and our 1500 sessions because of course teachers have multiple sessions per day in the high school setting they might have three different sessions for their because they're teaching in a blocked schedule with uh 500 000 participants in those sessions for a total number of session minutes of over 9 million minutes since august 5th it's just an amazing amount that we put onto this system and the system's holding up very well student engagement um we don't have attendance records like we normally would we can't just query attendance here's why we the state has not demanded that we mark attendance in the same way they've asked to pay attention to like i said a weekly engagement log what does engagement mean well engagement could be that you signed into a session right you showed up on the video or it could be that you've completed assignments assignment completion is in sb98 is counting for engagement which makes good sense doesn't it to say that you engage with the work means you've completed the work so teachers mark either e for engaged or n for not engaged but they have time to go back and make a change to that designation based on work completion so i can tell you my estimate based on looking at the schools today and trying to figure out the closest number i could um is we're right about 95 engagement which is far higher than we thought we might be at this earlier stage of the game now we are still adjusting because we are still seeing there are some students who have either moved and we're just now realizing okay we haven't logged in we haven't been able to find them and we're going of course sometimes we have to go uh contact by contact and then to the home or some have left the system mr i i know that you saw on tv the students have one-to-one engagement content but the in terms of our students seeing their teacher and on this distance learning our aid are they able to see fellow students through the context i'm glad you asked that and that's actually in the law as well it does say interaction with teacher and with peers so yes um many of these platforms allow for a couple of different ways to do that could be whole class right but you can kind of see the class and brady bunch style tiles but then they do have the ability to break those into smaller groups and put them into you know a small group over here in a group uh dealing with a question and then a small group and that allows of course a greater ratio of interaction the other thing they can use is some really neat tools like flipgrid where they can kind of see a video of a student responding to something and they can record a quick video back and say hey i like the way you answered that question here's what i think about that and then they share that video back and forth now it's not exactly live but it's almost live right it's happening in real time and so there's lots of ways for them to do that because we know that's critically important right yeah yeah like that kind of thing now what happens if we can't find them right of course this is our tiers of engagement the re-engagement strategies connecting with them all critically important then if we can't find them like i said calling those contacts making that connection finding out there's a barrier do they need a device do they need uh some other kind of connection uh equipment or do they not have a is a problem where they don't have a place to do this so we've got to work with them the family centers have been engaged in that work and of course like i said go into the homes if need be last thing i wanted to make sure you knew is that school nutrition goes on mr schulenberg and his nutrition services department they've been the steady service provider for our families from march 16th onward right and so they've continued now they're serving a once per week a week's worth of meals for the family ten meals five breakfasts five lunch they get them on wednesday between nine and one yeah they do and they get a box and bags of food on wednesday that are either frozen or shelf stable and they take them home that's cool it is cool it saves families five trips to the store to the not to the store to the school and so they take those things home talk about meals if i may i attended a a session with the sanders committee they were talking about federal government requiring that maybe school districts can look into that that even for family for kids in the family that don't require me that they want to provide universal sometimes a meal to the kids have we we do that in the summer they do the summer feeding program during the school year we are now providing for students but what's great is that at this point it's for all students in the system with regardless of the which school the board took action to make that happen and so this is this is without payment every student the system who wants a meal they come and get a week's worth of meals at one of our right now it's ten sites we'll add two more as soon as their construction projects allow that to occur but um the other thing they do is it's of course per each for each student in the family so they're coming you're going to ask about the boxes yeah they're they're boxed up and they take those things home and they put them you know in stores in there yes there's there's actually the system allows for them to go to any school site give their name and as soon as they have picked up their meal for from that school site it goes through our entire system so they cannot go and we know this because mr schulenburg sent his son to test it out and he was denied at the second school yes that's right so the good news is the numbers are up we served 2500 families yesterday uh wednesday so that this is just the second week of doing this we think participation will continue to climb so really good news so that's a here's the thing about startup right now it doesn't feel the same as you know like the energy and the busyness of school we're missing that terribly and yet people are working maybe harder than they've ever worked all of us are to make this happen but it's all happening right here so i need to know what is how is your distant learning working for the special needs students how's that working for them good question because they have instructional assistants they have those independent uh assistants that they have to have and um some of them have one-on-one assistance um how is all of that working for them yeah well obviously we we can't we don't aren't able to recreate all of that completely so not able to visit every classroom yet to make that determination here's what i can tell you the instructional assistants are able to join and like i mentioned those breakout rooms they can go into a breakout room with an individual student or a small group of students to provide that in more individualized instruction some of the services are provided in person like i mentioned some of the services are provided in a pull out still like speech and language so we are able to provide some of those services that way but i'll tell you and this is why in our phases that's a student group that is of concern to bring back as soon as we are able to do so and that that is um that it's not quite the same meeting the needs of a student with disabilities in some cases via video conference so um those teachers met with the department lead the student services director on monday they've been able to give him feedback of what tools they need we have added tools to our system to assist them some digital tools that they think would help them meet the needs of their students and so we are adjusting every week as we hear from them about what will best what they can utilize to serve those students well i asked that question because i work with the university students as you know and some of the um instructions i've given my university interns that are learning to be teachers is to consider themselves five-day employees but actually four days to instruct the students and use the fifth day to share with the parents what they are doing because you need to make those parents feel feel welcomed into the program some of the parents signed an iep that says this is what you're going to provide to my students but now the rules have changed and they are going to be changed temporarily so i've asked my interns to teach their courses monday to thursday and on friday to have a session for the parents and that friday is basically to go over what the next week will look like if the materials that need to be used during the instruction the the teacher is now available on campus to give them those materials so the parents roll up in their cars and they pick up the the materials or the teacher can say make sure you have these colors ready if you're teaching kindergarten i have materials that have these colors or these shapes and i love that already in your house so if you're going to teach circles make sure you have the cover of a pot or something so that you have the actual hands-on material at home in order for your child to actively participate and not being taught in in abstract because what a virtual instruction almost seems like an abstract instruction which is hard for a student who has a special needs they want to be able to actually feel and touch and all of that and i found that my students that i worked with last uh for spring and now working with them in this fall that they're beginning to see the importance of it that you need to be able to engage the parents so that they're not totally lost on what you're trying to teach their children so i'm hoping that as a district that we begin to look at all of those creative ways to engage the families that we serve okay thank you um i'm going back to the school nutrition as it stands um do families come and get a box or do we deliver a box it says here get five ten meals buy breakfast five lunches do they get a box of food yeah they come in they come in and then if they need help we help them to the vehicle but yes they come to the school site and they pick it up from one of our school kitchens where they're provided that food and and in a situation where we may have a family that is not able to come and do that when they've made contact we have arranged to have the meal brought to them the meals that's great we are utilizing some of our transportation we we had a situation in the spring that we took care of it and um not unlike another situation where we had a family that was separated by district because of a placement we have fixed that situation so they're not having to deal with two different locations oh this is hectic well i have one more question i'm so glad to hear about the the food because a lot of us never saw uh kids that didn't get food at home until we became teachers and then we thought oh my gosh and so the fact that we're carrying this piece on i hadn't thought about it until i got here today oh really i think about it every day i have a question on the distance learning on the slide that you showed on distance learning regarding the district advisory committee my question is how many members of your advisory committee are actually parents that are not teachers or administrators yeah how many do you have because you say you have a membership of 60 and so out of those 60 how many are just parents that are not affiliated to a district other than being parents of our children right we um actually this each school site brings at least two parents they don't always attend every meeting some have many more and of course they represent often at their school sites they are represented they're representing far more parents so um we invite a great number this that's how many happen to come that is not the entire committee that's who happened to log into the session on monday but the district advisory committee starts out with two parents from every school plus parents from all student subgroups so we end up with parent representatives invited and encouraged to attend upwards of 40.
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we did ask for locations where the merv 8 filters were used so perhaps we could develop another solution to ensure that we could reopen in a safe manner we're concerned about dana dana um [Music] dana can you wrap up in about 20 seconds or so i sure can absolutely we're concerned about the high school too because they don't have air conditioning so we just need to make sure the windows would be open and that the screens are there as well i've spoken to hundreds of members over the past two weeks and this is their main uh concern and i certainly understand it and we're hoping that the board will work in the next 12 days to meet these standards so that we can reopen we right now are currently one of two districts in middlesex county who are opening in the hybrid plan we have 12 days to fix these issues and we're hoping that that can happen so that we can be open and educating our children thank you thank you thank you so much sorry about that thanks no thank you who's next uh next we have uh carrie hennessey hello carrie hi um i'm an east brunswick resident and two of my four children currently enrolled in the district the other two have already graduated i wanted to thank everyone involved in creating the best possible plan but there's always a bud this plan is the best possible for the students and for the parents that feel strongly that in person is the only option but it's not the best possible for our teachers and our staff it's overlooking the fact that the teachers and staff are there every day they're not in cohorts they're not with a hybrid schedule we're ignoring that teachers and staff potentially have medical reasons or family members with medical reasons that make it necessary to limit their exposure i'm also very concerned with the praise being shared for the procedure that's being used since july 1 with the staff and is being used with the sports checking temperatures and answering screening questions an important part assessing the procedure is being left out you haven't shared if this procedure has kept the staff exposure free since july maybe you've only had exposures but no positive tests perhaps you had a positive or two but that's not too many in your belief you didn't share that two days into the workouts the boys soccer had an exposure this was a tremendous breakdown of the procedure this student athlete came to work out after having a covet test before getting the results but he had his temperature checked and he filled out his questions assessment should always be a part of any plans i understand this is a very divisive issue and i don't expect your plans to be changed by my statements but i do want my teachers and staff to know that i'm concerned for their health and safety and i'm sorry that they have to work under these conditions i hope the day comes soon that we don't have to settle for the best possible i'd also like to mention that we have a petition on change.org that has 316 signatures so far just showing support for our teachers health and safety thank you thank you so much and who's next uh next we have kelly nichols hello kelly hello thank you my name is kelly nichols i live in east brunswick both my children attend the schools here i'd like to thank all of you for your hard work and careful planning not only into the road to recovery plan but for all the things you do for our school district on a daily basis it's not easy and you'll never please everyone but i think we can all agree when it comes to working and living in a community we have to look out for the collective good and it is with this idea of the collective good that i'm here to express my concern for the health and well-being of our faculty and staff students may not be in school every day but the staff and faculty will be they will be in the building coming into contact with students and personnel if a child shows symptoms they will go to the quarantine room according to the plan but which staff member are you going to choose to supervise these potentially contagious people how will we make sure that the students particularly the younger ones social distance what will happen when they cry or need a hug or can't open a glue stick how is a teacher supposed to do a running record or have a writing or reading conference regarding transitions between classes with the older students who will be wiping down the desks as stated in the plan will be the teachers the students with learning a foreign language or phonics where it is important and vital for students to see their teachers lips moving how will this work how will the students remotely learning be able to fully hear their instructors with their masks on additionally with regards to the mass on page nine number three it states that masks can be removed when students are seated at their desks as long as they are six feet apart but last night i heard they were to wear masks at all times what happens when a student or staff member contracts covet when this happens there will be immense speculation and community blaming and i know that's not something anyone wants if a teacher is not sick who will cover their classes will the substitutes be live stream i think you're approaching uh can you can you think about wrapping up yes i'm almost done thank you so much been a substitute shortage for years and this issue is only going to get worse with a little over 50 percent of families selecting the full remote and on most days 75 of all students working remotely all staff are still required to return to their buildings if a staff member takes a leave most likely it will be unpaid by the time you deduct taxes on health care i thank you all very much for your time i just wanted to make sure that i was able to express my concern for the staff and teachers thank you so much thank you kelly and who is next bernie uh we do not have anyone else in the queue okay i just i'll give it a minute i know that it can be a little difficult navigating zoom anybody no okay kill i'm sorry someone uh had just unmuted themselves and then re-muted so i think that was a uh they've been an error okay well we just received one rory reads okay welcome rory hi good evening my i'm thank you for letting me speak um my name is roy reese and i work with special needs children in the district for 19 years i'm sorry i'm trying to keep myself together on the daily family nothing gives me more choice than working with students during the school year with special needs i absolutely understand the importance of having your structure environment we are able to provide however i've been spending a lot of time wondering what the risk reward tree was as we consider returning to school in fact i've been agonizing over this despite the relative success the state has been able to maintain we are still very much in the midst of the pandemic when other schools have attempted to reopen whether scholarly colleges such as the university of north carolina or catholic schools in georgia the results have been disastrous and almost immediately cancelled districts throughout the state has made a decision to begin classes in all virtual formats to me this is a very clearly the prudent decision to make why is certainly not an optimal or permanent solution we are still in the early innings of this one tablet and potential for near-term benefits possibly available in a matter of months not years why certainly i feel that we are rushing back to an in-class front end and doing so the risk outweighs the reward why not wait a few months give the scientific advantage sometimes catch up yes virtual learning learning could temporarily just disrupt a child's educational development but the entire staff and students populations get sick or worse that will have much more higher and long-term seconds i appreciate you letting me speak thank you thank you thank you rory bernie is there anyone else in the queue uh yes we do uh we now have um lemay zhang welcome lenae uh please uh unmute yourself so you can speak these are so not hello okay i think we'd better move on to the next okay uh we will move on to jody crawl crawl i'm going live so jody welcome hi can you hear me yes okay hi i have to be honest i wasn't prepared or really planning on speaking i just came on to listen i'm a teacher a proud teacher at central school i teach second grade i taught kindergarten for many years already in the district and i've been listening to what everybody said and i felt that i needed to speak um i don't think that i need to go over again all of the reasons like dana and chris and kelly all listed and about the concerns that we don't feel have been addressed a hundred percent and that's just because it's hard and no one knows and i'll be totally honest and admit i'm slightly at risk because i have an autoimmune disease and yet i'm willing to go back into the class i was looking forward to going back into the class i missed my students last year more than i can put into words and yet what i keep hearing especially after i've heard my peers and other parents i'm a parent in the district three of my girls graduated from east brunswick high school we're super proud of that but i just think that one student getting sick or one staff member getting sick is just too much and i very much wanted to express that what is the hormone putting off a month a quarter till we know a little bit more and we're not rushing to make sure everything is safe let's make sure as much as we can everything is safe because i think like kelly nichols mentioned you know losing losing anybody is just too much and we can always go back and make up instruction but we can never get back a life and i i appreciate you listening i like i said i wasn't prepared to speak i wasn't planning on speaking but after listening to rory and tears someone who spends her life working with our special ed students at central i felt that i needed to speak up thank you thank you bernie who do we have now um i have a message from lemay zhang who has a requested to speak um zhang you're having some technical difficulties uh you do need to be unmuted to communicate with uh with the board now so it is your turn unfortunately if you can't unmute yourself we will need to move on yvonne who's the next person next person is erin perhaps we should take the next uh this is erin shaheen can you hear me well now yesterday now yes you have three minutes sir welcome thank you i won't need three minutes uh thanks for making this platform available to comment uh my name is erin shahin a parent living at 34 victory places brunswick due to my job in pharmaceutical industries specifically sterile manufacturing i am knowledgeable in use of personal protective next please keep yourself muted out of respect for the people who are speaking thank you so much go ahead eric uh thank you due to my job in pharmaceutical industries sterile manufacturing i am knowledgeable in use of personal protective equipment within the context of aseptic operations i feel obliged to caution the board that a safety plan reliant on use of masks necessitate qualified and validated use of face spinning masks used by highly trained personnel that is in contrast with use of a wide variety of masks manufactured from many different materials into many different designs used by children this contrast triggers concerns about the success of a mitigation strategy that relies on use of masks i'm also concerned that governance recognition recognition of east brunswick school district recovery plan may have generated a biased commitment to set plan thank you thank you sir do we have anybody else the only message i received was again from uh lemay zhang um but i think they continue to have well hold on they they are unmuted now uh ms zhang are you are you there yes yes can you hear me yes welcome and you have three minutes sure i'm sorry about that um uh my name is lee mai today i want to express my concerns about the criteria um the school set for my pay for math placement for 10th grade my son um he's going 10th grade um he was he was he was not placed in algebra to owner because of one criteria he doesn't meet which is his eighth grade grade is final eighth grade grade final is nauta meet the criteria which is uh 90 and above i think this criteria is wrong the reason first this system this rule i think is rule discourage growth and improvement because once you did not good in the eighth grade that's me you never can be good in your high school your neighbor can be intra owner in high school so if the student in eighth grade at the end of eighth grade he didn't get an uh 90 and above that's is done you never have chance to go to the owner in 10th grade so uh then i think the owner um system should encourage a student to you know have a motivation set up a higher level goal it's not just you know device student okay that's criteria you go this that's another criteria you go to academic uh second dr siran told me um algebra uh this criteria is uh is the prereq because she said algebra one uh mastery has a much more profound effect on success in algebra ii owner so i would like to know is there any statistics to show uh these two uh it's show this is a right um third um i think we we should look at student uh at this age the kids they're growing you know they're uh in their mind and intelligent so we shouldn't intelligence say we should not look at back it should look at you know at least the current not at least it's a current you know means uh really means anything the back doesn't mean anything so uh uh this is uh um i would like to get a help with the board member what should i do i think the criteria is wrong it's not fair for my son you know uh just uh not going to uh um uh algebra owner two because the eighth grade that was one year ago but this year he's um he got a 98 uh for his um uh i think he's definitely 95.
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ernie neal breaks a tackle stiffs armed another still going across the 45-yard line great field position for the olympians to start the football game and the offense led by malachi parks parked in his first year as a full-time qb starter he's played the last two years intermittently at wide receiver and defensive back came in and substitute towards the later half of last season when cole gilley went down with an injury hopefully that experience can carry over to him as his first time starter at quarterback keeper by parks up the middle brought down around the 49-yard line number nine ethan tanner came in to make the tackle parks hands it to mcdonald breaking tackles out to the whiteland 45-yard line gonna be a yard short of the first down will be third and one for the olympians they're gonna bring in a second running back that's trix villero number seven the junior third and one can the olympians get their first down of the season low snap hands it to villarreal and he is wrapped up in the backfield number one came in on a stop for the warriors that's max sullivan the 6-6 junior and the olympians are forced to punt on their first drive of the season and as is per tradition or at least seems like tradition the olympians starting their quarterback at punter as well malachi parks back to booted away number 15 awan nikum back to return for the warriors short punt going to dribble out of bounds that's going to be maybe a five yard punt and that's going to give the warriors good field position to start their opening drive this offense led by number eight brandt coons the junior quarterback 63203 this warriors offense unique you may not see this much in ihsa football it's a jet motion based offense you're going to see the ball on the ground a lot you're going to see a lot of pre-snap motion and it makes the defense have to think a little bit before making a play as they send two men in motion to the right side of the formation they send 27 in promotion [Applause] whistle on the field i believe this will be on whiteland no they're gonna call on the olympians offside that's gonna be a free five yards for the warriors before they even run their first play so first and five for the warriors and the olympians not starting off on a great foot on defense three receivers to the left side now they send two of them to the right side send 27 in motion they're going to hand it to him off the right side breaking tackles and falls forward to the 41-yard line in olympian territory and that's going to be a first down for number 27 desmond singleton and that's what you're going to see all night seeing a receiver in motion pre-snap and making options based off that so the warriors move the chains on first down under centers coons since number 13 in motion they're going to hand it up the middle and the olympian defense there to meet him that's gonna be about four yards up the middle it'll be second and six coons and shotgun formation this time they send singleton emotion they're gonna hand it to him off the right side knocked out of bounds just short of the maybe at the 35 in there on the tackle number 32 elliott koopman who is also a varsity basketball player for the olympians going to bring up third and about three yards for the warriors let's see if the olympians can make a short yardage stop here coons up the middle falls forward near the marker let's see if they give it to him and they will another first down for the warriors they managed to gain the three yards they needed and just by the nose of the football the warriors another set of downs well into east territory now sends two to the left side sending singleton in motion they're going to hand it to him again cuts it up the middle still going out across the 30 into the 28 yard line good run by singleton breaking arm tackles as they cut it up the field for about four yards coons in under center weak eye formation sending receiver in motion they're gonna fake the jet sweep hand it to the running back and he's got a good burst up the middle right at the marker [Applause] near the 22 yard line that's number 21 chase valentine on the carry it's going to be a first down for the warriors so the east defense reeling to start off the football game as the warriors are pushing it down the field consistently and haven't even run a pass yet coons lines up in shotgun formation valentine to his left he takes the snap hands it to valentine off the right side and the olympian defenders are there to meet him may have gotten back to the line of scrimmage good job by the east defense to finally plug up that run game so it'll be second and ten it is right back to the line of scrimmage dunes coming out under center two backs behind him sends a receiver a motion he's gonna throw it one on one it is caught touchdown warriors number 24 dalton devone and the warriors take a quick six nothing lead here at stafford field with 6 55 left to go in the first quarter the warriors rolled down the field had great field position to start on the bad punt by parks and the warriors looking to add an extra point here it's going to be number 34 chris dewalt adding the attempt snap away hold down there's a flag down so hold that thought [Music] official speaking with the whiteland coach a penalty on the olympians offside that's going to push the ball [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] now [Music] all the way back at the 10-yard line looks like we're back if you're an olympian fan you might not want to see that anyway it'll be second and forever they give it to mcdonald on the draw play he's got a good gain out to the 19-yard line but it's still going to be third and long for the olympians looks like mcdonald's helmet came off so he's gonna have to come out for a play they're gonna send in villaro four wide receivers in the formation definitely a passing situation for parks drops back looking to throw evading sack gets away from one and he's wrapped up this time number 37 for the warriors this one away number 15 iwo nikum back to return for the warriors better punt this time takes a bounce around the 40 and bounces backwards fielded by elliott koopman at the 39 yard line and the warriors once again starting with great field possession [Music] what coons under center sends two men right to the formation since 13 in motion he's going to hand it to him cuts it back up the middle out to the 31-yard line make it the 30.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so yes we are going back to grading we will not begin the year with a heavy load of assessments we want to be clear that our students are welcomed back to school in whatever form they are choosing to come and our focus is going to be on that community first instead teachers of traditional assessments that we may have used earlier in the year in previous years our teachers will use a variety of formative assessments that may even look like games that will help them determine where their students are and help them plan for the next steps as students adjust to school teachers will just determine the best time to return to some of the assessments that we've typically used at the start of the school year for that we certainly will look at that as a developmental level and as we are are getting to know our students it's very different this year and that students are coming to us new and we really want to focus on building that community for all learners in order to accomplish this in a hybrid model we will be using a blended learning approach to instruction blended learning is a model that combines online and face-to-face learning spaces with experiences that are both synchronous and asynchronous to the students this model might look very similar to some of the some of the things they did in distance learning but with the added benefit of time with their teacher and peers in class that's for those who are able to come to school this allows for teachers to engage with the students who are not in the classroom as well so for families who need to choose the remote option our platforms google classroom seesaw and at times zoom will be our options where teachers will engage with all students on all pathways at various times the blended model allows for this flexibility for both what many are calling live streaming but also some asynchronous like to talk a little bit about the idea of life uh live streaming we would not be expecting students to be sitting in front of a computer for an eight hour day or seven hour day students on the remote parallel learning track or assigned to the buster or bulldog group will follow a schedule outlined for their specific group and by their teachers they'll be expected to check in with their teachers daily and follow the same classroom assignments and schedules teachers will provide specific times for when students should log in and join a google meet so for example at the elementary level if a student is on their their day when they're learning at home or their remote learning parallel track teachers can still organize a learning a reading group that may combine some in-class students with students who are home so those are the types of activities that we'll be looking to to build as our as we open our schools we have developed new digital protocols for the teachers to follow that will help students and families know their weekly expectations this was developed in response to our survey information from last year and i have to send out a huge thank you to mrs sullivan and mrs derosers who went above and beyond to work collaboratively with their colleagues and with the administrative team to develop these guidelines so that we can set up our platform seesaw or google or google site in a way that may be more parent-friendly teachers did an amazing a phenomenal job last year and we learned a lot and now we know we can do a little bit better so these expectations will be shared and part of our beginning uh trainings we've also planned for ongoing support with this throughout the opening of school so that this is um this can we can assure that this will be developed be developed for families the most significant change will be that there will every classroom or group group of classrooms depending upon which level we'll have a google site where you can just go to one place and not have to log into a google classroom or multiple google classrooms and you will see a week's plan overview of what the learning expectations will be for that in closing i also want to thank the board of education for their ongoing support your tremendous support for our learning our professional learning our students and to the community thank you i'm going to hit pause there for a second to see if there are any questions for me or for sarah okay hearing none i'm going to now turn it over to mrs goldschneider good evening i will start by talking about social emotional learning which will be a big focus for us when we return to school our school counseling staff and our sel committee met during the summer and came up with a number of ideas to support social emotional learning upon our return to school whether we're all in the classroom or we're learning via other platforms we still need to develop that sense of community some of the ideas and some of the activities that we've come up with is um we the staff were worried that kids wouldn't know who we were because we'd all be wearing masks and we have little id badges but um it's still hard to see those so we have taken our staff pictures and we've blown them up to about a three by three i think it is and to put into a holder that has a magnet that all staff members will be wearing so kids can actually see what our faces look like without a mask so i think we thought especially for the younger children that this would be important but i think for everybody it's nice to really see a face so um our staff really worked hard on getting that together uh mr miscella was great he was able to get pictures printed for us and the committee has uh put all that together so those will go on day one um we also have we talked a lot about how the little kids k through two would let us know how they're feeling if they're feeling sad or happy because again we rely on facial expressions so much and we can't see facial expressions with the mask so in order for us to try to address some of those feelings before we see the crocodile tears start we have given um our committee made a happy and a sad face and we've put on a tongue depressor with a nice big happy face on one side and a sad face so we teachers can kind of do a check throughout the day like how are we where are we so we can show our happy face or our sad face um so that's something that we've done for the younger children we've also sent home some social stories for k through two so it's a picture with a story about wearing a mask in social distancing we have a couple more that we'll send home probably tomorrow or monday just for parents to practice going over some of the new routines the new norms in the school it's a nice way for them to practice and then they'll be used in the classroom again teachers will be going over all those things when how to wash our hands and how to put our masks on so we have social stories for those and we'll also be practicing those things in the school um we'll also be implementing the zones of regulation for grades three through twelve and the zones of regulation is a framework for teaching strategies for self-regulation and emotional control for all kids it uses a color system and it's got different colors we have charts that we've printed off and laminated for all teachers the school psychologists will be giving a short presentation on the zones it's a very easy system to implement in the classroom and it's really common language for everybody so it's you know kind of it talks about the color yellowing and feelings that are associated with the color yellow and what do i need to do to get from yellow to maybe to get to green and don't quote me i might have those colors mixed up but you want to move from one to the other so it's a very easy system there's a nice visual um and all teachers will be able to use that once we get it really up and running with grades three to twelve we're going to hopefully bring it down and start to bring it down to maybe grade two in grade one because the little kids can also use it but we don't wanna overwhelm anybody at the beginning so we're gonna go into things slowly also community building activities are planned for the first few days of school school counselors and and i will be working on during our first six days we have a few meeting times set up we'll get those activities ready so the high school will be doing some during connections and the elementary middle school children will be doing some of those in their classrooms with their teachers just to kind of build community and and kind of again as mrs malinowski said we need to take care of that part of the child and not focus on assessments and and all of those things first we need to get back into being with each other and some of the children haven't seen each other or seen other kids for a long time so we need to get them comfortable with being around other kids and in their teacher and so we're really going to have a focus on the social emotional learning so that covers that part um iep services and 504 accommodations ieps and 504 plans will be in place on the first day of school all staff will have access all staff who have children with 504 plans or ips have access to those through power school power teacher um and case managers will be going over that and sending information out so that everybody knows how to all the new teachers will know how to access those plans teachers are responsible for implementing new goals and objectives and accommodations and things our students will receive their iep hours on the days that they're in school by special ed teachers paraprofessionals and related services staff and on the days when they're at home we will continue to do um distance learning with them or remote learning via either seesaw or zoom telehealth for some common listening services so we are meeting the ieps to the very very best of our ability um again just as with the general ed teachers special ed teachers are strongly encouraged and need to be attending their classes on the days that they're not in school so you know reading class will be math class things like that they'll be expected to be at those 504 ppt meetings at this time we will continue to to hold them via zoom someday we hope to get back to in-person meetings but for now this works and we are able to um to continue with with our meetings in this format so we will be doing that i do have to add one thing um mrs malanowski did say that we're not going to load the kids with a lot of testing when first come back i just do want to put a disclaimer that state and federal regulations have not been um let go at all so we still have to meet allstate and federal timelines for special education so we got a little bit of a reprieve back in the spring when schools were actually shut down but now that we're back open we need to finish any evaluations for specialist students who need evaluations and hold ppts that weren't able to be held back in the spring so some of those children unfortunately we will have to do some testing when those those children come back because um we are required to meet guidelines and timelines um preschool we i'm very excited to say that we have worked really hard and come to the decision that we will be holding our preschool program this year all children will be able to attend the two days a week and in order to make the program work we have all of the preschool children attending on the same two days so they'll be coming on mondays and tuesdays that will be the preschool cohort we've been working since osborne and i met the other day we've been working in the classroom to make sure it's a safe yet fun environment for our youngest learners and safe for staff as well we have ordered some new materials for the children so even though preschool children are allowed to perhaps share a little bit more than other children we are still trying to have separate materials for for those children as much as possible but as you all know it's really hard to keep three and four-year-olds from sharing or being close to each other so we have put a lot of practices in place and i feel very very certain that we have a safe program for everybody so we're excited to have them i think the children are excited to come into preschool so that is all i have for my update thank you beth are there any questions for beth okay hearing none i'm going to turn it over to mr g yard good evening uh highlight some of the bigger topics so we're in the final days before staff return next week which is exciting uh we'll highlight some of the bigger topics like i mentioned this evening in regards to our opening in the hybrid model uh the cave five and six eight schedules that we've been working on there's a couple of samples in the in the video that i sent out the other week um have students remaining in their home rooms for the majority of the day with the exception of going to lunch recess mask breaks and specials so they're not going to be sitting in their room all day long but for the majority of the day at the middle school level teachers rotate between the rooms that the students have all their content areas each day that'll help us to maintain the cohort fidelity by the teachers moving and not the students the schedules include numerous mask breaks throughout the day that was a question that we had in the parent meeting that they only saw two mask breaks in the in the video that i sent out but i emphasize that it's a minimum of two mass breaks but there'll be many more than that because it's a long day to have the mask on the first three days of school as the superintendent mentioned are early release days for students september 2nd and 3rd are going to be treated like first days of school so when the buster group comes on september 2nd they're going to go through all of the getting their chromebooks going through all this having some social emotional activities like ms goldschneider miss malinowski mentioned to build that relationship with the teacher talk about google classroom google sites all the intricacies in case we ever were to have to go to just full distance learning those first few days of school first few weeks of school are extremely important to set up routines and practices so september 2nd is our first day of school for the buster group and all that same information will be repeated to the bulldog group on september 3rd so it's another first day of school with all students at home on friday learning from home the calendar for september 2nd through october 9th has been sent out a few times it's posted on our website and that has laid out all the buster days the bulldog days it's very easy to follow i've had a few follow-up questions from parents about which cohort group that they're in because of some child care issues and we've been very flexible um if there's a hardship at home um so if there is anybody listening and you need to change anything just please reach out to us the scheduling has been a little bit tricky with the teachers moving and the kids moving a couple of things that have occurred as a result of the new scheduling that we had to do was that fifth grade will not have world language this year but we were able to get computer class for the fourth graders so we lose one thing but we gain another overall uh things turned out much better than i thought they would but those are just a couple of the things that was a result of periods in the teachers moving rooms each student will have one specialist class per trimester this year along with physical education and that really is in direct uh response to feedback from the springtime uh students had multiple specials especially in k5 and it was a lot of work i mean remotely getting activities and all the different specials was a lot for the teachers a lot for the families so ms stafford and i worked with the schedules to have one trimester of a special and then the trimester break there would be a new special and so on so it'll be much more manageable for families with a reduced number of students because of the hybrid model um for music art and library students are still going to go to the specials rooms uh that was a conversation that we had but once we made the switch to hybrid with so many fewer students going to those locations we're going to be able to clean the surfaces and get classes out and maintain the safety and the fidelity of the cohorts so that we're looking forward to students be able to go down to the art room like i said only one class would be going to those for a little bit more information about music uh so before like seventh and eighth grade would have music at the same time with multiple kids going from multiple rooms to the band room into the chorus room and as you know there's been much said about the water vapor from singing or from playing the instruments and the music department has been tremendous i know they met with mr miceli with me mrs malinowski uh to talk about different research that they've read different equipment that they need and we've ordered it so we're super excited to be able to have music but we're still only sending that cohort of kids that are together in the classroom to those rooms so they're not being exposed to any other students for music class uh we'll have continuous learning throughout the week that's been a question from parents about is there is the new is the learning going to stop is it just the same lessons taught on monday and tuesday has the same ones talk to students on thursday and friday and it's not there's continuous learning throughout the week and friday or wednesday is not a day off it is a day for students to work synchronously with teachers whether it's live in the morning or asynchronous in the afternoon completing assignments our grading system which has been mentioned a few times but it never hurts to reiterate is returning to normal in our traditional p to five with the standards base grading and six through eight with the numerical grading the average turns into a letter grade on the report card we'll be taking attendance every day so it's easy with the students that are in front of you but we will be looking at the online platforms google classroom google sites seesaw to see if students are checking in um and with that i've had a few parents that said well because of child care i might not be on during the day but we're going to work on in the evening and i just keep emphasizing that we're all being flexible to just communicate with the teacher first that's the most important and with administration and we'll work with you on that part most importantly it hasn't been said enough is that the building is in tremendous shape and i had a big thank you to john vatramovic john lejoy norm harpin jeff johnson dan sanders alex baer and vance berba for all their hard work this summer they've done an amazing job with getting furniture out of the room so the rooms look great uh doing a final walk through in the coming days uh with john bergerovich and the fire marshal so everything is in great shape again we like we said we took furniture out of the rooms to maximize social distancing and students will be cohorted in certain parts of the building we did move a few classrooms of their middle school classrooms from the edge of the elementary wing further into the middle school area just because we really don't want students crossing over elementary students with middle school students so they're in specific parts of the building [Music] another big topic is traffic flow patterns and the superintendent ms goldsteiner myself were in the parking lot today in front of the school it looked like we were just taking a break but we were really looking at the traffic patterns and uh with moving to one schedule for k-8 this year was going to be a transition with buses arrival dismissal early pickups because of the sheer number of kids coming at one time but with it being hybrid actually we're able to ease into it a little bit but there's a much more complicated plan to ensure the safety but also now the cohort fidelity we're using multiple entrances and exits to the building uh students will be loading in the morning on the buses back to front regard irregardless of their um grade so a third grader has the first stop on the bus run they're going to be sitting in the back of the bus and then we'll load back to front that information will be sent out to parents soon it's probably going to be a video because i i tried to give it to my wife to read and she goes i have no idea what this means so i think a video of all the traffic pieces ms safran will put together we'll get it out to the families another big change this year is that we're not allowing as many visitors into the buildings unless if there's an appointment with administration so if a child is being picked up or if materials are being dropped off families have designated parking spots in front of the school with those big sandwich board signs that you see in front of take restaurants for takeout they'll call the main office uh the secretaries will communicate with the classroom so for the student to come down and again all those procedures will be communicated with families next week we had three very successful parent meetings on wednesday and i think the key to that was we allowed families to send in questions before the meetings so we were able to spend the first half of the meeting fielding those questions sharing information and then the second half of the meeting was any questions that arose from what we said so the q a was it was really good there was a few questions that came in afterwards but overall the feedback i got from parents was very positive i'm almost done overall parents have been very supportive our planning efforts and i can't thank the board the parents everybody it's not easy every decision it could go two three different ways so we're doing the best we can to ensure first and foremost the safety of our students we have grade level meetings on friday august 28th miss after and i we're working on that schedule today so there'll be zoom meetings for every grade level and we haven't really done that before it's mainly just k to five had the in-person meet and greets but every grade level's gonna have a virtual meeting because we really want parents to take the time to hear from the teachers meet all the teachers at that grade level to hear about where they're going to be posting the weekly schedules because that information is very important and we want parents to develop that communication with the staff right off the bat and all the grade levels overall we have some work left to do but i feel like we're in really good shape and more than anything i'm excited to get the staff and the students back in the building because working in isolation in front of a camera at home it gets it stops so we're looking forward to having everybody back thank you any questions for mr giard all right hearing none mr miceli joe you're on mute you'd think the guy driving would be able to manage something that simple um so we've shared several communications with families about our hybrid schedule and the different rotations um and we will treat those first two days as as each first days of schools for each of those cohorts the a through k and the l through z groups and that friday we're putting an emphasis on students connecting from home that's going to be important part of what they do on the three days when they're not in the building so we're going to make a big emphasis on that make sure everybody connects with their teachers and we're also we're not giving up on our bigs and littles program the board members that have been with us in the past know how successful and important that program is and we've already started to put a digital or virtual twist on that so we're looking forward to kicking off bigs and littles on that day and as we've also shared we're planning on cohorting the best that we can by grade uh each grade is going to have its own wing but the reality is in high school you're not going to cohort by 100 i just want everybody to know that we're we're doing the best that we can but it won't be a full separation between grades that's just you just can't manage that um we are having grades enter and exit by different doors um taking turns for managing mass breaks all those kinds of things so we're we're putting in all the effort that we can in with regards to the cohorting i am super grateful to mr butcher moving mr moore mr vincent mr johnson mr lejoy and mr clark for the amazing work they have done um they have been so accepting of all my detailed often changing uh requests to move repair and modify and they do all that with with a smile so i'm very grateful to those guys i hope they're listening um and we're ready to provide those that continuous learning in the blended model that ms monoski spoke about for all of our students teachers will set out those weekly expectations and a clear schedule so students will know when to be online when to check google classroom when to email when to submit work and all those kinds of things our hands-on areas music and tech ad and and culinary have really been working to adjust their curriculum in a way to plan to keep our students safe we've rearranged our art room with the help of our custodians our physical education program is modifying their planned activities and the uh music teachers are prepared to meet the creating performing and responding national standards using both traditional and blended learning experiences when they're doing their singing and playing in school they're going to be following the csde safety procedures including the proper pe the distancing performing outside we hope we can do that for a while we're lucky that our music program has an exit door right out the back of their performance area and students will not be sharing wind instruments and they are going to continue to monitor updates there have actually been a lot of music instructionally focused research studies going on since late march early april uh focused on aerosols that you know as they are associated with music teaching and performance and our our staff is deeply connected with those groups we've laid out uh very careful plans regarding transportation for students on buses or student drivers or students being dropped off we're also grateful for with our transportation partner m j who have actually worked out a plan for the town of columbia to provide direct service for our columbia students for the time being foregoing the typical hub system that's experienced in the past and real quickly for the members of the board of the public watching that don't understand the hub system columbia students can choose from several different high schools and typically what they've done in the past is pick up students from around columbia brought them all back to their uh their town school a horse porter school and those kids have gotten off one bus and got another bus to transfer then over to their high school and bolton high school students will not have to do that this year and we will work with our returning faculty and make sure that we're communicating all of that information with students and parents regularly i know our teachers are very eager to to get back in touch with each other and with their students and their families and they've already started planning a virtual open house for october thank you mr miceli any questions for mr miceli this is ria hi i would just like to say that i watched your videos and i thought they were really informative and i was just wondering and i thought they were wonderful i was just wondering what kind of feedback you've been getting from um thank you for that yeah so so typically when a high school principal hears nothing from parents after some communication um he or she tends to do a quiet dance in there in the office i've actually been been been deluged with um with some positive feedback and i've made an effort so uh back in march uh when we went out i tried a couple of different kinds of communication platforms and i did surveys and it really landed on the people like those webcasts i really try to keep them not not overly brief but you know not 20 minutes long um and they and i've continued to check in we had the parent meeting the other day uh and i believe the superintendent asked everybody in our parent meetings hey what do you think of that feedback and we got some positive feedback then so uh it's a platform that's working and as long as it continues to work i'm i'm certainly willing to to take the you know the the time to do those if anybody ever tells me that's no longer working then i'll certainly make a shift but at this point it seems to be very well received thanks and did you get the survey did you get a lot of surveys submitted after you requested them and after i said eight times in one minute video turning the survey yeah there was a little pop in numbers right there the other one could you share at this point where we're at survey wise as of roughly yeah i actually took a look right before the meeting the anticipation right we are um so if we're just under 800 in our typical enrollment we have just over 600 students accounted for so we're you know we have some students still to reach out so yes if anyone's listening you know anyone spread the news pass you know finish up the survey we will certainly um start reaching out to families i was talking to safran today about some plans to making sure we get the most accurate information about 80 of our students will be returning for uh in-person learning so that's uh that's a nice improvement from this survey before correct thank you i would also like to say to bolton center school we'll be doing a virtual open house as well we just haven't gotten that quite that far yet but that will be in the works as well anything else chris is this uh chris davey um two questions uh one are the is the uh tech ed program continuing at goodwin college and are other programs that you know might involve transportation of students to mcc or things like that continuing and then secondly what is happening with athletics so the goodwin college program is continuing we don't have any students selected to participate this year but i did have a conversation um with matt dedona who's running the program at this point just this week actually on monday that the three districts will need to regroup in the winter to plan for what will be happening next year for our continued plans because we were in the plans of trying to ramp things up and then covet hit and unfortunately the superintendent there passed away due to kovid in in the in late spring so there have been a couple of bumps in the road for our ability to um continue to move things forward but we are still keen on doing that as for athletics i do not have an update for you at this time other than to say the ciac had come out with we were having athletics and then the department of public health released their thoughts about athletics and put different types of sports into different categories about you should you should not you should consider the following after they did that in the meantime our athletes were being allowed to condition which they were doing using all the proper social distancing and all of the requirements and then on friday mr miceli and i received an email around three o'clock friday afternoon of course after all of our students had trained for the day pretty much that all training was to cease until august 24th until ciac had an opportunity this week to meet further with the department of public health so it is my understanding that they were meeting with them late this afternoon or this evening and i don't have any other update other than that at this time uh just for uh for clarity um what mr davey referred to um two separate schools goodwin and manchester community college so we've had a a long time standing relationship with both the university of connecticut and manchester community college letting students enroll in those schools in courses being taught by bolton high school staff that were certified to do that so students received high school and college credit the mcc program for that fell apart through no fault of bolton's uh they fell apart statewide it was it was a it was really disappointing frankly so last year was really the last year for that we were then courting goodwin um through the efforts of primarily mrs hecht really trying to get them to ramp up to offer a similar similar program where students would be taking courses with bolton high school teachers but getting goodwin credit that's what we had to put the pause on there's also the goodwin manufacturing program where we actually sent students at the end of the day to goodwin so that's a little different program and that's the one that is kind of active but right now we don't have any students that you know are good fit for that so that is likely to continue and we will circle back what we miss as heck to try to get a dual enrollment program going with goodwin as well but our yukon program is still standing strong thank you yes other questions i just have one question if you could take away uh or two or three things that you learned that uh from last year's distance learning that you're going to change for this year the most important ones what are they great question sarah i'm looking at you sarah oh i can't tell you thanks i appreciate it it's a good it's is a great question so i have to say our continued focus on um uh well for the blended learning so we really i you know i can't say this loudly enough um because in what we learned i don't want to in any way imply that our teachers did not do an amazing job um with everything they did last year but every time we try something educators we always want to do it better and so we have walked away with really recognizing that we need to understand this concept of blended learning better so that we are able to um we know that our future is just we don't know we just don't know but we do know students need to learn and so blended learning allows us the flexibility for both synchronous and asynchronous opportunities ways of thinking about learning uh that's just different from ways we've taught in the past and we've not been so we've been a very conservative district with technology we've not been one-to-one so this is huge i i can't emphasize that enough um i know at homes everybody uses technology bolton hasn't gone down that road we've been very mindful mindful of screen time mindful of student etiquette all those pieces as we we've educated the whole child and now we jumped into this very digital world without having some of that backup pieces so we've really invested some time in learning about that uh getting some resources for teachers to learn and we recognize that we're not going to be perfect out the gate we did learn that last year we were i say this all the time and nobody's disagreed i'm probably wrong because every generalization is wrong but teachers tend to be perfectionists and hold themselves to super high standards and they don't like to do things that aren't perfect for their students so i think i hope we have are providing opportunities with embedded pd as we're looking to how we've scheduled our time so people can support each other and learning how to set up their classrooms their virtual classrooms and their their live classrooms the best you know teaching students only two days in a row and then not seeing them those these are so many pieces so so i think the blended learning approach uh our academic leaders have gotten ahead of that in in learning we've been sharing resources with each other they've been talking with other educators so that piece along with um really looking at our platform i think that the work that becky and katie did was in concert with their colleagues they look at the best of what we heard what we got feedback from students parents and colleagues like oh boy i love the way so and so did that and they tried to create a template we didn't have time to do that last year so we now have some resources that we're putting forward for teachers for that and i think the last thing that um we've learned is the importance of connection and really making sure we need to pause you know you heard ms goldschneider talk about the importance of their for um learning how how are we going to read kids behind masks we're having to learn how to read each other like brie i didn't even know you're looking at me that it's like well all those things we've learned a lot about that we've learned about zoom fatigue that's a real thing it's a real thing it's a real thing but you know our bodies we're programmed to read read body language and see expressions and you know and all of a sudden this world it's not meshing with our biological way you know my eyes are incredibly dry so i might be looking like i'm making faces of people and i don't mean to and then it's you know now we're sending mixed messages so we've learned about that and now this importance of developing community so we're developing the children and supporting our teachers it's that mental health piece so i think those are my big three takeaways i'm sure my colleagues have others because this list could go on we learned a ton we did i know mr giard had something too but i'd just like to pipe into you know i think for years and ria you were an educator so you know this right the pendulum swings different ways depending upon what's happening right and for the longest time that the swing and the push was just on testing testing testing testing and i think prior to this we were working really hard in this district about focusing on the whole child this experience so as awful as this is i see that as a a ray of sunshine in all of this in that it is causing i think all schools and all educators and i think politicians to get back to looking at how important it is to really focus on the whole child darryl yeah i know miss fr and i have talked to him at the admin level we've talked a lot about from the springtime we've learned a lot about what's manageable and realistic for families working coming home workload from teachers so we spent a lot of time looking at what our schedule would look like if we're i'm in a full distance model if we end up going to that point of how many classes each day how much work is given how much online time so we've refined a lot it was kind of a lot of trial and error that we've taken and feedback from families and i feel like we're a much better place with scheduling and workload and working with families joe beth yes please so as everybody knows i supervise the school counselors so i work closely with them on a regular basis about social emotional health for a lot of our other kids who may need it but at this time i think our my biggest takeaway or our biggest takeaway was how important it is to focus on the mental health and the the social emotional piece of everybody anybody who knows me knows i am not a kumbaya kind of a person however i do think and i do believe that um you know we often forget about that the relationship building the community building and we can teach teachers how to teach math well but we can't teach teachers how to have good relationships with kids so i think all the things that we're really working on right now is helping to foster those relationships with teachers and with other kids and with support staff and with everybody so i think that that's like my biggest takeaway is that how important is just to make sure that we're taking care of the whole child with that that emotional and that mental health piece mental health is such a big thing right now i mean i've gone to so many workshops in the last year or so on mental health and suicide and drug overdoses and things but really focusing on those the mental health of everybody just to make sure that we are really helping to to foster healthy beings thank you joe did you want us i don't want anybody's i don't want to put anybody in spawn yeah no no and i and i certainly agree with all of my colleagues but um and this isn't something i would change ria but just something i i appreciate more than ever um you know i've been at bolton high for a while and i have always appreciated this faculty um but never more so than march 13th um and actually i should back it up and say about a week and a half two excuse me two and a half weeks before that when they dropped everything else that they were busy doing and started planning and did a heck of a good job and and humbly i'll say on their behalf a lot better job than any other district that either that i interacted with in any way including schools all over new england because i belong to some groups um and and they were tired and they needed a summer and they didn't take it they're still in the trenches they're still digging in uh we're like turning away volunteers to to do stuff at this point and um we're not ready to open school under hybrid model no anybody who says they're 100 ready is is is lying to you but i don't think we could be any more ready than we are at this point and i and i make that i really give all the credit as as much as zoom fatigue as this administrative team has uh that's nothing compared to to the work and the dedication of our teachers in the trenches so i just i just want to say probably how grateful i am for them yep thank you jessica christine would you like to say anything just go ahead mine piggy backs perfectly off of joe to add on to the things that have been said um it's the collaboration of the staff because as we've said and um kristen has said things come up we've never thought about in these little moments but we get together in our boxes and all of a sudden somebody thinks of something that's like i hadn't even thought about you know and then it's just the problem solving it's not you know so many of our staff are just working together to help each other problem solve they're motivated it has not stopped all summer and it just i'm so beyond proud of them and they are helping us and it is just been fantastic because every day but every minute something new we have not thought about pops up and if i put it out to some that they've got an idea or we just talk it out and all of a sudden it's like all right anything you know it's a domino but the support and the caring for each other is beyond um it's just amazing so i'm just proud of us all thank you jess christine yes thank you for giving me an opportunity um i think the biggest takeaway for me was realizing how much our students want to hear our voice and they want to hear from us one-on-one and you know you wouldn't think that a senior boy would want to call and talk on the phone but they do and they need that so for me i've um you know i became a mentor to to a few students and i realized need is great and you know i've been able to plan to ensure that all of our students can have that mentorship if they need it um you know that's it was just a surprise to me that the old school telephone actually you know was a savior for for many of our students so yeah you know i'm looking forward to um sharing that information with our faculty and making sure we match up our students with just whoever they feel like they have a relationship with yep thank you the last piece i want to end on really echoes um a lot of what you've heard today but it really is about our staff this group of administrators here they're nothing short of amazing i have to tell you we have spent i swore i was going to do this hours days weeks months at this point planning there are days when i have looked at them when i think oh my god what am i doing to these people because they have worked so tirelessly and so hard on behalf of our kids and our staff and i feel truly blessed to work with such amazing administrators and such amazing staff we this is a very special place i'm gonna stop there thank you okay anybody have any other questions thank you for your answers they were it's uh i think everybody should hear that it was nice to hear it and i'm proud of you all too for whatever thank you yeah and thank you for the question it was a great question can i ask a quick question ben yes ben yeah i just want to um kind of ask a question regarding um mask wearing in the classroom so obviously that regarding our hybrid model is mandatory um i've also seen though that you know i have family members who are teachers very close friends who are teachers and in other districts you know people are saying things to you know administrators are saying things like um well you might have enough room in your classrooms to not wear masks it's up to you if i were you i would wear them type of thing but really let me get to my point are we helping our teachers you know find a way that's not a combative way but more of like a helpful way like you remind me i'll remind you like if it slides under your nose because i know that you know having worked in an environment for several months now in an office environment with people that wear masks people get laughs with it very easily and even just wearing it all day it slips under your nose very innocently and you know my wife was you know she works as a high school biology teacher and it you know tells her you know co-workers hey friendly reminder if mine is slipping let me know so that it doesn't have to be like hey you you're not wearing your mask and it doesn't want to come off as a combative type of thing but i just want to make sure that it's you know obviously it's mandatory according to our plan but we want it to be um so our teachers feel comfortable approaching people about it and you know would say something about it that it comes off right daryl that's a few words um so part of the first six days uh pd days that we have planned is kind of figuring out the intricacies of scheduling talking about when our mask breaks going to be given how are you going to give a mass break where how are you going to get out to that area and also the conversation like you just said of encouraging students what about the students kind of melting down and there wasn't a scheduled mass break coming up how are we going to handle them so those teams of teachers talk has been some of the conversations we've had beth yes please so that this is also another part of what we're talking about in our social emotional learning meetings is really trying to get everybody on board and teaching these things we did videos at both schools about wearing masks hand washing using hand sanitizer social distancing we have a couple more coming out as soon as we finish up with our the state and the health district about signs and symptoms when to stay home so we did a set at the center school inside at the high school with staff in the building so everybody's familiar and they've already gone out and they're gentle reminders they're not you know it's not like you have to so it's kind of like hey this is why we're doing it and we we want teachers to be teaching those skills and going over this how this is how we put our mask on so after the mass break we'll practice it so we want it to be so teaching and in that kind of a nice we don't want it to be punitive and disciplinary we've we've talked about that a lot in our social emotional meetings not only for the adults like hey get your mask on daryl you know or whatever but um but for the kids too we don't want to become a you know a terrible thing that we're arguing about and fighting and sending you to the office because you don't have your mask so we are we really did focus on that how we can do that and help in a helpful way by practicing and why it's important to do it so instead of you have to do it but this is why we're doing it we tried to hit on that in our um the videos is to the reasons why we're doing all these things so we agree with you that we don't want to become you know an argument or a fight and we certainly don't want teachers spending time or kids spending their two days being disciplined for not wearing their masks so we're sensitive to mask breaks if somebody feels like they're claustrophobic or they just need to you know we've talked today we talked about going out in the hall maybe have some exes out in the hall outside the classroom so you can go stand on the x out there and be socially distant so you can take that mask off for a minute as long as there's nobody else right there so we appreciate that question and that thought because we have considered that and you know come up with some some ways to problem solve that too absolutely thank you ben chris uh christian are you confident that our board policies pertaining to you know discipline and dress code and those sorts of things are sufficient to address any disciplinary issues that that might come up so i have some policies that i need to review to then send to you and to sue from shipment and i'm going to be quite honest i have not gotten to them yet my plan is that after convocation happens on tuesday and our trainings happen that between this weekend and next week i will be digging into those to see which ones we need to take care of there will be one mandatory policy change that has to happen as a result of legal changes in the law that the board will need to uh approve um at the september meeting but like i said it's coming your way you guys i'm sorry but it's coming i've been plenty busy with other things fair enough i'm not disappointed that we did get the summer i also wanted to ask um i'd seen some you know posts online from teachers elsewhere in the country who had received their allotment of masks and protective gear and it was like two masks you know two surgical masks and one cloth mask for the entire year i'm hoping that's not the case with our staff are are we in good position do we have enough masks that we're and we're not expecting staff to have to purchase their own we're not expecting staff to have to purchase our own we've been buying ppe i think beth puts in orders for ppe almost like every day if not every other day and she's found a good connection that we have been able to utilize and she has done she and john have done an amazing job of getting all of that ordered um you know we have told staff that they can wear their own cloth masks you know if they have a mask that they're comfortable with or masks plural um you know they certainly can do that but i believe that we are ready to go beth would you like to add anything to that or yeah so we went around um the high school every classroom every certified staff member has a vial of hand sanitizer in the classroom so we did that every certified staff member at the center school will have the big bottle with the pump and they're all refillable all labeled ready to go and they're also in the staff workroom so and there's signs about cleaning machinery and there's hand sanitizer we have masks for everybody if they need it we have um i bought was able to get quite a few pediatric masks as well before they got the short supply came into effect so we probably are the reason why there's a short shortage of them because we have them all so we have pediatric masks adult masks we have face shields for every staff member if they so choose to wear one and i have face shields for students on order um that they're being made for us so we have those and we also um i asked the principals yesterday to put out a google doc with glove sizes so we should be able to give every staff member in the building we're hoping um a box of their own gloves so they can use them whenever they need that is our hope if we don't have enough we'll order more but i'm pretty sure we have plenty of gloves to do that at this time and a new cleaner um we had purchased um cleaning solution but it has to sit for 10 minutes before it can be wiped up and so we were trying to figure out how that's going to work but that's what was out there and a new cleaner was approved on july 29th and john placed an order for that cleaner today and that sit time is three minutes and it's been approved so we are in the process of purchasing that as well and we'll be able to use the longer sit time cleaner the guys will at night for for night cleaning and on wednesdays and the other cleaner every teacher will have that cleaner in their room and in between periods like at the high school when kids leave a room and different kids joe correct me if i'm wrong have to come to that room and the teachers spray down the desk and the kids will wipe the desks themselves so that we have that happening throughout the day as well absolutely yep and the same you know obviously cleaning in the cafeteria and in between waves and things like that i just want to add for chris just so you also know for the nurses offices we have some special materials so we have to have an isolation room separate from the nurses office so we have gowns we have goggles if they need them we have shoe covers as well and the nurses have been fit tested for n95 masks so if they have a child with with cover-like symptoms and need to go into the isolation room they have the ability to wear an n95 mask and we also purchased air purifiers uh one for the nurses each nurse's office and one for each isolation room as well are there other questions thank you for the question all right seeing none i'm going to move on to my facilities update which been pretty much covered but i'm going to take a quick look and see if there's anything that's um that um air conditioning at bolton center school so uh we have rented air conditioning system for bolton center school until through october 9th this is not a cheap purchase it's about 58 000 but there's just no way in the heat of that building and students and staff and masks i'd be calling half days every day because there would be no way we would be able to manage that so for purposes of air quality and everybody's safety that has happened unfortunately we're not in a position to be able to buy it because in another year or two we're going to be ripping the roof off roof off of center school and really that will be the time uh and it is my hope that that is something that this community will support and that is air conditioning center school so that then both of our schools are air-conditioned um i will share with you at this point we have fully expended john's budget it's the middle of august um you will be seeing uh transfers um in september we do um have some savings um in uh staffing so i'm gonna move on to that piece next that we will be transferring funds from many of our new hires are newer teachers so there was some savings there we have also had some unexpected resignations which you'll hear more about under that part this evening so as a result of that and the fact that we have some open positions and it's not that we don't need the positions but for example currently we have five open paraprofessional positions we are trying right now to fill two not sure that that's even going to be able to happen um because of the application pool we have a special education teaching position that's currently open and with being in the hybrid model and being able to move some things around think we're going to be able to manage for the time being anyway to not fill that position which is a good thing because there really are no um viable applicants for that position at this time but i do have great news and so i want to share a staffing update with you so at bolton center school we have hired alexandra goslin as a new middle school math teacher lauren smith new middle school language arts teacher kelly de hart uh new middle school language arts teacher sarah andrews fourth grade teacher christa parrison a bcs reading teacher aaron breen bcs fourth grade teacher and we have increased mary dembroskis from 0.6 to a 1.0 uh because that we needed that addition of that position to a full 1.0 to make all of the changes happen that daryl has had to do in his building we've been looking at that for a number of years now trying to get that to a 1.0 um but we couldn't make it happen we could make the schedule happen um without it and at the high school arian silas is a new science teacher amy hewn a new school counselor she was our intern last year melissa hubbell is a science teacher at the high school and nicole ravis a new school psychologist we do have a few other positions that we need to fill and we're working on that as we speak and now i'm going to move on to the 2020-2025 bolton public school strategic plan could we start with slide one here we go thanks so um as the board knows you approved our new strategic plan and so i just wanted to share with you um you know what we've been working on everything else uh i've also been working with a graphic designer that uh miss saffron as a friend of hers set me up with and so this is our final product that i wanted to share with the board tonight i'd like to thank sarah's husband for this beautiful picture of the farm that i love which is why it's on the front page okay page two this is our amazing uh class of 2020 and the great job that our photographer did with each individual photo of our class that was taken and able to put it together for our table of contents message from the superintendent you guys are all going to receive this so i'm not going to read it to you but i just wanted you to see the layout go ahead mr moselli our new mission statement mission of the bolton public schools is to inspire all students to grow as learners individuals and citizens our new vision statement that all students in the bolton public schools are empowered to embrace learning and a healthy mindset continually build knowledge develop skills and become engaged global citizens our new tagline empower build develop become our belief statements okay a new graphic of our portrait of the graduate our strategic goals goal one focused on student success goal two a caring culture goal three talent development and goal four resource stewardship all focused and working collaboratively and in conjunction with one another on all of the attributes and focus of our portrait of a graduate which is really our north star and finally the explanations and further information about each goal thank you mr miceli any thoughts or comments about the strategic plan the the presentation looks great everything pops really nicely i think thank you i appreciate that yeah you did a great job you get a lot of back and forth wish i'd gone to graphic design school all right uh unfinished business i don't believe we have any uh not that i'm aware of and if you're not aware of any then we'll move on to new business okay on resignation yeah so i have a number of resignations uh from bcs math teacher tiffany novak bhs teacher math teacher kurt kaiser bhs psychologist leah goudette bcs occupational therapist danielle o'connell and bhs kitchen manager linda levine and we thank them for their years of dedicated service to the bolton public schools and they will be greatly missed thank you uh onto boe subcommittee meeting schedule yeah i shared um the meeting schedule uh with you all and uh we you know we left the committees the same as we has been past practice and if any dates need to be changed just just let me know and we'll figure it out okay um on to board of ed meeting format um i had asked in the discussion with kristin i said that i felt that it was time that we resume in-person meetings for the board of education um i'm on a chair list serve and it's kind of come to my attention that a number of other districts if not most of them have returned to in-person meetings many of them started with their july meeting and a large number of them seem to have started with this meeting so uh i think that we can do it safely uh there are some number of details that we should work out uh and work together on them but uh he obviously we would need to be spaced out more than we have in the past he would need to be wearing masks uh whether or not the speaker would be marrying wearing them maybe we can discuss that also i'm not sure where we're at with executive order and what's even allowed but as far as allowing members of the public to come we probably would have to initially limit that certainly the celebration of excellence that we've done in the past would have to be something different or i i'm not really sure we have some details to work out but uh also this would certainly not be a mandatory thing we would have to work out so that anyone who does not feel safe or is not it just feels uh you know uncertain about coming back at this time uh would have to be able to be able to follow along live and interact normally as we are doing now and has been done in the past but uh this is i think we should be leading by example we're asking everyone to come back there's a lot of as we transition back to normality we should try to have an in-person meeting perhaps i don't know if chris wants to add anything or if anyone else has any thoughts on this matter i would can we go back for just a minute though because i maybe jumped ahead a little too fast i need you guys to vote on the boe subcommittee dates if we could just do that and then we can come back to this sorry oh um did you get a motion to approve those we'll look for a motion to approve the board of education subcommittee meeting uh schedules as sent so much that's scott uh we have a second this is chris second any discussion or questions on the subcommittee meetings dates i mean obviously there's some flexibility built in but we just need to post something so we all can start to mark our calendars anyone want to ask anything happy at the time all those in favor of adopting the subcommittee meeting schedules say hi uh opposed abstentions okay thank you this and we are back to meeting format so i don't know um we have a couple of things to share about how we think we might be able to do it and actually joe's going to share that but i don't know if you want to hear from board members first before we shed what would be the preference i don't know either i i agree that if we're asking teachers and students to come back that it's not too much to ask that we try to find a way to meet in person as well this is chris i would be strongly in favor of meeting again in person as long as we continue to do the meetings via zoom for those who are in the public or even on the board who don't feel comfortable or have other reasons why they can't be here i think zoom has been a great way of increasing attendance at at our board meetings and i don't see any reason as long as it's technically feasible uh i don't see any reason not to continue doing that and i i know you had your mic yeah yeah no i i'm gonna echo what christa said uh i agree that we should get back to meeting in person and that zoom has been a great resource for us so let's continue doing that and allowing the public to join us however way they are able i agree i like the idea of meeting back i know personally i have a lot of anxiety about going back into the classroom and what i'm going to be exposed to so i love the idea that i would have maybe for the first meeting the option of doing it via zone yep okay mr misselli would you like to share sure um so in my head um as as mrs heck and i spoke about this last couple of days i think there's a couple of layers i think first is the physical space um and i you know the board would have to decide did would they want to continue use the library um and what that configuration might look like currently there's no tables in the library we've torn that all apart and made it a classroom it doesn't mean we can't move furniture again but um so maybe the current layout is more or less conducive to your thoughts and obviously then the next option if you want more space would be the student commons which currently has very few cafeteria tables in they've actually got the library tables in there because the cafeteria tables are in the gym so it's all that shuffling of furniture but and we don't mind moving furniture once a month for a meeting but i guess some parameters maybe for uh john's staff and myself to plan how many tables how far apart all those kinds of things so that's the one the first layer is the physical space the second layer is the technology so there's two ways of looking at it one is that you all device yourselves as you are doing right now and you just bring that device into the high school for the meeting so that would be one way of doing it then the output would looks very similar to this everybody's faces everybody's got their own microphone and everybody is an independent member of the zoom meeting as we all are right now the other way of doing it would be to gather you together in the in the space set up one camera which admittedly would be far away and you would not have up close images of yourself it would be the room overall view of the room but we could still hook up those uh those wireless microphones that we we have for the board meetings and pipe that in so from a zoom perspective you all would be one zoom person uh your audio again could be mixed between all of you but there would be one image one name and again that image would be a webcam you know potentially you know kind of across the room with with small people but those would be the two ways the uh one of the things to think about in that other than the video size because the audio i'm not worried about the other video size the other thing to think about is what you view yourself so if you if your chosen space was the library we could drop the screen and we could project all of the other people on that screen for you that's a possibility we could also do that in the commons but you can't really see well in the comments unless you turn the lights off and then you're in the dark and so there's there's that piece to it as well so that's options uh as i see them but if you have questions you want me clarify any of that for you or ask me about other things i'm i'm ready for you sarah um and i would like to add uh just to help with your decision making if you should choose the device option joe and i spent some time talking some more this afternoon where you're on individual individual devices if your personal device is not one that hooks up readily to the system or what you have we may we like we would need the heads up to make sure we could secure you a device for that as well so that would be a piece that would be important information for us to know so that you could participate yep and also for your knowledge currently um the number at a public meeting is 25.
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i don't know how many more um questions you have yeah i mean that cover has been highlighted but yeah that were the highlights for maura you know okay um none from the board at this time uh moving forward is there jeff you want to give uh is there any update on the school reopening survey that went out there were you ready to present any of that data yet or yeah i mean am i i was gonna talk about that a little bit the superintendent's report we're all in the covid if we wanna just there are two other items i would bang out that are covered related one is the the report or the survey and then i asked dr gatt if she could give a quick overview on the high school plan because that went out more recently and i know there were a lot of parent questions about that and this would answer those questions yeah and maura first of all on behalf of the board all of a sudden thank you so much for coming here tonight to thank your team and chester for all you're doing i i know you're a partner with us and we appreciate the guys i know the public does as well you're certainly welcome to stay um i sneak out but uh you know i will i'm gonna give more one more shout out though because you know people don't realize that not only is she doing all the the typical covid stuff but one of the issues of concern for us isn't as an employer is child care for our our staff that their children now are in these remote in hybrid and whatever the case may be situations or and they're trying to figure things out too and maura's team has been helping me work through that process with the ymca so that's greatly appreciated yeah can i just give you guys just a little heads up on what's going to happen with the nurses yeah do you have a minute um i just want you to know that part of our surveillance we've always worked with your nurses to surveil them uh to oversee what your illnesses are and so we've been working very hard we've actually created an online easy system so your nurses can plug go into chesapeake's website plug in the numbers and easily send it we have also provided to the nurses all this contact tracing questions so that they can start those questions because they know those kids but we are going to be coming in with a team and really digging down into the layers with your nurse and your nurses we we we are going to be working and they are going to get to know us very very well and they've been on the meetings with us we're going to be doing zoom meetings with them we're going to be keeping those nurses really close um because we're we are in this together and the first couple of times that's a little you know if there's a little you know someone goes out with a little cold your nurse might not be sure well the amendment five which i think you guys mentioned earlier gave very clear guidance of what are the steps to happen and so we will be walking each of your nurses through the first couple of them and actually every single time that they think that there's a positive we are going to be right there with them so they're not in this alone at all thank you okay so everybody you have a wonderful night thank you for having me okay i'll see everyone later thank you thank you that wraps up uh section two of our presentation um we actually just covered some of the audience questions i think actually all of them related to this we're gonna move on to the consent calendar we're gonna do a little bit of board vet business uh fairly quickly sections four and five before we and submit approval before we get into superintendence reports for for those watching uh just bear with us because during superintendence report a little bit later as jeff and the kids get more into the sort of responses and get a little bit more into reopening planned details so that being said we do have a consent calendar on the agenda there are three items uh the board of ed does have this in our in our packet which is on our google drive um jeff you want to walk us through the items first um sure in case the board has any questions on i know we don't normally [Music] these are items that we uh usually um affirm or consent to to begin the school year so it might be worth just a couple minutes to walk through a little more detail jeff thank you sure um the first item is our um the board has to approve a class size policy every year basically our policy has remained the same since 1987 that the board shall endeavor to main class size is consistent with proven educational practices which require that various learning situations may alter the number of students per class the board through its committee shall make any recommendation concerning personnel and space requirements based on all factors uh regarding class size so that's an annual um like i said uh policy that gets renewed ace's membership agreement where uh the local regional education service center or resk for cheshire is aces that's basically new haven county uh area cooperative educational services we work with them on a number of uh collaborative efforts in the area and the membership there is 250 dollars and we're part of that process that we approve annually additionally for the upcoming school year we appoint a hearing officer uh to serve in place of the board they um hear cases of expulsion or residency issues which could still be appealed but uh the hearing officer hears them uh initially so that's a pretty again three standard um motions that we make every year excellent any any questions from the board on a consent calendar ah adam sorry i didn't see you earlier did you have a question or is adam frozen no i'm not frozen my my question was uh about something else and i'll save it for when we get back into reopening questions so thank you sir uh barring those are another questions and comments uh we do have a motion and the motion is move the cheshire board education approves the consent calendar as presented is there a second second second adam grip on the devio others second it any discussion seeing as there's none all those in favor please raise your hand or it is unanimous uh for the six of us present just to mind remind folks that tim left a little earlier thank you next item is reports of standing committees we'll start with finance uh mr grippo uh thank you um i uh uh proudly hand the report over to uh mr massiana thank you mr grippo and good evening ladies and gentlemen uh i'll keep the the finance report pretty brief normally the first report of the year we just closed the books on july 31st is usually very short but this year i just want to put out kind of some caveats obviously related to covert 19.
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okay because i'm trying to be sure that when you are doing talking about advisory committee this these people are not just advising because they're employees of the district so they're looking at things that will benefit them i'm interested in advisory committee of parents who are actually looking at things that will benefit kids and you know their children not what will benefit them as a district employee so that's why i am i'm paying attention so could you get us the actual numbers in the next board meeting i can tell you the numbers they change every day because parents you know can and can't come but um i can provide to you the most recent invite list it changes as parents come into the district make contact with the principal principals at the beginning of the year are inviting parents to be part of their just their school advisory committees and they send representatives to the district advisory committee but i'll tell you that by statute for the el cap we meet with that group and then we hold the parents back and we say for you now you have a special mandated time to ask your questions free of anyone in the room and they ask the best questions and then last night we also met with our dlac which is our district english language advisory committee and they um also are all parents and they had wonderful questions so um so yes that that is our that's enshrined in the lcap law and we follow that to the letter okay and and when we come back the next meeting uh hopefully matt will be here because he had to take our family uh to give us information regarding um the the um budget committee yes right and so he's going to give us that information when we come back the next time um that's about it focus on and then we are going to look at the ethnic studies issue that we discussed in the last board meeting so that we'll be able to begin to have the conversation once you guys have the um have the information that we need in order to when you have the actual books you're going to have the actual books and materials two different weekends yeah so that we can begin to establish an ethnic studies group yeah two different things so we are um engaging right now in the diversify our um i just lost it our narrative thank you diverse fire narrative we do have um students and have a meeting scheduled with the principals and cabinet and the students first then we will um bridge that out to staff in the different departments that this would impact because that group is looking at at least one book that can be integrated based on author um to diversify what books students have to read the second level of that is the ethnic studies work that is happening at the state in the cde that is in process right now and as soon as um i believe that the deadline i had it last time i believe it was march 13th or something like that yeah i'm following your level yeah yeah so we will we will continue to watch that um information as it modifies and changes so that we can be prepared to then put something together um once it is adopted by the cde with the recommendation thank you okay all right okay next um it's on page four i'm gonna i'm gonna move that will approve the recommendation of the administrative hearing chairperson effective immediately on an overview that's only separate do we have a i second that all those in favor all right motion passes wilson did you vote no oh i i'm fine i just talked about well there we go and then it's recommended that the board of trustees consider approving a number of agenda items as a consent list consent items are routine in nature and can be enacted in one motion without further discussion item one two six seconds all those in favor all right motion passes okay let's see and then staff reports any questions about staff reports any questions no questions and then kylie do you have any other public comments no more comments anybody well i moved out with john um can i give a superintendent comment regarding the waiver please yes yes thank you i just want to brief you on the latest information regarding um the waiver process as many of you are aware the there was a waiver granted recently to lucerne valley unified school district um and for a good reason based on the data for their district on the 18th of this month we were provided the latest data from the california or the san bernardino county department of public health the previous data we received was received on august 3rd so we are two weeks at a time right now receiving this this information we must as a district be below a 200 community case in a two-week time period as of the 18th we are below 200.
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time is up ma'am i'm sorry okay i think it might be helpful for this um parent who's dr bowley dr valesky what do you think dr bowley if you could contact dr bully's office directly yes yes ma'am if you if you heard that if you could call the district and ask to speak to dr burley who is our assistant superintendent of curriculum we can get your concerns addressed thank you for coming to us tonight bernie do we have anybody else we have one individual in the queue uh wendy siegel good evening hi thank you for letting me speak um i don't have a horse in this race my kids did fantastic with remote learning i thank central staff specifically miss alessandra miss pietro and mrs perduto um i didn't need permission from the district my kids will be continuing to stay home because i will do my duty to keep your staff and your teachers safe my questions and concerns are again that your residents didn't know anything of the plans you were submitting until you submitted them you then finally told us in the middle of a blackout and then went on the news here are my concerns are all of your children returning to hybrid resume services will you or do you plan to be doing daily walkthroughs to make sure that all of the safety procedures you have stated are being adhered to in all of the buildings we all sell the petition of more than 300 i'm hoping over 400 by now trying to keep our teachers and staff safe i'm not trying to be difficult i am getting vilified in social media because take away the take away our choice again we have the privilege in our house to continue my children if it means i can cut your classroom by half so that your teachers can stay safer folks i've worked in public schools my childhood 102 fever and no parent was coming to get them i have worked in public schools where a child has threw up my wonderful custodial staff who's already overworked and underpaid through some clotting materials and kept moving through their day i don't trust i don't trust you can keep the teachers and staff safe especially as all of middlesex county is slowly saying their plans for virtual my fears for the teachers i was raised by public educators my husband was raised by public educators i am terrified for your staff my baby's kindergarten teacher is a senior citizen she's not going to make it if somebody gets sick in that classroom i guess i'm up not yet oh okay so i'm sorry i know you love me dr valesky has met you before bernie knows me from last year um i i my heart breaks for your teachers i i can't i have nothing against you sir thank you for everything you do but i feel like now our hands are tied we went on the news with our great plan i am terrified for your teachers and staff thank you for letting me speak thank you is there anything else bernie uh yes uh marcy cares charistia welcome marcy sorry i had to unmute um i had absolutely no plans of speaking tonight but after hearing this meeting i just need to get a few words in i'm an instructional assistant in the district um i absolutely love what i do but i am terrified to go back to work i am immune compromised i have had um leukemia um as an instructional assistant i cannot i've been told it is really not a possibility right now for me to be working remotely my doctor has said he does not want me being with children he does not want me getting sick i could die if i get this disease and it's very scary to me and right now i'm in a very bad position it's take family medical leave act or resign my position which i do not want to do um as a caller before me the person performing said also from a family of educators love what i do love the teachers love my coworkers but i am downright scared to come back to work and my back is against the wall right now as to what to do so i implore you let us work remotely people like me who really want to be there love the children love what i do and as an instructional assistant we don't make a lot of money i do this also for the love of the children and i want to be there and i would hate to not be working this year so i really ask if you anything you can do for her not only teachers but us lesser you know instructional assistants and people like us i really would appreciate you doing it and thank you for listening to me thank you and you are not lesser thank you is there anyone else rachel thomas rachel good evening hi i am an elementary school teacher in the district as well as a parent of an elementary school student as a teacher so i'm not going to repeat everything you've heard i agree with everything we've been hearing um but as a teacher i'm very thankful that you've given us an additional day of training in the beginning of this school year however i want you to consider that the three days before school starts to truly understand the curriculum the expectations of us the expectations of the students plus new video conferencing applications and technology is simply unfair i agree with everything we've been hearing um i would gladly have spent my summer planning and training i understand that wasn't possible as things are constantly changing and being developed but even to have the last few weeks once we had a plan would have been a huge help instead teachers were mostly left in the dark and found out as parents found out the amount of work and preparation that seems to be expected of us since i'm not actually sure what's expected just yet is incredibly overwhelming and stressful to add that to a typical september stress is unfair these weeks to plan would have really helped a great deal and it would have eased our worry and it would have made september run smoother for everyone the parents are going to look to the teachers to be experts on how to navigate through all of this new technology and all of the websites that we're expecting them to use i keep hearing that spring was crisis learning but now the teachers have had all summer to prepare so they shouldn't be worried but we haven't i've done all of the training i could of course i went to the google classroom workshop that dr valeski mentioned it was for two hours and every other workshop that i had signed up for i was not granted i would have volunteered my time i understand that there's contractual issues with that but we had volunteer meetings and i would have gone to more i would have gone to them every day instead we have the three days before school starts to figure out what we're teaching and how to three different groups of students simultaneously in addition to teaching the parents how to use the technology based on answers to parent questions at the board of education meetings i feel like it sounds like the teachers are well prepared but i want you to know that we don't feel like we are i worry that the parents will see it as that i'm not prepared so i must not be putting in the time and effort since the district had made sure to convey that we've been given plenty of training i wish we were given more and i'm excited about the three days i just wish and wish it had happened previously thank you for your time thank you thank you rachel is there anyone else wishing to speak to the board robin zernitzky welcome robin hi how are you good evening um so as you know most of you i've been on on the ble meetings for the last month and i'm so excited to hear um the community speaking up as well as the teachers who i respect tremendously um there's a couple things that i'd like to say i don't want to repeat everything that everyone else has said with regards to the fears but i will tell you as a parent hearing the fear in our teachers voices i mean i'm really really hoping that it does make those of you on the board as well as dr valesky and your staff to really think twice about how to move forward and protect everyone i also want to point out that yesterday we did have that forum which i was happy to see lots of parents attended but i will say i was disappointed in the way that it was run in the sense that questions were sort of picked and chosen and i put several questions that were not answered and it's very frustrating as a parent to have certain questions and concerns that are not answered um i still do not understand and and it really probably is almost doesn't matter at this point but i really still don't understand why a meeting with you know to understand the details of the plan took so long to put together i also want to say that will there be future meetings with principals to talk to their individual schools so that parents teachers everyone's in the know um i think after hearing this i have much more concern than i did before and i had a lot of concern before um the preparation of the teachers is of the utmost importance and it doesn't sound like that has been thought out in this plan so i really just wanted to express those things today to make um each of you on the board who you know really does have like a fiduciary responsibility to the community um you know not to the superintendent but to the community to really think twice and how to make it the best possible plan that it could possibly be for the safety of everyone thank you thank you robin and do we have anybody else no one else in the queue okay seeing no one else i will close the public portion i thank everyone who came to speak tonight who took the time to come and talk to us i know i was taking notes fast and furiously and i'm sure my fellow board members were as well as our central office staff um if you have a question which you feel was not answered tonight or last night or in general the email address to send questions too is questions q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n-s ebnet dot org e-b-n-e-t dot org you can always call office in our board administration building and ask to speak with an administrator i urge you to use your building administrators also they are a great source of information and i thank you for coming to speak with us tonight okay i would like to make a motion to move the rest excluding items one through three on the board of education the three approvals other than that i'd like i need a motion for tonight's agenda i do not see board members uh mr simmons moved second second hello can you hear me yes we can hear you i'm so sorry i got kicked out my my computer didn't like the fact that i i had to take three items off of the agenda okay so um we do have we do have a motion on the table it was moved by mr simmons and seconded by mr han thank you so much mr giuliani is there any discussion uh yep i i think uh now you want to move if i understand correctly you want to move the entire agenda from here forward just all the um just so the resolutions jeff then we will go to the go to the calls for the board uh number four i'd like to hear a roll call vote on that the entire agenda will have a roll call uh because we do have roll call items on them i i understand uh so jeff you're making a motion that you'd like to separate out that item well right now i haven't made a motion i mean discussion uh but uh sure i'll make it is the motion uh to separate out for as a separate vote on the education agenda jeff okay seconded by mark is there any discussion all those in favor i need to show him folks obscene motion carries i'm going to ask for and uh a secretary of police about a motion for the entire agenda except for item number four policies to prove on second reading hey mrs chu yes mr sismar mrs guass yes mr hong yes this is lex yes mrs reese yes mr simmons yeah mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries and again i'm going to ask those who are still with us um to please keep yourself muted greatly appreciated i'm the item requested separated out item number four policies approval on second reading can i please have a motion for this item some movement second by somebody in just a second second second by mark thank you is there any discussion uh yes i i i do right here okay waiting to be recognized thank you very much uh yeah i wanted to separate now okay in light of the 13 people who just spoke i think it deserves separate uh separate cover and uh for those who don't know this is the second reading on the department of education published the road back to recovery and uh for those who haven't seen this in the agenda and uh i appreciate the opportunity to have this voted on as a separate piece thank you okay anybody else before i asked the secretary to please um call the role mark yeah i also heard the public tonight i heard the public in the town hall meeting and former board of ed meetings i think dr volesky and his team did an excellent job with constructing the restart and recovery plan and when it was submitted that's when the governor said we must have some type of in-person instruction our plan was submitted approved by the superintendent the county superintendent and post that is when the governor said that districts could go to an all remote under certain circumstances which are still i think kind of vague from the state i don't think the state guidance was there i think our team did an excellent job doing the best that they could and you know there are portions that uh don't take everything into consideration from the state side for safety and but i do support dr valesky's efforts and i know he cares about the residents of east brunswick and the staff thank you thank you mark those are the public um the motion that we are discussing and we'll be taking a roll call on is that based on new jersey department of ed guidance certain areas of the district required a board policy to be in line with their recovery plan um rather than revising six or seven policies at this time the adoption of the single policy addresses the new jersey department of ed's mandated guidance when the pandemic is over this one policy will be abolished so will the secretary please call the role this is true no discussion i'm sorry i didn't i didn't know if it was just mark and i you didn't ask indian uh anybody else i thought i did so sorry anybody else scene then will the secretary please call the roll this is true yes mr sismar no for 1648 which is the restart and recovery plan but yes for 1648.02 which allows remote learning options for families honey can we separate um it's noted okay it's fine just want to make sure we're in compliance that's all thank you thank you mark this is gloss yeah mr hong yes this is lax yes mrs reese no as as mrs martin remarked could you specify please i don't have the number in front of me barbara if you wish to vote um as mark did he indicated no on policy 1648 we start a recovery plan and yes on policy 1648.02 learning options for families thank you is that what you is that you wish to vote yes thank you okay thank you barbara mr simmons yes mr winston uh the same as mr sismore uh 1648 restart i vote no 1648.02 i vote yes and it is my belief that none of this should be considered based on the date of june 26th there would have been multiple revisions this is really it's not the time for a comment i apologize uh mr president uh just believe my voting thank you mr julian president backer yes motion carries thank you now brings us to committee reports information items and for the good of the cause for the board does anybody have anything they wish to bring to the board tonight yeah mrs becker yes todd i would just say this look you know we have been following the state's directive we have been following the state's directives no matter how curvy that road has been and dr valesky and the administration has done an incredible job responding to that i just urge if anybody's in the state is on this to to just have a state mandate to go remote for a marking period a semester it would be the smartest thing to do sorry for my dogs there but you're leaving us with little choice um you've given us direction we've followed it i get it but it would be a really good idea if the state would just go virtual that's all anybody have anything for the good of the cause mark hmm she want to meet her yes if i haven't please i'm just gonna ask people to please keep their phones muted thank you so much mark when i got on the board i always voted for the safest option for the children it included bringing armed ssos in the schools and some other controversial issues that i've always voted for the safest option in my opinion the safest option is to keep people separated it's been working very well in state of new jersey i understand the parents that have concerns and want to send their children in i understand the parents that also have the choice to keep their children home and i want to say i heard the staff that do not have a choice whether or not to go remote and i feel for them i pray for everyone's safety with maybe a little extra emphasis on people that don't have a choice in this matter so that that's all i have to say at this point i pray for you all thank you mark jeff i didn't see your hand you did okay uh in in with in repeating uh rightfully so my prayers go to all those who will be placing themselves uh in this line of exposure uh my my heart works for the teachers that i heard tonight and the many who have contacted me on the side um i don't know what i would do in your shoes i i'm i'm not really sure i have a uh i have a profound disappointment in many things although i am happy with what dr volesky delivered he certainly addressed all of the areas of concern uh from the june 26 request uh andrew and i'm gonna get in july uh from uh or mandate might i say from the governor's office but much has changed since then including uh the rules of engagement is issued but all of that aside and all the politics and what should or shouldn't be done the bottom line is is that make no mistake it is my wish prayer that somehow in the next two and a half to three weeks that the state comes to their senses and doesn't assume that our teachers are uh assuming the same role of putting himself in harm's way where it's completely unnecessary and if a district does have the ability to pump the brakes right now and and what some of the uh the uh public uh did mention this evening the fact that we are not doing that i find irresponsible on every level when when all we would be doing is delaying the opening there is no harm in that very saddened by this day and i too will reiterate that my prayers go out to all students children and staff especially who are being put in a choiceless choice whether to support their families comfortably or put themselves in health's harm's way very very sorry i'm very sorry you're in this position thank you any other members of the board barbara i just want to reiterate that i i'm very thankful that we have dr velesky and our team they are very hard working beyond what you realize some don't realize how many hours that they put in to do this kind of work i think this and i think very highly of governor murphy but in this particular case i just am very concerned the vagueness of the state requirements and it doesn't put it puts us as individual boards in a situation where there's an evolving science uh about all kinds of transmission and we are not epidemiologists and we need more guidance from the department of health in numbers in specifics not in vague discussions and terms that leave volunteer board members from different states to make decisions for the for the for the life and death of of many people thank you are there any other board members who wish to speak tonight i wanted to say that i think i can speak safely no pun intended for the entire board saying that everyone in our community is in our prayers i'll extend that to our country i too have been hearing from a lot of parents and teachers people who want who are very angry with me and the board because they want their children in school five days a week people who are very angry because they feel the entire district should be virtual people who are upset because they think we're going to take away their option to go hybrid teachers who are concerned who are scared and also some teachers who just wanted to tell me how much you're looking forward to going back to work even a few days a week yes this is what i've been hearing from people we all talk to community members to come up with a decision to come up with a plan that encompasses everyone i think dr valesky i think dr valensky said it well we can't come up with something that's going to make everyone happy depending upon your personal situation that's going to be your reaction to this plan i applaud the parents students and staff of this district for continuing to have commitment compassion for themselves their colleagues for their students the parents for the sacrifices they make i'm in awe of all of you every single day i don't have school age children somebody asked earlier what board members were doing and um i thought about that a lot and it's kind of an unfair question for me to answer because i would be saying what i think i would have done because my kids are somebody is uh one of them is uh in his 30s and the other is a millennial smack in his 20s so my kids are out of school however i thought long and hard about this and i thought that i have one child who i would have given the choice to such he was the student he was and i have another child that i absolutely would have sent to the hybrid program so that's my answer again uh is it fair of me to give an answer on something that i'm not being asked to say today no but i wanted to answer anyway so we leave you all tonight with our hopes and prayers for a safe start to school are there any other members wishing to speak scene none i don't believe we have a need to go into closed session bernie oh not at this time okay so can i please have a motion to adjourn so moved by jeff anybody want a second mark second by mark thank you any discussion all those in favor all right abstain motion carries good night thanks for joining us stay safe everybody try and be safe you
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it's gonna be just short of the first down but a good gain on first down for the warriors dalton murray on the carry number 13. and the warriors starting off once again with a chunk run second and two for the warriors coons under center once again since singleton in motion they're going to fake the handoff throw it down the field it's going to be intercepted elliott koopman number 32 on the pick looking for room to run out to the 20-yard line and maybe the forces that turn in favor of the olympians threw it in the double threw it into double coverage and koopman was right there to snatch it and bring it back to the 20-yard line that may have turned the tide for the olympians we'll see it right here as parks runs back on the field this olympian's offense has been stifled so far maybe that's the little boost they needed from their defense ball at the 21 yard line two wide receivers in the set parks fakes the handoff to mcdonald busts up the middle out to the 28-yard line seven good yards on the run by parks number 50 lenario grier had his helmet come off for the warriors and they're going to run no tempo mcdonald up the middle close to the first down nearside official just short of the marker as it appears they're going to give it to him nearside official was a little off but they call it a first down and that's the first first down for the olympians this game coming here with three and a half minutes left to go in the first quarter parks fakes the handoff looking to throw evading rush out the outside wrapped up at around the 43 yard line and parks makes something out of nothing busted protection and showing off those wide receiver skills that he's had the past couple years gets the first down for the olympians and once again the olympians moving towards warrior territory they send bergman emotion they're going to hand it to him bergman cutting outside puts it back up the middle breaking tackles out across midfield in another first down for the olympians so three plays three first downs for the olympians still going up tempo parks takes the snap hands it to mcdonald breaking tackle still going out to the 43-yard line before he is brought down so the first down streak ends but still a positive play for the olympians [Music] macdonald a three-year varsity running back starter he's had his fair fair share of knocks and bruises but he is a strong runner and he's going to be a big part of this olympian's offense as parks busts it off the right side frankie tackles across the 25 and up to the 20-yard line the olympians in the red zone for the first time this game and the warriors call a time out to stop the bleeding right away the coach came out and said we want time the teams start to funnel out after the time out the olympians have been rolling down the field after that elliott kootman interception really seemed to upstart this olympian's offense as they're now in the red zone looking a strike to make this game tied parks hands it to mcdonald cuts it up the middle across the 15.
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so it may be that if you decide to be in person you're in person but the public comment period is via zoom and people can join the zoom meeting and give their comment themselves after they state their name and their address um instead of sending it in to me and you're all present here in whatever room we're going to come up with at this point in whatever system that's going to look like i would ask um you know i think celebration of excellence is is a huge challenge um for us right now um you know we've done a lot of videos and a lot of in-person pieces with that for all of you as part of celebration of excellence so that is something that i think we're going to have to hit the pause button on for the time being um you know i think if there's you know i don't want to project out to when we get to the spring and student awards because i'm going to go with there's a vaccine we're back to school and things are good i'm feeling positive so because i don't know any other way to be so i guess i don't want to cross that bridge so we have to cross that bridge but i'd like to say that the celebration of excellence peace is going to have to be a pause and we may find ways to weave things into the superintendent's report um in in ways if we can but i i just want to put that piece out there as well so i'm hearing that the preference is for you to be back in person and that's i i guess i would say that you know the governor's executive order ends on september 9th and your meeting is on september 10th that is if he doesn't if something doesn't change in the meantime to give additional executive office um pieces so we will plan to have you in person um i'm thinking i'm just talking out loud and i don't know how other people feel about this i'm thinking that just one camera and everyone on zoo i i i mean we're going to look like ants i don't think that's a good idea so i think it's bring your own device bring your own mask i'm saying thumbs up from some people thank you um and um we'll spread you out and the public can participate via zoom because we will be on zoom how does that sound to everybody that sounds good to me that's good all right so i guess the other the other thing i could just throw in if it if if if that plan gives you pause because well if we're all on our own devices are we really what's the point of being together because it's going to look like we're separate if you still want to go that way one thing we could do is set up you may have noticed earlier in the meeting a bps admin or bps ghost or something and that was me checking recordings and stuff we could in theory set up another device with that overall view of the whole room with no audio and people go oh look they're the ants um but yeah we can still see them up close so great just a thought yep that's great and i think we're just gonna have to work joe you and i um with john on what's going to be the better space whether it's going to be the library or it's going to be the comments i think we'll have to and i'll just have to let you guys know where you're going i mean they're right next to each other so okay all right back in person we are for those of you that wish to do so and those of you that don't and i hear you sue loud and clear um for sure um you know and that will be true you know we may have administrators for whatever reason that will be joining uh via zoom at any given time um i'll be on zoom but i'll be right down the hall in my office and control center pushing right that's what i'm saying from their location right so all right great thank you so some details to work out but we'll plan on that for a regular meeting at least our next one yes and everything as always is subject to change yes sir do we have any future business no all right so then we are now looking for an executive session a motion to go into executive session to discuss the superintendent's goals sue pike so move um you need to invite me to attend you know and invite superintendent to come with us thank you all right thank you second anne decker any discussion uh all those in favor abstentions baby abstained thank you everyone who is here and thank you administration
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the board members do have a report in their packet the board's approved budget for the 2021 year is 74 million 593 926 you know as of the end of july we've expended or encumbered about 12.6 million dollars so it's about of the budget however you know we do not pass all the payroll encumbrances and the transportation account encumbrances you know until we get to roughly mid-september so it's not unusual that you know we haven't encumbered those yet it just takes time to process all those encumbrances the the caveat to this year's budget is obviously related to covet 19. we just don't know you know where our variances might be and and our variances are going to be essentially based on are we staying in school for the full year will we wind up remote so those are all going to have a factor or will factor into where our budget is as a precaution and i believe i explained this to the board members already that you know normally when we start the new fiscal year we have a 60 cap on non-payroll expenditures that are controlled at the school and department level this year the cap is 40 so that will ensure that we have sufficient reserve if we have to reallocate our budget expenditures to other areas um what i will um do however and it's in in the initial report that we provided the board is i will identify some of the potential costs due to covert 19 that we either will or may incur and i'll start with the largest potential expenditure and that is you know we've contracted with our cleaning company performance environmental they will be supplying 6.5 staff members to do cleaning sanitizing and disinfecting during the school day in all our buildings if we do that and we're in school 180 days then that cost would be 325 thousand dollars is the estimate however if we do wind up going in remote it is a contracted vendor so you know we wouldn't incur that cost but you know that that's a potential 325 000 variance that we would have to make up for in our budget um as dr solon mentioned a few minutes ago you know we were able to secure tent rentals and and table rentals so that we can expand you know not only our cafeteria areas but our outdoor areas for mass break you know potentially for student learning outside when the weather is good so the the tenth rental estimate for two months it would take us through november second is about 137 thousand dollars dr solon mentioned also that we've gone to all our school buildings we've identified any furniture and equipment that we do not need in the classroom this year because we're making compromises so removing the furniture which it will be completed this week it started last week storing that furniture and equipment for 10 months and then returning it at the end of the school year that's about a hundred twenty thousand dollars again if we keep those items in storage for ten months um the cost of of ppe and disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer and those types of things we're assuming it's fifteen thousand dollars a month i don't have a really strong handle on whether that's enough or too much yet because we haven't started using any of these supplies but that could be an additional hundred twenty thousand dollars and then depending on how many staff members are on leave we could potentially see our substitute costs um you know a hundred thousand dollars over budget is my initial estimate so if you if you took all those together it's about eight hundred thousand dollars you know hence the importance of keeping a forty percent cap on non payroll expenditures and then the last thing i'll add for the board on the finance report for this first month is if instead of being in school for 10 months if if we wind up having to go into remote mode and we decided that the broadcast capabilities from our classrooms you know to students who are home so the teachers would be in building and broadcast to the students the board members know that we've already agreed to out 56 classrooms um if we expanded that and added an additional 240 classrooms so that we would provide that capability in all our classrooms that would be seven hundred sixty eight thousand dollars and because it's about thirty two hundred dollars per classroom that assumes we could get all that done you know there are some shortages of of this type equipment and it takes time to install you know these devices so it's just to put a little context around where our budget might be you know or where our expenditures might be that we would have to make up those variances within our budget so that's the finance report again a little bit longer than we would normally have as of july 31st so i'll pause there if there's questions or comments and i think uh captain has a i'm sorry ann has a question oh uh i think i have well adam go you go first okay no catherine go ahead um i don't even know where i am on the list okay um so so we're talking about potentially you know a million five well no because the seven eight 768 would offset some of the 801 because we wouldn't be in school however let's say we're talking about 800 000 of unexpected unanticipated costs at what point or have we already started to talk to the town council about the fact that we may need some some assistance with that uh you know unanticipated i know i keep bringing this up but i'd really like to know at what point do we try to get some sort of feedback from them on this kind of thing anyone jeff you want it looks like was ready to speak yeah we i'll give him first tips yeah we've had conversations with sean about you know the the reality that there is going to be uh substantial cost implications for providing a safe learning experience for our students and community i think you know where we are right now is that it's still a little bit premature to really say you know this is this is going to be close to the number um so we're we're holding off on on that i think you know vin is is often given me guidance about you know when will we have a better sense and he was just talking about you know end of september then we you know probably have a better sense of what a projection would be like but there is an awareness on the town side of the street that you know this is this is going to be a very unique budget situation okay thank you been anything to add there no no it's just at this point there's so many unknowns about what might happen or could happen and you know if we look at last year when we entered remote learning learning in march you know a lot of the expenditures were dictated by executive order and so we continue to pay staff and and pay our bus contractor a certain fee so i think all those will come into play i i will say this at this point i don't think other than putting a cautionary flag of what might happen i don't think there's any real action we can take you know i would like to get certainly the first month of school under our belt and understand you know what it might look like and and how much ppe and other inventory we're going through so that we can better estimate where we'll be you know the tent you know tents are only gonna enable us to expand our square footage through november there's really you know once we hit november it's gonna be really too cold to extend those tents maybe we can get another you know 15 days you know out of those tents but you know that that cost will stop but it actually creates a bigger problem potentially if we're still you know in school and and that would actually be good news because you know if we're still in school that means that the infection rate is low and that things are going well for us so i hope that that happens and we'll deal with that problem a little later on yeah no i i wasn't really saying we should go to the town council with a hard number i just you know i don't want it and i'm sure it wouldn't be a surprise but i just want to make sure it wouldn't be a surprise so that's all thanks um uh i guess i'll i just have a comment um those are some pretty big numbers um and um as far as remote learning goes because i know that there are um school systems that are proposing to go all remote who have a lot less resources than we do and i'm assuming that some of those systems don't have the the fancy new uh synchronous uh systems that that we do um so if we had to go full remote as from a cost perspective um would we have to uh piece together uh a mostly asynchronous um solution again or would we be more or would the teachers be more prepared to to more you know use the cameras that are inside of their laptops and and try and share screens and and create the that more interactive experience that we were sort of uh getting to at the end last year yeah i i you know i could start a very very more cheap solution you know yeah i could certainly answer that question but i i feel like it would pale in response relative to marlene's response so i'll pass it off to her hello everyone um we have had a lot more time to get prepared to plan professional development to order devices to trial lots of different tools and teachers to get more comfortable with the tools that we have available so we do have a remote plan in place and we would be ready to execute that at any point if we needed to and our students now have devices and and would be ready to go one to one from the start of school so yes we would be more prepared we would be ready and the fact that everyone has a device and we would have learning management systems ready to go down to the younger grade levels would mean that we could do more synchronous work again i think the synchronous part of that is that direct instruction we still would not want children um at of any age on their device from eight to three every day but we would be able to give them a good blend of direct instruction from the teacher one-to-one conferencing small groups google meets conferences etc in order to you know provide them with that direct instruction there would still continue to be an asynchronous piece because there are things that they need to do on their own there are things that they need to read that they need to research that they need to spend time struggling with which would mirror more what happens in the classroom even in the classroom on a regular day in person the teacher is not directly lecturing all all the time they are giving small pieces of work to kids they are flipping the classroom asking kids to watch things um showing things on the smart board a lot of the work that would be done demonstrated on the smart board could then be put into a google classroom for students to watch so in my mind i think we're much better much more prepared to do a healthier blend of both the synchronous and asynchronous marlena i can't say how pleased i am to hear that um that you and the teachers are using all of your talents together to to put for lack of a better word put together a a much superior product uh for our students so that um the teachers can use their talents to teach the children and the the church the children can learn more effectively uh but at saying that i hope that we never have to use all of all of this but it's nice to know that it's there uh catherine you had a question yes yes i did um so marlene when you talk that remote learning experience is that for kids that are not going to be coming back into the buildings when school opens and will be doing remote learning is that the kind of experience they're going to have as well or will it look i'm just trying to understand uh yeah what that looks like right that's a good question and so um it's all it's as with everything since march it's complicated um but again i think we have um those broadcast rooms will really really help okay um again they're not broadcasting every moment of the day they're broadcasting that instruction and then they're available to the to the student as they are to the students in the room um it's going to be tricky in those places where we don't have broadcast equipment available and it's going to be tricky think about we're looking at each other right now so there's how many of us on this call and then picture how many others in your room that whatever room you're in right your living room your dining room so you need to attend to both the people in front of you on your screen and everyone else behind so it's going to be really challenging for teachers to do both um but i think we we don't want to leave anybody out and we want to make sure people have options and you know yes there will be a blend of both of those some may have more asynchronous work to do simply because um unless i'm sort of carrying this around with me as i'm walking around the room it'll be tricky if you don't have that broadcast equipment um the the i guess it's going to be dependent upon the tools in the room but still in my opinion better than um what we were experiencing before because now you have a teacher who's not just teaching in a box they're able to show you their smart board they're able to have some conversation so to be determined but but still much improved great thank you are there any other questions oh yeah that curriculum response too i was saying to john rook today from the herald that you know it took us decades to reach a gold standard of instruction um through a lot of trial and error consultation with peers you know this is our first foray into this hybrid sort of situation where you have students at home and you have students in front of you and you're trying to navigate that well i think we are much better prepared um every day we'll get a little bit better i mean we aspire to do that anyway when we're not in these circumstances but every day we'll get a little bit better uh and you know at this point we're just eager to start teaching again yeah and can i just jump back in there and say that i can't stress enough how important the communication is going to be for all these models that when parents have a question to contact the teacher if parents have a question for the principals to contact the principal we are so willing and able and wanting to answer people's questions during this time and walk them through that so what whatever models we end up in as this year progresses i would just ask that people make sure that before it becomes a problem let us know reach out we are in a finance committee section of the report i know there's ignore it well to come out i i don't want to stifle uh a great discussion i just i think people tuning in hey wait a minute i thought we're talking about finance um we like to stick to that and we're going to jump right back into these details shortly around reopening just for um point of order's sake thank you uh so well uh faith as a member of the finance committee i'm assuming your question is finance related as if adam no actually i was on a roll and i'm fine right now um you guys have covered the finance i'll go it was a uh it was a procedural or a um question related to instruction so let's absolutely move on that's fine apology accepted we'll move on and it'll come up later okay so is there any other questions related to finance all right seeing none i uh i hand the meeting back over to you mr chairman thank you adam and i i think vincent lewis earlier it's a little early to get into medical best trust fund report so forth hopefully uh recommenders meeting we'll have some more detail around that correct so that being said we wrapped up the finance committee uh school monetization committee update so uh it's on your dinner for a couple of reasons one is the committee did meet last night and met a few weeks two weeks ago uh the first week of august all right it's being done i'm going to ask andrew and ann to give an update on progress being made by colliers and all the groom well i just wanted to let folks know one of the reasons why this is also on the agenda for tonight is there was some controversy on that committee it is not resolved but we're often asked what is the board's role with the committee what our thoughts are on that whole thing so i'd like to get that toward the end um so because the board has not had a chance to talk about it i certainly do not want to have an hour-long dissection of people but uh i think folks kind of want to know where our heads are at with the committee but let's start with the actual work update so andrew and if you have some updates uh on the work please share i know you guys are both there last sure i got august 3rd i could take the august 3rd update i was not at the august 19th meeting last night um my brother had a baby congratulations thank you last night i was dedicated to helping them put together as the baby was a month early they were not prepared so august 3rd meeting it culminated about nine months worth of work uh of the committee we hadn't met since june first um coliers has been doing a deep dive into all of the already prepared information that exists on the schools including floor plans renovations that have been done projected to be done um the demographer has been hired which is my luna mcbroom which is looking at population trends and building areas within the town to try to put together future planning needs for the school district um the month of october will be really we'll be starting to see some of the products coming out of colliers looking at they'll be walking through all the various schools architects engineers and planners coming up with their best case scenarios for the plan the idea is to have something out with a roadmap for the district by december with an application hopefully to be submitted in june of 2021 with our first project um it's obviously very ambitious there's a lot of work to be done but that's pretty much what came out of the august third meeting um i know we'll get into everything else that's happened on the committee but i just you know before tony had been today i just want to say that um we are working hard there's a lot of dedicated people on that committee um there's a lot of work to be done and we have a great group so i'm hopeful that we could all work together to move things along and hopefully those that are in the positions of power make the right decisions to help uh push the projects forward so again i wasn't at the meeting last night so i don't know if tony yeah i can briefly just jump in and say that last night um colliers gave us an update that uh didn't go much further than what you just said andrew and um malone and mcbroom were not present at that meeting and uh it was reported that their um demographic report is forthcoming and i think at the next meeting we will get a more in-depth look at all of that um we got a new member added to the committee uh her name is kate o'donnell and um she's replacing emery kemp who resigned um what a week ago now um so there's progress on that front and um as tony alluded to earlier you know we we still have some mending to do um and hopefully that's gonna gonna start happening so that's all that's all i would add in terms of the progress but i would reiterate what andrew said there are people working really hard um these are people who are volunteers from our community and um and i'm in awe of the work that they're putting in and thank each and every one of them whenever i get the opportunity thank you andrew's uh quick update last night the next meeting is going to be september 16th i believe uh for a couple reasons one is um the committee wanted to know when the remaining vacant season be filled was peter talbott did officially resign uh recently uh so silvia indicated that town council i think down wall street too that they want to try to get that field as soon as possible uh as nan mentioned kate o'donnell came on board her great things about her so welcome to the fun miss o'donnell we look forward to working with you great background there and i think she was actually one of the folks originally interested in serena comes i'm glad that people are still out there working on the work together um you know as far as as far as everything else i'm going to you know piggyback on and said we have very good people in the committee um there are no idiots um there are no uh ill will uh well for the most part we have a but i think and i spoke with her at the end earlier today on something and you know she brought a great point that we have not just uh people that were elected to various bodies via town council board of enemy people but just about half of that monetization committee is made up of public volunteers that are not politicians you know they're not um uh seeking office they're truly good people that want to help the community in various ways so you know unfortunately um we i hate to use the word to me it's a dirty word um sorry but we as politicians because we're on the board elected we say oh you know it's politics is part of our job you know i i don't like that but it's not part of their job so i know the situation bothers everybody on the team um i try and be careful what i say because i support the group i absolutely support my female colleagues on the committee i wish it was a different outcome um but you know all our words everybody in that group is being um looked at under a mice with microscope everything we say is being twisted in some ways and you know unfortunately it doesn't help solve the problem the group itself it's fine it's just the public out there so by no means has anyone given up on anyone in that committee we have not you know none of us have given up and solving this problem uh just a quick little history on the committee because i was asked even today well why is the board of ed doing something the board of ed uh this is not a board of education committee absolutely it was a joint effort and still is with the town council is a town council committee uh by charter this was the only way that the two bodies can actually work together in some fashion in a um charter manner and so the town council formed it there were six of us between the town council and board of ed actually eight uh because we had some turnover at the election that helped select the existing group um based on uh experience etc so yeah it is a joint effort in that regard but when it comes to any action around the committee you know the board has really really has no legal authority or authority charter to intervene on issues like this if it was a board committee certainly we can do things like censure and you know i can change our own committees that's not the case here and it's absolutely not a cop-out it's just uh when folks know that you know there's folks who didn't either voluntary to leave that committee i believe or um there's got to be something egregious code of conduct and i'm not going to interpret for the town council i'm not going to put them on the spot because all the discussions around this was an executive session i am sure there's a reason why they chose the action they did only they can explain it um i think if we're in a slimmer situation or executive session we could barely talk about things too so that being said um no none of us are condoning what happened uh none of us are telling the females to move on uh by any means i i often you know say confront our bullies you know we have great people in that committee i think the best way in my opinion um to put people in their place so to speak is get the job done and you know let's get it done for a greater good of our community and that's not taking anything situation so it's a it's a letdown for the board because this is now year five i believe since we started the facility master plan initiative and sometimes i equip that there's like a dark cloud hanging over any infrastructure project we try to do for schools this is like the sixth or seventh plan in probably 20 30 years and there's always something so there is a greater good here which goes beyond one or two people's um involvement and that's our community our children our stakeholders our schools and the people in this committee can't get it done we all have faith in the committee so that's really all i have to say um i mean i've spoken with some community members i've talked to some town council members um you know so by and large i want to berate this but we're very much well aware but i think you know i want to speak for us the board but we still all have a lot of faith in this committee um despite what occurred but that being said i want to spend too much longer on it um i don't know if anybody else wants to add something if not you don't have to uh catherine um yeah and i don't want to get into really specifics but as a person who's been on the board for you know six years now going on seven and i was involved in obviously the facilities master plan um that is being possibly reworked now i am not at all uh confident that the committee i don't know i'm not confident or i don't understand how the committee can move forward after watching you know that the um video of that meeting and i hope that it is something that can be resolved and uh you know months now weeks and weeks have been taken up with an issue that really should have been dealt with um i think a while ago and um you know i just have to say that i i i think that the members of the committee who are not elected officials um deserve more and even the ones that are elected officials deserve better um you know we should have a functioning really well functioning uh group people that can work together and get things done and so i'm just saying that and then and you know it's worth like you know not even 1.25 per cup of coffee so that's how i feel i would i would add to that catherine and say um the committee deserves more than to just be functioning we deserve to have the collegiality of of a committee and uh that has been lost over this incident it can be repaired and actually tony and i had a discussion today on the phone and um i think you know he's come up with a a pretty good idea and i don't know if we want to address it here tonight with our time constraints but um i would like tony why don't you um let me know yeah i proceed with this by just you know talking about it i i think um what i like to do is because of really we we are squeezed for time and i want to get through the school reopening stuff and that was a idea i been talking with you i thought might be the board maybe worth talking about but i would say let's i'll reach out to digital board members after meeting and just give him a heads up of what i was thinking but let him know over it over the next week or two uh and maybe by the next meeting if it's something that we want to talk about let's bring it up and you know have a dedicated discussion uh there but again it's nothing earth-shattering uh but you know it dawned to me today in our conversation maybe something worthwhile so i don't want to do it tonight it's not on the agenda but i did want folks to know um that the board has been thinking about the situation we've talked individually we're still aware of it and you know we'll do the best we can but we still support the committee um no doubt the people on there especially the volunteers um doing great work um so that's all i really have to say on it i'm sure we'll discuss it further in the next meeting i would just say quickly also tony i don't consider myself a politician i'm an elected official yeah it's uh yeah we all are you know if i'm considered a politician i'm a really bad one no exactly we're all up at officials it's just uh when i hear people say well that's politics um sorry you know you can't have um bad behavior be excused by politics and that's not what this is about so that's a good point we are elected officials thank you man that being said i don't have anything more on an image no it is fluid has something else on it i'd like to move on to the next topic okay thank you i'm also missing it sorry just checking the chat um approval of minutes this is going to go quickly and then we're going to move right on to the superintendent's update with a little more detail on the school reopening uh so in our packets we have minutes from our june 4th business meeting our june 29th special meeting our june 30th fiscal business meeting our july 14 special meeting in our july 29th meeting um you know fortunate cove have been very busy on our items we never got back to this i i went through the packet i don't have any changes to the meeting minutes uh does the board have any updates or changes to those meeting minutes seeing as there are none uh would someone like to make a motion to approve those meaning minutes it is in our linked packet uh andrew please i'd like to move at the board of education approve the minutes for meetings held on june 4th june 29th june 30th july 14th and july 29 2020.
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