so he held an essay contest where the kids could write essays about their views on it what it's taught the world what their peers have thought about it and what they think will be different going forward and there were four girls uh that read their essays i believe there were supposed to be eight my daughter was one of them so i was very proud mom moment but these kids it was pretty amazing they were these four girls wrote and one of the girls actually was really emotional because her father was there and worked that day and so she had grown up in a world where she knew his experience the day but the writing and the insights was just spectacular and you know we weren't um it wasn't something where we see because we're not in school and we're not all together um but i just wanted to make sure that i mention it to you guys it's on i believe news news um maybe tv covered it and it was just something and i believe that they actually um printed the young woman whose father was in the trade center they printed her article but if you have a chance just take a look at these because they were so well written and so well thought out and you know it's a strange thing we're going through the pandemic and you realize this is something that our country really came together you know 19 years ago and um it gives you hope for the future generation and i think we're seeing certain similarities in the way that people are coming together now in the wake of the pandemic so i just thought it should be mentioned thank you to mayor cohen for putting that together it was really a nice event thank you lori any other information items of the good of the course of the board legal yeah i went to the edf september meeting so by the rep report this sponsored 93 remote learning related grants is a lot of money they are facing some kind of challenge because their donations of financial resources is negative impact by this pandemic but they are still trying very hard to sponsor the grant applications so i'm really proud of that to say that this broadcast has this wonderful ebef organization i give my personal sanctity jack leffy and he and his team are doing really really great job thank you lee wu anyone else seeing none we do have a need for a closed session whereas these uh subjects are within the exceptions to the open public meeting act and are permitted to be discussed in closed session whereas the board of education intends to discuss the following matters those items listed in tonight's agenda can i please have a motion for us to go into closed session the late the closed session is estimated to be one hour after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene and action will not be taken so move mrs becker i believe our student rep is here hi i was just about to say i'm sorry i believe our student rep is here via zoom oh i'm so sorry i didn't know that he was coming tonight hi how are you i i i i wasn't sure whether i should get in now because i was sure um just one moment matt we're in the middle of a motion what what do we do so let's do you're the motion to go to closed session i think we can just withdraw that for right now okay let the student rep speak and then what we'll do i will draw the motion for closed session and we're going to have our student rep speak it was appropriate for me to jump in now considering i was online and you were in person but it is a pleasure once again to address you guys uh since the beginning of the school year so now i think it's a little bit more appropriate to provide the student perspective and i'll quickly get into it uh first thing is uh as an online student um i've noticed uh an extreme are not exchanged or the improvements in online schooling have been noticeable especially in comparison to the latter half of last year where teachers were kind of forced to make that sudden adaption and i think this is largely attributed to the fact that uh to the widespread usage of microsoft teams and you know i guess the increased familiarity with candace hybrid wise it's a little bit more interesting and considering that you're in school which is great and you get to see your teachers which is also great but it's a little weird when the teacher is mainly speaking to the laptop and not addressing the class and when there's only like two to three other students in the class and sometimes it's just you in the class um depending on the class size but this was the expectations for hybrid that all the students knew that they were getting into when they signed up for it so um that's the benefit of hybrid uh quickly i also wanted to mention that east brunswick has been one of the sole people who are one of the sole towns that i provided uh that is acted as a testing center for standardized testing in both psat and the act and uh this is really good for students who feel the need to get in that last and final standardized testing to help their college applications and um also rising juniors who want to try and get it over with early uh since sponsored um ebhs specifically was the only um testing center in like the nearby area a lot of town a lot of people a lot of students from other towns kind of conglomerated in east boundary and it was great that uh ubhs was successfully able to be that a good testing center and yeah that's about it uh just a quick shoot just a quick report uh thank you guys for this opportunity thank you thank you so much for coming tonight okay um how about that closed session can i please have a motion to go into closed sessions by jeff is there any discussion all those in favor opposed saying motion carries good night thank you for joining us you
well we wanted to be sure if it was in person that the kids would be with the person they might be with for the for the whole year as opposed to um you know with we're not going to move teachers necessarily when we know we might need to move them back but i think jen could probably give you more more complete responses than that okay okay and my one last thing for you we began the neighborhood delivery of meals on monday so for monday tuesday we delivered 608 meals and yesterday for wednesday thursday we delivered 782 meals i can't give you the exact numbers but both of those are up from when we were doing the grab and goes so we're happy about that that concludes my uh updates thank you do we have any additional questions for dr stewart all right item 1.8 donations uh once again we'd like to thank our community for stepping forward uh desert valley received five sixty four sixty a check from life touch uh 750 for school supplies from operation homefront vfw post one zero zero zero five bullhead middle school received 216 20 ounce bottles of water and 120 20 ounce coke bottles from family dollar at a retail of 564.
now the projections arrived well before kovid as you know we build the projections in in january when we're writing our budget so there were actually 32 students who elected to engage in homeschooling due to kovid they declared that specifically so actually we would be a little bit above projected uh which is a shift for us and moving you know north in terms of our enrollment so interesting kind of like chuck from colliers was saying part of this presentation has to include an approval of our strategic plan the strategic plan was originally drafted to include things like our mission statement which i will reiterate that cheshire public schools in partnership with families in the community will prepare all students to meet the challenges of an ever-changing global society by providing high quality educational opportunities that inspire excuse me lifelong learning and service to others so our strategic initiatives were initially created in 2011 it was designed to be applied through i know you know as far back as last december you heard me talking about you know this year would be a year that we would review that and kind of move forward now right now we're in a little bit of survival mode um but our intention is to review our initiatives and move forward at the end of this year to plan strategic initiatives for uh coming years now i'll talk a little bit about vuca later but the world has changed dramatically in the last 10 years i went into a class at dodd today they were talking about self-driving cars and a student indicating he had ridden in one and i asked the students eighth graders at dodd how many of you think by the time you graduate the cars will be driving themselves and a lot of hands went up the world is changing at an incredible pace and so i think our strategic initiatives will likely not last us 11 years and really frankly when you see them a lot of them will be more like goals that we have as opposed to perhaps vision and we'll talk a little bit about that throughout the year many of the initiatives we had have been fulfilled we reviewed them in 1617 when actually when i was hired and we went through a lot of work with the community and and that has really sharpened and and focused where we are uh directed and i'll talk a little bit about that too so these are the initial initiatives that um cover a number of of key elements within the school system curriculum being one of them talks about you know common core state standards is remember these were written in 2011 most of them instructional strategies again you know we we now focus very much on complex thinking which marlene will talk about which shifts our instructional strategies student work and an emphasis on the treasure performance standards which are still relevant that was really forward thinking in 2011 and is still an important component of what we do because we are no longer really focused as much on content as we are skills assessment evaluation technology think about how much technology has changed in the last 11 years 10 years personalized learning that was revised or added uh in 2014 i think and as you know we did a lot of work with our committee last year to take a look at that so um the cheshire performance standards again you know we talk about why this is critical these are really aspirations that are skill based and not necessarily knowledge based when in 2016-17 when we reviewed everything with the committee we used to have knowledgeable person as one of our performance standards uh and when i went to pto meetings and met with business leaders and students and we kind of assessed which one of these do you think is most critical for the class of 2020 at that time those were the students that were starting in kindergarten uh or had started in kindergarten no no four years later i guess i don't even know what year it is anymore but they they said it was the class of 2030 excuse me and they were saying knowledgeable person was least important already it is important to have knowledge i don't want to discount that but these skills are super critical for our kids and we're still very much focused on that so the direction of our schools i know you've seen this many times we are focused on complex thinking and social emotional learning this is an area where um you know we're not really willing to negotiate we are focused on these things as a community we've developed this we're going to take another look at it and does this need to be adjusted um and we're going to talk about really some of the dividends that have paid off in that process but um to talk and go a little bit deeper into social emotional learning and complex thinking i'm going to ask our assistant superintendent ms solano to try and elaborate on some of those things i think you can from that mike yeah thank you by mentioning that um the presentation you just want to remove your mic excuse me mask for this part of it can you hear me okay now better better but project okay so regarding social emotional learning i wanted to remind folks that originally we had talked about having the state education resource center come and do a presentation about the work that will be involved with them this year and we have moved that to our next curriculum committee meeting where we will more thoroughly address our comprehensive plan for social justice and equity work so i really see that as something that's falling in line with uh our social emotional learning plan for this year the additional things that we are going to continue to work on are building capacity of our k-12 staff specifically in this instance our support staff we had trained hall monitors and study hall monitors from the high school this year in both trauma-informed practices that relate to restorative practice so that is is helping to get that message out to all of our staff in addition we are supporting new teachers with sel coaching that was done for our elementary teachers during the new teacher orientation where they worked with one of our consultants on effective classroom strategies as well as our secondary new hires uh we're also working separately on restorative practices so we see that as as building building our capacity and making sure that the reach goes out to all of the adults in our district who work with children we are going to continue to work with our elementary schools on strengthening those responsive classroom practices that's something that's really infused through faculty meetings and through grade level meetings and as i mentioned the other night at curriculum we had a day devoted to social emotional learning and how we would use all of these tools that we've been exposed to to help during this pandemic right especially when you think about how traumas impact students and student learning and that for many students in some ways this this was a trauma for folks so we want to be very cognizant of that so the middle and high school is is doing that through their work with restorative practice and also continuing our work at darcy in looking at student behavior through an attachment lens and looking at the whole child we also continue to use ruler and the practices down at yale by dr mark brackett complex thinking as the as the slide indicates is one of our marquee issues it's something that we continue to work on and we really feel that if if we have a strategic and systemic alignment of our curriculum instruction assessment and our pd and we have the resources around complex thinking then our instructional practice will demonstrate that and basically what what all of this is saying that is that as a result student achievement will increase and so we have certainly seen that pay off by number of measures if we move on to the next slide this is some complex thinking strategies that we have developed through our implementation of learning walks and while our learning walks have been paused we still continue to work on effective questioning applying learning using rich literature text and non-fiction text to compare um to compare issues and to use that to solve real world problems i know that uh particularly our social studies department has been working on how students can take take informed action by taking their education and what they're learning to apply it to situations in real life and in their own lives as well we're also brainstorming ways for teachers to share strategies so while it may not look the same way well it may not look the same way that um learning walks looked i was at norton today i'm not sure what that even is why it's doing that um yeah um because that's not really my phone um so i was at norton today and we were talking about um and and you could relate to this from what you saw at chapman the other day seeing teachers teaching the in-person and remote students and that we want to be able to build capacity around that as well and wouldn't it be great to have a teacher come in and watch that happening for those people who have adapted to it really well and flawlessly so that we could build capacity around that so that sort of ties into those complex thinking strategies that we're working towards thank you marlene so you know we mentioned some of the dividends of our work um we have received many honors and i i lead with this slide because it's not just our academic achievement we don't have transcripts that graduate we graduate students and people and so it is important that we have a well-rounded experience for our students to include arts and athletics and you know focusing on creativity and things that aren't necessarily always readily measured through standardized assessment but our skill our drive is also to develop the skills in our students that they can be successful in pretty much anything that they tackle whether it be standardized assessment or other problems such as demonic possession of cell phones or whatever marlene was just dealing with but um we really want our students to to be able to solve problems and be creative thinkers um nevertheless you know we've had tremendous success academically um you know 33 point gain on the average chsat score i know there was a lot of angst about if you look at the college board website our next day for a scheduled sat was september 26th that's a saturday and if you look up cheshire on their site it says it said closed like we cancelled it and we were like what are you talking about you know we called them up and actually somebody coded it wrong and it was supposed to be another school in connecticut and they accidentally coded treasure we are holding the sats on september 26th um and i know dr gad was something sending something out about that um uh again our student achievement you know k through or three through eight uh has been exceptional ranking um we've gone from seventh in the durg and ela to first from 11th in the derg in math to fourth over the last uh couple of years our overall state performance we were about 40th uh three or four years ago now we're fifth in connecticut and you look at the other schools on that list um most of which are in fairfield county most of which are expending about five thousand dollars more per student than we are i think we recogn you know appreciate that we're a tremendous value and uh the work that our students staff and community have done to put us in the top five in connecticut is very impressive and it's also success for all learners and if you look at the the graph on the left indicates the english language arts performance for students receiving special education services where you know we were lagging behind the derg and now we're well outperforming the derg our special ed performance is not just some of the best in dirk b but best in connecticut so um for both math and for ela we've we've soared so we're really proud of that success so where are we today and i i told you i'd mention vuca a little bit later on that stands for volatile uncertain complex and ambiguous that was initially uh identified by some harvard researchers but then really adopted by the u.s war college of the at west point where they used that to describe planning for combat post-cold war and this has been really adopted in a lot of strategic planning in industry and uh private sector but it really i can't think of a better explanation for what we're dealing with right now or a better label than vuca it is incredibly volatile we change almost hourly in terms of responses and information it is very uncertain um you know what you think is going to happen tomorrow may very nice it's very close to the the volatile and what i think might happen two weeks from now is is wildly uncertain and ambiguous there are not a lot of right or wrong answers here um as we go through this work so um it is like sailing the ship through a massive hurricane and being bounced all over the place we're trying to keep all the folks on the boat trying to keep the boat moving in the right direction not worried about what's necessarily served for lunch on the cruise we just want to make sure we're continuing to get through this hurricane and reach calmer waters so that we can arrive at our destination to continue the metaphor um but this is definitely an avuca period that we're working through right now in education um so you know marlene i asked her to talk a little bit about the next couple of items here is it relates to you know our vuca experience and what we're doing today like you know every day this changes and what are we doing to continue to keep the boat moving in the right direction so marlene thank you it's hard to describe um the things that we're doing that are new in the classroom right because teachers are so good at having procedures and structures in place to manage the time to manage the students to manage the physical space and so they've had to revamp all of that because all of that is different the students need to stay separated the students need to wear masks and have breaks um when did we ever think that giving someone help by kneeling down next to them by their chair or whispering some words of encouragement next to them wouldn't be possible and you'd have to work really hard mentally to think how are you going to get that same message across without even having a facial expression to share with the child so our teachers are really feeling this very very personally because all of the things that they've been taught our best practice and that they've worked on their craft for many years they don't have those strategies anymore so using google meet simon we learned how to use google me but to do that simultaneously while attending to the students on a screen and also attending to the kids in the classroom is an incredible challenge navigating the audio and making sure that when you are saying something to a child that it's not overheard by the masses is is something that weighs upon them as they're going through their day timing of their lessons so that they get back from the mask break and the hand washing break in time for the parent at home to make sure that their child is on that video call they might be able to keep themselves on time but they're now keeping the entire classroom on time to be back i had a wonderful teacher yesterday tell me about how she uses exit tickets for math and how she's able to immediately gauge where the learners are and she said it's a she's trying to reinvent now i have the paper tickets in front of me for these students but how do i get those k the remote kids how do i get their exit tickets so i could move along so things that took you know five minutes before are not taking five minutes any longer and teachers are frustrated and i feel bad they're frustrated with themselves because they're not able to move at the pace that they were they're not able to teach in the way that they were and so they're walking around feeling pretty defeated and exhausted at the end of each day because they don't feel that they're doing good enough so that gives you a little bit of an idea about them doing something brand new in the classroom it's like their first teaching year of teaching all over again with the safety features etc and and not having had the training to do it this way so i i i tip my hat to them and i am just impressed with what they are able to do and i know i know that they will continue to make it better and do it better but that's that's an idea of how things are going on that front um we are benefiting from the technology that we have we are so grateful for the broadcast rooms because in those rooms things are going pretty well pretty well it's still all of those things like we talked about but the um the the greater ease at which they are able to reach both in-person and remote students is at a higher level than not higher level but it it's if the facility of it is much better than having a chromebook in front of you and trying to live stream to to those classes so we we recognize the gift that those are in having those systems um and certainly more would be a significant upgrade to the level of service that we're we're able to provide um i i did want to talk a little bit about attendance i i know oh one more thing on on on sort of the the learning and the in person and remote um tomorrow we worked really really hard and the curriculum team along with our tech integration specialists and our technology department we are ready tomorrow to be able to send home nearly 2 000 devices to students in grades k through 6 along with power chords so the the the notice went out today to our principles and people are our media techs are readying those there was a lot that needed to be done as far as waiting for those power cords to come in making sure every device is scanned out to a student in the way a library book would be so we're asking parents to make sure they hang on to those cords at home so that they can charge those devices and the devices will go back and forth with the students um a little side note the first grade chromebook uh it's called a ta it's a chrome tab 10e for any parents who might be watching and get these at home it looks like it's fragile they are actually ruggedized and they do not need a case we have sort of you know done some of our own demonstrations on them so if they do come home and there's a concern about that please know they are ruggedized certainly take care of them but i did want to mention that tonight so those those will be going home tomorrow along with some information for parents on how they can have that technology support for our cheshire public schools issued devices and we are also getting the message out to families that students should be using the cheshire public schools device because those are loaded with all of the tools that our students need and if you do need tech support we can support what we've provided but it would be really difficult to uh for us to support something that we don't know what's been loaded on it so i wanted to make that that note the next item on on the powerpoint is regarding tracking attendance and we absolutely want to encourage students to engage in learning in person and remote and it's really important to all of us as a community in order to continue to come to school every day for as long as possible we want to encourage students to stay home if they are not feeling well above all is safety and if they are feeling well enough to join a google meet that's been pre-set then they are welcome to do so when that's available for our in-person students who are in-person learners that might not always be possible we won't be able to get that message to the teacher to have them now invite that student to participate in a google me but for students who that is already available because of either their class or because that's something that that is already being provided they are are welcome to join if we're thinking about this from the frame of what's best for a student and if the student wants to get that learning even though they may be home with a headache or the sniffles or whatever it might be and and they're willing to do that then we will provide that we can provide that to them um it might it won't always be available however if you have an in-person teacher or if the student is in a classroom that doesn't have that it just might not be feasible for us to do that for a student who is taking a a sick day in other words i want folks to remember that there's no award for perfect attendance this year that has sort of gone by the wayside and we need to report our attendance to the state but obviously we are being much more flexible in how that attendance is taken and there there are not penalties for our kids who can't be there right and so if there's an in-person learner who decides that their they know their teacher has a meet and maybe they have a headache in the morning so they can't go to first or second period but by third and fourth period they opt to to join on that's great i don't want anyone to be alarmed if they are marked absent for that day there's not a mechanism for our organization to track the first period second period etc to determine what we call them at the end of the day so if we're focused on the learning and the learner wants to be a part of that and it's available to them they're welcome to join it i i don't think we can get caught up in if it's a an a present or absent day that's secondary and it really in this year of covid does not carry the weight that it did in the past yeah perfect attendance this year is you stay home if you're sick that's perfect um and we do want students i was talking to the union vice president today about this and she like flipped out she was like no no please first of all stay home second of all tune in if you can if you know it's available to you like marlene said not every single classroom has that part of that's tech related part of it is how the infrastructure was set up in the teacher with the google meet but as much as you possibly can we want you participating you may be marked absent but we don't care about that um you know you're not going to get an award if you like marlene said if you're not marked absent at all we have to do that to track with the state but we want you to participate and we're not we're not going to have you sit you know repeat a grade because of absences for that sort of thing you know that please engage if you can um finally i want to talk really quickly about managing incidents you know as i think many people are aware last night we we had an incident and when i say incident i mean something related to kovid uh and we've had a variety of them from the outset you know from our professional development days where starting with an administrator who we thought could have had kovid she is super high fever feeling terrible negative test but we notified people um notified our staff she was before students arrived and we had a teacher who went for a quick test it was called and told it was negative called back told it was positive had a more thorough test the i think it's p c r i had that test and had that all evaluated by the state state said no you were never positive you're negative you know you're you're good we've had some other incidents where people have been close contacts so a class a close contact i want to remind folks is somebody who if you have been within six feet of an individual for 15 consecutive minutes or more and that that person was positive now you are considered a close contact that person must self quarantine now other people that have been around that close contact are not required to self quarantine um you know for medical reasons that are beyond my understanding um but i know that this is what the cdc says department of public health more esposito everybody has repeated this to me therefore and they know more about this than i do so we're trusting in that and our rate of spread has been low so i i trust in that um so when we get an incident there is a an absolute ripple effect of things that occur last night vin test texted me at 8 8pm and said we were notified that an employee at um highland tested positive so we have to immediately engage in our own like contact tracing we have to contact deep not dph but uh chespercott we have to um evaluate who was this individual in touch with now granted with a contractor who doesn't know the other people who work in the building who did you come in contact with today uh they could say well i don't know this dude he looks like really handsome and people would say the superintendent i don't know like how do you know let's try how do you know so um you know as we work through that process last night we couldn't be a hundred percent certain if you know they said no i didn't come into contact with anybody which is great that's a great start but we like to verify this with other people at two o'clock in the afternoon it's a little easier than it is at nine pm so not being absolutely certain we make the decision better to be safe than to be sorry she said no i wasn't in contact with anybody and then i find out tomorrow when everybody's in school oh yeah i forgot i had lunch with those five people now we have a serious problem that could impact not only our availability to provide teachers and staff but could make people sick in the worst case scenario so we make the decision at that point it's better to be safe confirm with our staff that nobody has been in contact with this individual and indeed you know early this morning we were able to do that maura was able to review the test results able to confirm you know these things that's why we had to go to a two-hour delay this morning so people could get devices so that we we could get our feet underneath us today and have that remote so our intention is not to close schools every time somebody tests positive our goal ultimate goal is that we don't have staff and in students testing positive which you know that is another reminder to please wear your masks out in public um you know when our students they're so religious during the day from that time they go through the door to the time they leave it they are so good about it then they leave and i worry about it you know because i see kids in the community not wearing masks not being socially distant and you know they're still playing on teams they're still traveling doing some of these things it's important to wear that mask to protect yourself and your family and everybody else and i did send that message in a video message to all of our 9 through 12 students last friday you know thanking them for doing being so vigilant in the building but let's not forget we're not just exposed in the building you know you're exposed when you go anywhere so that um is an important reminder for folks if somebody is positive and we affirm that there's an individual that's positive we will continue to work with chespercott we will identify for the 48 hours before uh that that person was identified or that you know from from the time that they started to have symptoms or if they were asymptomatic tested positive the 48 hours before who was within six feet of that individual for 15 minutes or more we need to know that now and we do that we would do that during the day it's much easier obviously than at nine at night to get responses from people we would do that as expediently as possible move as quickly as possible to quarantine those who have to be and open the next day that that would be the the plan um again like like last night it's not always that smooth it was that smooth on monday night when we when i was doing the same thing but three hours earlier in the night we were able to to work through that process much easier so you know when these things come up we do that now last night we emailed the highland community it impacted the highland community that's what we will continue to do email the the building now you know in a nanosecond it's available online but as we're trying to prep this stuff when we're trying to we're not trying to prep messaging and get into powerschool at night school messenger notices that go out to the entire district that slows the process down actually it took us a long time actually to make the robo calls last night through power school for just highland if i'm trying to do stuff like that district-wide for thousands of people a building itself is over a thousand people in most cases so that's why we stick to the one building for expedience and efficiency um but let's face it i mean we did post to facebook we'll continue to do that and that gets the information out pretty quickly too i think it was like a tenth of a second between the time that we sent the email out quicker and tony was already getting calls from press i got calls from press you know 9 48 at night somebody calling my house confirmed stuff i did take the call um you know our last then and i our last text was about 11 o'clock last night so we work it's a it's a thorough process and i just wanted to kind of explain what what we go through as we manage an incident finally i would just say as i think marlene said our goal is to get every student back in school as much as we possibly can every day and you know we will continue to evaluate with medical professionals what's appropriate the biggest stumbling block we have at cheshire high from getting people in every day all day are the mitigation strategies we're required to implement in order to provide a safe environment and then reduce the spread i hate the hybrid rel you know my oldest is doing it in high school you know actually my middle schooler is also doing it where we live the it's it's tough you know i'd really prefer kids to be there every day all day our staff would prefer that but we can't implement the appropriate mitigation strategies to ensure that we can continue that for an extended period because um you know they're just you saw the enrollment 1400 students alone plus another couple hundred staff and the building is not really large enough to accommodate you know you'd have lunches all day every day people spread every it would dramatically impact programming you couldn't walk through hallways they're just not wide enough to accommodate sixteen hundred people changing periods so once we can get a clearance on those mitigation strategies we will start to introduce more students into the building because i know that that's what they want their parents want we want in the meantime like you know our other schools we are doing the very best we can under these vuca conditions to provide the best educational experience we can you also saw the data our kids are coming into this pretty well off they are outperforming most everybody in connecticut at least by the measures that we have that can compare us to other people in connecticut so our students are not going to come through this process you know absolutely backward which is not not going to happen i mean everybody globally is dealing with the same problems and our kids have learned a tremendous amount it may not be the stuff we had in our curriculum but they've learned a lot over the last six months related to technology and engagement and epidemiology and other things that they will carry with them the rest of their lives it's again not what we planned in our curriculum but our kids will be okay you know and i want our teachers to hear that too that as much as they are frustrated by not being able to provide the way they used to provide i was talking to a teacher of 30 years she's an amazing teacher earlier today and just like i have this whole bag of tricks i can't use any of them anymore like everything i've accumulated over 30 years of knowledge in my profession is pretty much gone and so i'm just relying on i know kids i know my content under these circumstances i'm gonna do the best that i can but it feels like she said if people were to watch me teach on video i'd be humiliated because this isn't what i do this is not at all the way i teach this is what i'm trying to stumble through in this situation so reminding our students and our parents and our staff that our kids will be okay um they'll still go on to be super successful and and with these complex thinking skills we'll be okay but hang in there um and hopefully we're through the choppy water really soon we all want that so with that that concludes my uh slides and presentation for tonight i appreciate your attendance and that yeah you know watching on tv i should say i guess thank you thank you jeff uh just some comments i i have questions but just remind everyone that we do have superintendent's report and i instead we go more detail on some topics then if we like um i forgot to mention earlier and begin the meeting that for those watching if you have questions concerns comments you can submit those to cpskovid19 at cheshire.k12.ct.us which is our email i just been using for during the meetings um it's a couple of comments you know first i um and i was speaking about the whole board i'm sure the board would want to mention something too but um it has been a year like no other has been a summer like no other i know typically during the summer months students families in particular teachers employees get a chance to take a break from the schools even jeff and vincent to get ready for reopening and you know parents were plugged into that there were a number of meetings that the administration folks reached out to to get input free opening a lot of legwork a lot of creativity i'm still uh pretty impressed the fact vincent and jeff that you're able to at least get uh classroom technology for 56 classrooms because it's pretty much entertainment at this point out there um even the power chords that marlene mentioned it's even my company we're having a difficult time getting extra monitors and keyboards even headsets for our employees so um you know there's there's a lot of creativity so i personally want to thank everyone in our school district for all the howard to get to this point i will tell you it's been a lot of positive feedback we've been hearing i've been hearing um i think we have some parents that where their kids are able to um tune in remotely from home parents see for a few seconds what the teacher is is saying and they're impressed they're impressed with the enthusiasm for the teachers and support so i mean there's issues here and there but i've also seen our district respond pretty quickly to those too and it's an evolving process so i don't want to under uh estimate the impact that all employees are having so thank you um everyone i know we're just it's first quarter of the game right we're but we're well on their way and uh we'll see how it goes but i don't know if any other members want to comment in the presentation yes tim thank you um a couple of so you know our infection rates are still or they're at one percent and that's great relative to other states but we pre-k at darcy right yes and i think it was a day ago we got a new mandate down to three has to wear masks so that is that is the plan at darcy yeah i just i understand it it just seems like insanity to me to ask a three-year-old to do that but understand he is well versed in the ppe domain and even ordered pediatric masks okay so we're we're covered there yeah um but it's definitely a shift it was confusing because the office of early childhood education and department of ed had two different guidance groups and so they've reconciled that and pushed pushed the mask mandate down to three years old so it's different to see a three-year-old the mask um sports at dodd are they happening not right now uh we are exploring as of october 1st though i told people we would look at that at october 1st but at this point we don't plan on having sports certainly not interscholastic and potentially not intramural but we haven't made that decision fully yet okay yeah i know i i was talking to a friend from north haven and he said middle school has inter intramurals this year and that's at least for the fall that's what they're planning on right yeah we're exploring that option um if our numbers were to stay low and we remain in school it may be a potential but right now we i'm worried about tomorrow you know and then next week we'll start to think about that for october 1st and there's nothing big happening tomorrow it's just the point that we're trying to get through day by day yeah no i got it i got it okay and you just you just said what you said at the meeting a week ago which is there's no decisions on any is it basically any sports having matches games before october 1st that yes okay so even even cross country or swim which are listed as low risk yeah no we're not doing anything so there's not even a middle school level before october 1st oh i'm talking about the high school level at the high school level uh the ciac did release a fall sports schedule today for safe sports uh for low risk sports [Music] um and i i have that here if you'll give me a minute to look that up you can just go ahead detail during your super time updates as well yeah okay yeah and i just want to point out i mean my my concern just what people understand is i want to keep the kids in the school as much as possible this year and uh when it comes to social distancing contact is just the opposite of it and that's my concern they are looking at october 1st for a high school athletic start date for contests of the um [Music] pretty much everything except for football football has been canceled for the fall by dph and ciac and they are ciac is exploring the spring is an option for football okay but you know other sports that the department of health is deemed low risk are able to start on october 1st okay thank you sure adam you had a commenter question um firstly uh thank you for the incredibly detailed presentation i think it uh put many parents at ease i think and answered a lot of questions that have been floating out there in the last let's say a week or so uh and i encourage any parent who's watching uh if they have any further questions to on the educational level like we stressed last time begin with the teacher work your way up the ladder um to to solve the problem that way first uh to see if there's a resolution yeah thanks for reiterating it's a great point yeah something i had forgotten yeah last time so um and then uh for your actual actual enrollment figures did that include the remote learners as well yes that's all so that's like if there's a class of 20 not necessarily there's 20 in the classroom it's just that's everyone yes correct yeah or the rule of thumb and it's been amazingly consistent to me across the district from the time we initially pulled in july to now is 15 of students are at home and engaging in remote learning you as soon as no other comments let me move on to presentation item number three which is audience uh not sure jeff there's any audience uh emails yet maybe there's a presentation yeah or if they're covet related we could address them during the report it's up to you yeah um we could just hit them really quick many of them have been addressed through the presentation um this was a question about having k2 learners just do remote learning and um marlene vin and i met with the teachers union leadership today and we you know we're exploring that so right now in many cases we have some teachers that have remote learners and live learners at the k2 level and you know the concern is also when you have [Music] 15 16 17 seven-year-olds all remote that isn't always easy either so we're working with the teachers to try and figure out what's the best combination to try and tackle that and it's one of those things that you can kind of hypothesize about but when you live it it could be different so we are exploring what's the best option there this is a question about districts going to um full-time at the high school there are multiple questions about that and i think i addressed that um question about chromebook coming home uh marlene addressed that uh s.a.t question i also addressed that [Music] policy for students who are home sick marlene addressed that one there was a question about any plans to address congregating of students that are neither distance nor mass the minute they are outside the doors of the schools but still on school grounds before both before and after school you know i guess we can have more people outside to police that to encourage mask wearing it is difficult when kids are out in the community but this is specific to our school grounds and i address the fact that why didn't we um make all schools aware last night that there was an issue at highland i did address that part um there's a rather lengthy question about um standard operating procedures manual we do have something basically like this this question asks asks for a lot of a lot of detail which we have in different places sometimes not always consolidated into one document um at this point we're just trying to make sure people are following the right um right uh directives so i don't know if we'll be able to get to this at some point soon but you know we are focused on standard operating procedure in different areas the state has released information i think they're up to what are how many denims do we have now 12 addendums and so each one addresses something different so it's very hard for us to put together a comprehensive um you know sop manual when the information is so dripped and drab so that really is our standard operating procedure what the state has issued us um and that uh addresses all of the questions that we've received i i did that i'm sorry can i just ask for clarification you you said that um you're exploring through two possibly going forward no no i apologize i'm glad you asked that if anybody thought that that's not what we were trying to do um you know we we think for our youngest learners being in person is really for all of our kids but particularly youngest learners the the preferences to be in school if they can and if their families are comfortable with that um the question was teachers have we have students that are remote the family is elected to go remote and um juggling the remote students and the live students together this person saying have you thought about doing it like all the remotes to one teacher and yes absolutely we have um you know we've just decided to go in a different direction to create connections not knowing would we be remote two weeks in uh full remote anyway um trying to make sure we have good connections with with between students and teachers was number one um but we are exploring that and is this working well for kids again it's only what day four i think that we've been in school or something um all students so you know it's going to take some time to evaluate and adjust to and i don't want to throw something out after a couple days only to realize well wait that really was the better the better solution so we're trying to work through it a little bit assess the value and then we'll we'll amend it when needed thank you uh we're moving on to reports of standing committees starting with the 4a curriculum report on meeting held september 14.
that's correct okay thank you um mr casper education technology mute yourself muted you're muted the education committee met in conjunction uh with the technology committee on uh september 15th the meeting began at 5 00 pm attendees were myself as chairperson mr kenova and mr abbadravo administrators included dr robertosi mr teigen mrs kusalevich ms la rotolo mr mountain mr doctor we had two guests miss samantha derose and miss rachel harrington number one reopening update miss kusalavich gave a brief update about the reopening of schools in a fully remote format she provided an update about book and material distribution student and teacher meet and greets in grades k through 8 were well received parents received access to student schedules by completing the opening of school year forms fully online on the parent portal support for access to parent portal was discussed changes to the website guidance for parent portal were reviewed directions to the automated parent portal password reset buttons have been highlighted resources for access to google classroom were discussed parent support to access google classroom can be found on the district website under the family technology toolkit link clifton.k12.nj.us backslash domain backslash 2105 website search terms will be updated to make it easier to find teachers open the year by setting expectations for working online and teaching students how to access the needed programs tools and resources action was informational number two peach jar distribution program dr robertosi and mr rose described the peach jar program to enhance communication with families about various programs and offerings peach jar is an electronic distribution program for all flyers from community organization using this system flyers from non-profit community organizations as well as materials from parent-teacher organizations and for school events will be distributed through email and posted on the school website action informational number three device updates mr mountain provided an update about chromebook distribution to date over 3500 devices have been distributed remaining devices will be distributed upon arrival elementary classroom teachers are the first line of response for many technology troubleshooting issues related to student online products they are the best conduit to re to root they are the best conduit to route technology support issues to the correct area technology support strikers with the phone number and email for tech support for grades 6 through 12 have been affixed to all chromebooks distributed action informational the meeting was adjourned at 5 59 respectfully submitted mrs kusalevich anybody have any questions thank you matthew president thank you mr casper so seen on the next order of business is public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to the citizens of clifton for the purpose of addressing resolutions on this agenda only residents are requested to state their names addresses and subject matter comments are limited to three minutes per person issues rated by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments our first speaker mr mountain okay so here's the the first four in the queue are wilmer ramirez and then dustin and then raphael rojas and then mega matal so wilmer you have three minutes if you are not a student um then just please state your name and your address if you are a student just state your name wilmer ramirez you may speak you have three minutes on this agenda only speakers are addressing this agenda only and mr mountain if we could if we could remind everyone to um turn off the live stream when they're commenting so that there's not part of that delay yes thanks um okay so we'll move on to dustin dustin if you could state your full name and your address and what item on the agenda you are addressing thank you my uh my name is thomas kiefer um my son's dustin i live on nelson street my son goes to school five um does my three minutes start now yes all right so i just wanted to i pre-wrote my speech um but there was one point my wife made during uh while we were actually watching you is that school 16 is having a tricky tray and with 200 tickets and we can't go to school i just found that funny but uh regardless i just want to read to you my speech quick that i wrote it's very important to me homeschooling is not working in my household every day every day i come home to tears of frustration i would like to describe to you today's event my son says daddy school was not good today i can see him holding back tears explaining his day we took a math test but i couldn't focus because there was so much going on and the one kid who was never on mute was so loud and so many kids had questions about how to actually work the computer for the test and not the actual test i know i could do better if i was actually in school daddy and now at this point he's the tears are flowing i really really just want to go to school daddy i hate online school does that story sound to you like online school is working i can only imagine the difficulties of the younger grades going through this my heart goes out to you my wife does an amazing job at helping my son with school some kids on the online classroom have nobody no fault to the parents but the third grader doing online school with minimal help slows down the minimal curriculum that is being taught it's a lose-lose situation my son cannot understand why some of his friends are going to school whether a different town publicly or in clifton privately i can see it eating away at him and it physically hurts me now my three-year-old daughter is also suffering we received a call from her early learning daycare they're opening again and they would love to have her back how am i supposed to explain to my son that his sister can go to school but he cannot it would cause such a rift in my household and without any doubt my son's mental repercussions we just can't send her now she misses out too my son loves school like loved school he was so excited every day to go one day last year i was going to keep him home to take him out for a fun daddy sunday since i had awful work that day his response but daddy i have a test tomorrow can we just do something quick after school unreal that's how much he loves school now when i come home it's only tears and how he cries about hating online school remote learning is not working thank you for your time okay we've had several leave and then several join so the next three up um the first one the the name is actually called name and then javier sanchez or xavier sanchez and then iphone so if you're signed in with the username name it's your turn to speak for three minutes okay we're going to move on to xavier sanchez okay let's move on to iphone if you can hear us it's your turn to speak for three minutes iphone okay i'm letting a few more in here i think people are still confused as to being joining the meeting or watching the live stream yes so for those people who just want to watch the meeting and not participate you just need to watch the youtube live stream link for those who want to participate into the public portion and make public comment should be joining the the meeting and they will be placed in the waiting room thank you awesome danny through you to mr mountain or the superintendent if we remind people also to unmute themselves while they're speaking i'm free because she's my iphone looks like still muted so i hope he or she's not speaking while not realizing they're muted yes um thank you both of you i think you're both correct um iphone last chance you're still muted uh after you will be emma and then jitendra rana iphone or if you can hear us it's your turn to speak okay so we're gonna move on to emma you have three minutes emma okay emma if you're here for public comment it's your turn to speak okay next up we'll move to jitendra rana i think you're right dr robertosi i think some people are just here for viewing so i'm going to keep going here jatendra you have three minutes i'm going to let a couple more people in okay next up we have erica g erika g you have three minutes next we have rachel gersek hello can you hear me yes rachel go ahead this guy's right state his full name good evening state your full name and your address and the issue on the agenda thank you yes ma'am my name is rachel garcic i live at 11 ronald drive i have two students in school 16 third and first grade my question goes to chromebooks um i know on the agenda you guys said that they're going to be coming at some point and i know that you've um i'm assuming issued all of them already i just wanted to point out and kind of wondered what um [Music] if you're participating in the meeting could you plea please mute the live stream um rachel go ahead i'm sorry yeah that's okay um so my question is um how when you get the more chromebooks and i know there's nationwide shortage when you get the new ones in how are they going to be triaged and distributed unfortunately um it's not working so well i answered no to the survey about me needing a device because my kids had ipads and i thought you know leave them for kids who don't have any devices it's really not going so well the teachers are doing fantastic trying to figure out workarounds but um really not going so well i'll be honest with you um it's very hard to get a first grader to be able to do workarounds it's very hard for them to do their work so my question is just to um when the if there's an eta um at this point my husband and i are actually considering buying devices for our kids just because it really is not working at all um and how the triage is going to be done once the uh the new chromebooks come in for the for the rest of the district and just as a school 16 parent i just have to say and a mom who has worked the tricky trait every single year my kids have been at school 16.
diamondback 285 dollars in miscellaneous supplies that are needed from donor's choice uh coyote canyon eighty dollars in various school items from mel and mary honey fox creek a thousand dollars to miss watson gianni moore for being selected as the most valuable teacher for july of for july from arizona diamondbacks foundation so congratulations to that and uh thank you to all of our donors who really step forward and help us out on these things item 1.9 board member updates do we have any board member updates at this time no updates and thanks for some admin but nobody's here but jen nice report you're busy um we have two point oh i heard i missed the consent agenda oh item two is the consent agenda we uh need a motion to adopt the consent agenda is submitted i make a motion to accept the consensus i second that corey burgess all in favor aye corey burgess hi brent hi brandy dubois i jeanne berlin item 3.2 policy kb parental involvement in education this is our second reading uh do we have any questions about the policy or changes um i have a question on iha um section i it says foreign earned native american language as part of the curriculum i'm just wondering what grades that would be in i don't know that we actually teach any foreign languages right now so now it uh yeah i don't know that we teach any of those right now i don't know if we wanted to we could well when i look at the policy it says the instructional program will include planned sequences in those things and i don't recall that we have any plan sequences in foreign languages so we probably need to refer that to our curriculum committee to be working on yeah okay so no emotion at this time because we're gonna send that one back do you want to send it back or don't we need to to get it correct you don't you don't necessarily have to send the policy back we just need to take some action as a as an administrative action in our curriculum committee so i don't know that you need to send the poll or you know resend the policy we just need to make it happen so and that's not a change the change is the part that has to do with the civics instruction for um for sandra day o'connor day to recognize civics so that's the one change but you wouldn't have to change the policy just because we have not been doing it the policy can stand so it's not something that can be removed or can they well if you were going to remove it as a board then yes you could say okay we want to remove this and then this would become a first reading again yeah because if it's on there and we're supposed to have it according to that policy don't want to adopt the policy now otherwise we've got to adopt another policy right no i don't think you have to adopt another policy just to make that happen that's an administrative thing for us to make happen unless i'm not understanding what you mean mr burgess if we if we vote to adopt that policy it becomes part of our board policy that part already is part of our board policy the only change in this policy is the part that's underlined oh okay that's the only change it's the addition okay so the other part is already there the paragraph the three paragraphs at the end that have to do with the new law uh um instituting sandra day o'connor civics celebration day okay that's the new part all right i'm sorry i misunderstood okay so then we need a motion to approve policy kb parental involvement and education uh well you haven't approved this one yet are you going to approve this one this is iha oh i thought we i'm way confused didn't we read kb where are we where's iha kb may be the one that's on the agenda first no it's not chase iha is first on the agenda we're still in three point one yeah you need one yeah you do i'm missing a three point one that's why my three two okay so um i didn't even read that one in i read another one so can i get that on the screen and i can read it i'm sorry that's my fault i went right to 3-2 so that's why i do social studies i can't count [Laughter] you have the policy on the screen you have it oh it's in here no that's the that's the revised plans so item 3.1 is a policy iha basic instructional program correct so that is our second reading for that one yes okay i was on three all right so item 3.1 let's go back to item 3.1 policy iha basic instructional program uh that is our second reading and we need a motion to approve second all in favor aye corey burgess hi brandywine douglas hi jeannie berlin so moved item 3.2 policy now we're on 3-2 policy kb parental involvement in education this too is a second reading any questions on kb all right so and into and in anticipation of your approval of this policy the parental handbook has already been posted in three places on our website then i will move that we approve policy kb parental involvement and education my second randy dubois all in favor aye corey burgess aye brandi go second yeah doug we'll have you go second for now on yeah okay i jeanne borland hi brandi all right so moved item 3.3 rever revised return to school plan dr stewart thank you mr president board members if you recall in june you approved the return to school plan lots of things have happened since then and as i said at that time this is a fluid document it needs to change and morph as circumstances and information changes and as i indicated at our last meeting the original plan we had for phase two of bringing half of the students back on campus every other day turned out to be a logistical impossibility so we realized that our hybrid plan could continue to be especially when we were getting feedback from parents continue to offer the virtual school to those families who would like it for their students and in person for our other students if the metrics were in place i sent you this morning the most recent information from the state relative to mohave county and we are now for the first two weeks ago for the first week below the seven percent um benchmark presuming that we will continue to stay below that benchmark we went ahead with this plan and everything that's a change for right now is in red in the plan but essentially the idea is that if the metrics stay the same that we return to in-person school for those families that wish to do so on september 28th and operate that plan through the end of the semester this plan was posted with the agenda so people have had time to look at it beyond you as a board but if you have questions specific questions i'll be happy to answer them or we can go through it page by page if you want it's your choice okay we can do that no changes on page one or page well page one has the revised word on it no changes on page two on page three just as we put estimated dates and times and those kinds of things in that table for phases and timelines we've done that this time and i actually updated the parts that are already passed for phase three we would like to think that the metrics will allow us to return to phase three which would be near normal school i'm not sure school will ever be like it used to be but we can get it as close as possible and maybe even have it better but we would anticipate that if the metrics keep going the way they are that in january we might be able to go back to phase three you notice there's not a specific date there well i've put january 4th simply as a hoped-for date once again this is fluid we have lots of time between now and january that this could change which would for the positive i hope on page four the continuation of that table you'll notice the changes in phase two that we would continue the virtual learning model and that our question sure so you're calling this phase two only because we're allowing some students to be online and some to go in person no it's based on the fact that given the metrics that we had to work from unless we are below five percent for two weeks in a row we cannot open traditional now that could happen in the next with the next report next week but we would recommend to the board i recommend the leadership team recommends that we stay in this plan through the semester so that we don't put kids through any more changes in the next 10 weeks that we try to whatever it is we do starting on the 28th will be in place for the rest of the semester we also want to do that because it will allow things to stabilize it will allow us to continue to run cohorts it will allow us to keep things as as safe as possible when we get to a place a little later in this plan i'll mention something to you that i'll suggest something to you that could help us make a transition at that point but we want to keep things as safe as possible there there's not a lot of data out there about what happens with students when they return to school students haven't been in school since march and the whole covid thing has gone on around them in their other settings so we don't really know what's going to happen when we put kids back in school we don't know what's going to happen to them we don't know what's going to happen to our employees so for us the critical data we've been using critical data all the way up till now to make these decisions and recommendations but starting on the 28th the critical data is going to be the data that comes right out of our schools it's going to be knowing what rates we have of infection if we have any i'm hopeful that we don't and but any of that is going to be what's critical for us to be moving forward so that's that's why the in a general sense jeannie why we're recommending that we continue this as long as we need to at least through the semester and i'll talk about some other possible changes as we move through these pages i have some questions on page four sure no i was still on page three so i was still back on three you're fine go ahead um in the phase two box at the top on page four yes um we are having the cafeterias closed for meals and um i know a lot of teachers are expressing dissatisfaction with this that eating in the classroom in my mind eating the classroom might be you know even more hazardous than going to a cafeteria especially with now that we have lower class i mean lower school sizes because a third of our students are online basically that maybe we could try to find a way to get the students into the cafeteria because they have to take off their mask to eat anyway um and we maybe could space them out a little bit better especially with some of the class sizes with 28 kids in there that's that's a small room to have a luncheon every day and breakfast in every day i know at desert valley in the past we are already having breakfast um breakfast in the classrooms in the mornings and as a teacher i was not very happy with that it made the carpets very stained um the children did not have adequate time or place to wash their hands you know before or after meals so i would i would like to see the cafeterias open for meals as soon as possible as soon as possible would be our intent initially we've got to be very careful about group sizes and if you can only have 20 to 40 kids in a room at maximum of 50 kids in any location at one time that would require a whole lot of lunch periods on our school sites because we're still talking about 300 kids 200 to 300 kids on a school site so that would require a bunch of lunch times and it would mean in a bunch of breakfast times and it would mean cleaning between every one of those so yes we'd like to get this back as quickly as possible and as i said a little later in this i'm going to give you a suggestion for something some discretion that you might give to me to be paying attention to the metrics and to me making some decisions without having necessarily to come back to the board so if you kind of wait till we get to that page maybe that'll help us a little bit and then we could revisit this okay what page was that when you're gonna it'll be when we get to page 10 when we get to page 10.
okay um curriculum committee met this past monday september 14th um johnny peregini and harrigan dave damn present the primary the bulk of the meeting was devoted to professional development and what took place over the summer um been preparing faculty for teaching and so marlene solano and dr mary gadd provided an overview of some of the district professional development during the august and september pd days prior to the start of school topics for professional development were linked to being able to proactively plan for in person on campus remote option fully remote and hybrid learning models that may be used during the year each class this year will be organized through a learning management system to help facilitate learning in each of the learning models google classroom will continue to be used in grades four through twelve and seesaw is being introduced in grades k through three professional development was provided for additional technology tools to help increase interactive collaborative and remote capabilities part of the professional development was also focused on helping teachers to plan to onboard students to use and expectations to the use and expectations of these tools one other key aspect of professional development centered on using um acceleration as a strategy for addressing the loss of learning time and focusing on the most important areas of learning this year professional development sessions at the high school also included collaboration time for teachers to adjust to teaching in an 80-minute block in overview of the professional development offering around social emotional learning was also highlighted then we talked about the state assessment calendar which uh the state has published its annual assessment calendar for the year and include includes all of the traditional dates for sba um sbac ctaa ngss las linx el and sat so the whole gamut at this time state testing is proceeding as normal for the 2021 school year and then we adjourned thank you any questions on the curtin committee report um i have one on the standardized testing um so what are the expectations for this year i sort of assumed that perhaps it would be another year where we kind of wave things off since everything's not as perhaps as robust as it could be um what's the sort of uh feeling there at this point in time the state has published their calendar so we'll proceed as we have um i expect that we'll probably see some changes to that that that's just a marlene guess but i think the plans that we put in place the strategies for instruction and the way we've looked at our curriculum that we would hope to have our students prepared for anything that came their way well that's good news then i guess thank you [Music] yes tim thank you um a few minutes ago you were talking about how it's difficult for there is some difficulty for the teachers you know they had a six hour day and now frankly they have less time because you know after mass break get the kids who are on video to come back in just wondering if you are having maybe not yet but have an idea of what will transpire over this year will you be you know talking with other curriculum assistant superintendents getting ideas you know where where are your schools do you have the same problems i'm guessing they do but because i'm wondering if the whole state is if we're we're we're doing great with scores and stuff right now um but it's all different this year so just where do we compare to other schools not in a not necessarily like a an actual quantitatively measured way but at least anecdotally in conversations with other school districts if you if you'll have those conversations been having those conversations since march and our team has attended numerous workshops over the summer done significant research on the topic of learning loss and how you plan for that which is why we settled on the strategy of acceleration in order to make up for that loss so we've also looked at our curriculum and identified the most important standards for any given grade level so we've talked about what we're going to provide as exposure and what we're going to go deeper on so that students get the most meaty um and most important topics in the grade level so yes and we're all talking about that can you just define acceleration because i think oh yes yes so don't get me wrong acceleration is not about going faster and going ahead of the grade level that is not what we're talking about what we're talking about is continuing to i describe it as keeping your foot on the gas pedal and not stopping to go back and re-teach everything that you think they missed but rather teaching what is important in germane in the grade level and providing those just-in-time supports for students that need them and not teaching things just in case they need this and just in case they need that but focusing on formative assessments to find out you know what do students already know and are able to do so that we're continuing to move forward and not you know re-teaching unless it's it's necessary and needed at that time thank you thanks mommy thank you as soon as there are questions at the curriculum thank you for for update finance committee we have financial report and a medical benefits report um i'm going to uh defer to mr messiana again uh for uh since he was the person who uh mainly put this together allow him to summarize and report on the details but uh before he begins i just want to say that um i will schedule or like to schedule a meeting for the end of october because i i think you had mentioned in another one of our meetings that you'll have a better financial picture more near the end of october i believe yeah so that we can go over that before we head into the next budget season uh so i will schedule something then so we can kind of review all of that so thirty weeks hand over the florida mr massachusetts adam's just anxious to get to the next budget process yeah well thank you mr gripper before i begin since you mentioned budget season i do want to let you know that budget season has started for us we put together our timeline and budget documents have you know are have been prepared this week we'll be sending them out to the principals and the department managers next week the you know budget process does begin relatively early there's a lot of work that needs to be done with the goal that by roughly thanksgiving we would have the initial budget you know prepared internally and then the first presentation you know of the superintendents to the board happens uh in early january so we're already it's hard to believe but we're already working on next year's budget with the finance report the school district's budget at 74 million 593 926 that's the approved budget for this year we're only in month two we haven't completed all the encumbrances for payroll and transportation um you know so you know i i can tell you as i said here we're not concerned about any major variances other than those related to covert which is really what i want to talk about a little bit and it's only day four of school so even with that it's really hard to understand what the run rate would be for expenditures related to covet as we reported in last month's report and it is on the narrative so i'm just going to refer to that quickly we expect just to cover the cost of additional building cleaning which we're doing throughout the day the tent rentals the storage of furniture and equipment that i talked about in the presentation earlier purchase of ppe and substitute coverage for when our teachers and other staff are on leave we expect that estimate will be about eight hundred thousand dollars okay so that's kind of an early estimate of of what we believe we will expend over the course of the year as i explained last month and if you look at page two of the finance report i do have some details on what the state has approved in terms of funding to help offset some of the covert related costs so the the first piece is the cares act funding also known as the elementary and secondary emergency school relief fund our prorated portion of that from the from the state is eighty five thousand two hundred sixty four dollars cheshire was allocated a total of ninety nine thousand one forty four but part of that goes to the um non-public schools in town cheshire academy and saint bridget so when you subtract the 13 880 that went to them 85 264 is what we have available under the esser funds the second piece that's on on the page what i'm showing you is based on a survey that we filled out august 11th we estimated that personnel costs could be as high as six hundred forty thousand dollars and non-personnel costs would be a million forty five thousand um so we we had submitted on the survey a total of one million six hundred eighty five thousand on the right side what the state has approved is 706 075 now the survey that we filled out we you know we're not really sure what the purpose of the survey was but as it turns out the state was actually calculating some funding which is the right side of the page some of the costs that we have for example on the personnel costs we set two hundred thousand dollars for bus monitors i don't think that is and that was assuming the daily cost if we would have 180 days of bus monitors it doesn't appear we need that and certainly you know not on every bus run even if we continue it and so you could see in that section the state has approved eleven thousand twelve dollars under personnel for cleaning ppe health safety and seventy five thousand for personnel transportation so the way the survey was written that's not the way the state approved the funding so we're waiting for the state to give us details on exactly how that was calculated and how we can apply for reimbursement so i'm sharing with you the information i have with the caveat that we're still waiting for the information from the state on exactly what will be funded within these categories on the lower section the three um towards the bottom if you look at technology device purchases we indicated 125 000 9 000 for wi-fi hotspots and two hundred thousand dollars for the you know broadcast classrooms the state has not approved any funding for any technology i heard you know through the school business officials organization that the state is still looking at that so there may be funding coming for that but as of this point what's approved is for non-personnel under cleaning ppe health and safety six hundred thousand for cheshire and twenty thousand dollars for non-personnel transportation that twenty thousand dollars is basically for bus cleaning supplies so a few minutes ago i mentioned we are estimating costs of about eight hundred thousand for certain categories right now the state is saying we'll get seven hundred six thousand but it doesn't align necessarily to all the categories that we would need funding for to offset our costs so there's a little bit of wait and see here it's also my understanding that you know that 706 000 will be in the form of reimbursement so the district would have to supply evidence receipts or you know invoices showing those expenditures and then would we would be reimbursed and i don't have any information to indicate that if we underspend in one one category you can you know spend the excess funds in another category i'm hoping that's the case but i don't know if that'll be the case so you know that's really um the update that i wanted to give on finance and it seems like we have some questions around that yeah i'm sorry keeping our mask on that way ask a question i don't interrupt you it's down now so our budget is 74 million 593 593 thousand dollars when i love this state and their survey that's not explained but in the state survey and what what the folks watching don't see is we have a detailed um document to list all the individual line items that vincent identified in the surveys as cost that we might incur really the covet so the bottom line is one points 1.7 million dollars in potential costs i understand that that might change and between the 86 thousand dollars received and the 620 700 thousand dollars we're about 706 thousand dollars potential reimbursement to those costs and we'll have let's see or as the months go if we're gonna if that gap widens in our budget so the question i have is reimbursement that's the little premature we obviously can't spend more we legally can't spend more than what we have in our budget and for new board members we are you are personally liable for that by the way um second by law and second um you know just heads up no i'm serious but that should not happen we can't if we respond to our budget we're responsible there's there's some stuff around that hopefully that doesn't happen so i'm curious how we're going to pay for things potentially go over budget and by the time reimbursement comes back what role the town would have to play in that because if you have the money to spend my guess is again this is a worst case scenario we have to ask for more money to pay for expenses hope to hope that the state reimburses us tom gets a check back i i know it's too early to think about that stuff but keep a close eye on this oh i think about that every day so that's why you can't pay the big bucks the uh i mean the the simple answer is that we're going to manage our budget the way we always do when we and in this case i agree with you mr peregini that we know we're going to have expenditures and i'm not sure when that reimbursement will come in you know in exactly what form it will come so we're managing our budget we have a expenditure cap on all our non-payroll line items so we're not approving anything more than we need to approve at this time in the areas that we typically would hold back on so it's everything from instructional supplies and other technology expenditures you know building maintenance and repairs you know we're just doing the things we have to do but up to that 40 cap and we'll keep that cap on until we have some confidence in our run rate on you know things like ppe we're estimating 15 000 a month it's an estimate as as we got through this first month of school i'll know you know exactly what the run rate is and again assuming we stay in school which i'm hoping we do that's what the anticipated expenditures will be if we go remote then those that expenditure profile is going to change so there's a lot of variables and unknowns that we don't know but i um every year and miss peregini's not kidding that the law says that the board members are you know responsible for any budget overages but i'll make sure that no board member has to write a check because i value my job i respect all of you but i value my job too so you know i'm i'm painting a worst case scenario yeah i just i know it's a little early but it's a you know it's a it's a very different experience for us even veteran board members so thank you for this defensive welcome uh mr nancy i'm before you move on um just in regards to the reimbursement process do you does your office work someone's with someone directly from opm or is it through the board of edge at the state board of education or whatever they call themselves i didn't hear of uh i didn't hear what you said does this do we work directly with who do you work directly with opm like someone from opm or do you work with someone from the state board of state department of education for the reimbursement now i mean the employees that we we deal with at the state level are from various departments um not only the department of education so some of the staff sometimes is from opm so i was going to say it's a little disingenuous of them to just sort of give you a questionnaire instead of a formal application if they're going to hold you to line items like that i mean if you were to fill out an application that's one thing but if you're just doing something that you're not quite sure what it was for except for guidance to give them like what they could give you not that you don't mind that they're at least saying that they're going to give us money but to have them hold you to uh line items in an application i think is a little ridiculous so i hope they're flexible on you know how they allow for us to apply for reimbursement yeah so i mean i i think and kathy dempsey you know it works for the state department of ed and she's the chief financial officer i'm not sure that that is her exact title but you know i think like everything else during this pandemic they're trying to help and so they get information out we respond and then you know they they turn that into you know the the beginnings of a reimbursement grant is really what it is so you're right it wasn't an application for a reimbursement grant it was tell us what you think the estimated cost will be as we go through the school year under this pandemic so yeah that it's there's work that needs to be done by the state to get us the information and so there's there's been communication but we're waiting for the written documentation as it relates you know to this and yeah there are some things that were a little bit um that affected different school districts differently so you know without cleaning service we do it on a contracted basis so it's not a personnel cost the state in the so far on the approval has been very very light on improving personnel costs and a lot stronger on approving contracted services and ppe so you know for us where we are we're able to hire that intraday cleaning staff through a contractor right now looks like we would get reimbursed but a community that has hired staff to do that additional cleaning wouldn't be so i think the state has is hearing all that and we'll have to figure out a solution that works for everybody faith go ahead um i just wore an observation the 40 expenditure cap um i guess i just get a little worried at what point we begin to cannibalize ourselves and you know it's typically 60 percent usually at this time of the year we're at 60 so um especially with capital projects and maintenance if we're i don't know just a statement of concern and i don't know what you can do about it we've not deprived anybody of things that they they're the essentials but as the year progresses if we can't raise that 40 cap you know it'll have it'll have more impact and we'll need to talk about that and just prioritize what's more important than than what it's not new it's just more severe because of the pandemic right now yeah vin are you having you may do it do it in years past but are you having an ongoing dialogue with town hall because that's rather than my pocket there is a rainy day fund here so just figured i would ask if you do have those conversations not every day but monthly or something keeping them um oh yeah i mean we talked to jim josh got the finance director and sean kimball you know regularly we have strong communication but i think you know the the point that adam's making to hold a finance committee you know ultimately the town council is a fiscal authority so there would have to be you know formal notification or a request and i think the council you know is already aware yeah through multiple communications that we've got some pressing issues related to coal with that we may have to sure you know come and request additional funding okay i thought it's worth i it's been probably uh four four weeks ago maybe i was talking to chairman orris on the town council he checks into thailand times how we're doing and if we need any help and i i do think you know ten council for reaching out from time to time i know you're in talks but i did iterate what you said as you know as we get closer to opening school this is at the time and get to that first month or two we have a really good idea of where we'll be so it's not that you know we we had nothing to share with them as well and scare them at this point either but so that's the point of finance community meetings so we are and i think it's just to be good to to walk them through some of the things we saw tonight you know how we got to where we are and how to see things going just so that you know whether we go to them or not you know it's we don't know yet at least there's an idea you know but i'm pretty sure they have communication with sean and jim so 1.2 million and we do have that 200 000 that was was carried was rolled over so you know i didn't include that here but you know that still is an available area that we can expend against so i don't think anybody needs to worry yet we're just going to track it and manage through it i'm not worried okay good uh do you want to go through medical benefits uh yes so medical benefits the board members do have the medical benefits report again it's only the first month it was a very high claim month of one point one million two hundred seven thousand seven eighty nine we began the fiscal uh excuse me we be we began the new year for medical benefits with a balance in the trust fund of two million nine sixty nine eight forty two um the million two does have some large claims still hurting us um but none of those claims are significant covert claims because i know that that's been a question um so for the month the trust fund balance decreased by 477 000 that puts us at 2 million 492 186 that gives us about three months of claims and i'm using this year 800 000 as the monthly estimate um so that's how you get 3.12 months obviously this month claims exceeded that by a wide margin but as we go through the rest of the year um hopefully hopefully the claims you know do settle into a lower pattern and then the new uh hsa plan year begins in january so you know we would expect the claims to go down at that point in time um then just one question you always have a fun question for medical benefits um so you change the uh the calculation it looks like to eight hundred thousand a month weren't we at like 740 before that something like that or was it was am i last year yeah yeah the 800 000 is based on what the expected claims are from our insurance broker us okay so that was just a revision at a particular dayton particular date it changed like july 1 or something yes when the renewal is done for july 1 they look at the claims for the prior you know 12 months running and so that was the estimate that they gave us so that's why we'll use that as we go through the course of this year okay thank you and i will point out along those lines if you look up at the top the budget that we have is 724 100 per month so those are the two benchmarks we'll be using the 724 100 that's based on what we have approved so that's what we'll be contributing every month so the difference between actual claims and the 724 will you know affect the trust fund balance up or down except for any stop-loss reimbursements that we get okay yes this is a stupid question but if the contribution is 724 100 per month how come the contributions for i guess for august or july whatever the 729.5 yeah there was just there was some the components of that 7 24 100 include payments that we received from retirees so we we didn't calculate it exactly correctly because i asked the same question i was like well how's it 729 so it it's in our favor by four thousand dollars so i'll just leave it yeah fine it's a good question though yeah you're paying attention anyway so if the 800 000 the calculation for um is that based on our claims experience or is that just medical information no that's based on the the 12 months running claims and they project out they have an actuary that does that last year was unusual for us and that the um high cost claims you know we were over a million and a half dollars i mean we wound up getting 1.5 million or so in stop-loss reimbursement so you know that's that's built in into that eight hundred thousand so hopefully those high-cost claims don't continue i know that you know in one case um you know the individual employee who had those high cost claims has left the district so that will drop off as we go through this fiscal year so you know we plan and then we cross our fingers when it relates to medical claims but you know we do have over three months of claims reserve so you know that's healthy it was healthier i mean we we were almost at five months at one point but we'll keep our eye on it and manage accordingly [Music] um i'll just i just have one more question as um i don't think you were going to go through the budget detail at all um but just uh in general um and i know it's what are we day four five um for uh outplacement in uh special education are we sort of on target as far as enrollment in that area or is it too soon to say well the number of outplay students um i don't have the count i i think it's a little better than we anticipated but you know if you look at that that line adam you could see that we've only encumbered 20.7 so that's not because we're that much under the expectation it's that we don't have all the dollars encumbered unexpected outplaced tuition and it it usually takes the first three months you know for us to you know analyze and project not only for our place tuition but transportation and our payroll encumbrances too so a little early a little early to say okay thank you the one thing i would add though is that there was a lawsuit extending transition services to age 22.
i just have to speak up for our school as to the comment someone gave earlier that the tricky tray has is being held outside so we're doing everything we can to follow all coveted regulations and it's not about being in school it's something that got put off since march so we're doing our best to follow all regulations we're not doing it in school it's outside the school anyway that's all i have to say thank you guys very much for your time thank you miss gertruck and if you just um hold uh possibly dr robertosi at the end of comments um we'll um may address that issue so you want to continue watching the live stream thank you very much absolutely thank you you're welcome okay next up we have nancy cardozo followed by mark runciak and then denise miller nancy my name is yes your name and address thank you okay my name is nancy cardozo and we reside at 33 east 4th street in clemson and my question is um when the kids if the kids do return back to school uh with the teacher having 21 children in the class how is that going to be handled and miss cardozo if that's your question um if you continue watching the live stream at the end of the comments dr robertosi will uh make his comments or might save him for later but you know i'm sure you will address that thank you okay thank you okay next up is mark brunsiak how you doing do you hear me yes thanks all right thanks everybody for letting me speak tonight uh thank you dr robertosi as well for for your comments in the beginning uh i just want to let everybody know what i heard at the beginning of the meeting i'm sorry yes yes yes mark ziak 20 holly street thank you 20 holly street [Music] so what i heard tonight was about the football field and what i read were exposed in the front page of star ledger in the new york times and everywhere showing that remote learning is not working so what's on the priority list for tonight is about the the amount of people who could go to an outdoor football game has the commit has the board of education at least considered to try to have classes outside or is that against the law as well these are the issues that we're grappling with uh tommy kiefer called up earlier he said his son is devastated about it it's an absolute disgrace that that's not on the priority list tonight for the board of education meeting and i think it should be every time on how to open up the schools much faster than they have been because it is not working that's all i have to do thank you very much for listening and god bless america thank you mr runciak next up we have denise miller then cindy i know and then carla denise hi good evening denise miller i reside at 130 sergeant avenue um i have a uh first grader who is um obviously virtually learning i have to conden comment that the teacher's great at school 13.
all right i had questions too but i'll wait till page 10. okay so the only thing that's really changed here other than the 50 of kids at a time you know every other day is just emphasizing that we want to work in cohorts and that's one of the things that is very much a part of all of the advice we've received from ade and from the health departments phase one you can see is very much the same as in the past i did eliminate the district office closed because we do still need to run the district and we need people to be able to come to the district even if we're in phase one so unless there is some major outbreak where everyone in the community is told to to shelter in place we would still have the district office open and by executive order 2020-51 even if we return to phase one which we have been in currently we would still need to offer targeted services support services at some of our sites for the same students that we have been providing those services for since august 17th just below that you notice just the addition of the phrase with all designated hygiene protocols that's a critical point for us to continue and if you recall recommended relative to our liability insurance and that program any other questions for page four page five the addition of the statement of two degrees above the individual's normal temperature we have learned that the contactless thermometers are not exactly precise what we do know is that they are that whatever temperature they record the first time for someone if we're keeping track of that then we know when there's a difference so i'll give an example i have my temperature taken every morning when i come in here and it's usually showing 95 point something my normal temperature for me is 96.8 not 98.6 like most people so as long as as the thermometer is showing me somewhere in the 96 degree range i know that my temperature is normal if i were to come in and it and not have been out in the heat for instance and come in and it says 99 or 98 then i'm probably going to have it taken again with something more precise because that would indicate 2 degrees above my normal temperature which is an issue so we wanted to we wanted to be sure that we could account for those differences for people so that's why that other phrase was added just below that we've added checking asking kids questions for the first two weeks back so that we're not having that continue necessarily for the whole rest of the semester the first two weeks back will be critical for us gathering our own data for our own kids and our own adults to know whether we have any issues and then as for the policy that you adopted last month students will be wearing their cloth masks when in their own cohorts except when they're on in their own core cohorts outside so we're not going to try to keep kids necessarily in their classrooms all day but if we have a classroom of kids go outside we want to make sure they're staying fairly close in their own groups and not mixing with other groups the schools that have opened already who have maintained cohorts have not had issues with illness the schools that have not been as careful with cohorts are the ones that have had some issues so we're very cognizant of the fact that we want to maintain our cohorts any other any questions for page five page six this is in the section that has to do with health protocols for all three phases and we simply added breakfast and lunch will take place in classrooms through first semester and at least the first four four weeks in phase three and during any return to phase two one of the things that uh that i will suggest for your consideration on page 10 has to do with this length of time and giving us some discretion in how long this goes on now the thing is that if we have to return to phase two or return to phase well phase one would only have certain kids on campus but if we get to phase three excuse me when we get to phase three which we hope is sooner than later if for any reason we have an outbreak that results in an entire school or the district returning to phase two we would want to return those meals to the classroom we would want to narrow down our cohorts again however i think it's open for discussion whether breakfast and lunch would go four weeks into the period that we would be in phase three so i'm perfectly open to the idea of that being maybe two weeks instead of four so that's open for discussion obviously or even totally take that out or take it out if you want i mean i would like to see breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria i know i was just looking it up in according to the arizona our r states that if local authorities say that we can have gatherings of 50 or more and we're taking precautions it's fine for the state of arizona um [Music] i i feel it's safer to do breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria and cost effective and cost effective uh if you look at that budget that you sent us it's over ten thousand dollars in supplies between wipes and sanitizer and gloves and coolers and keeping food safe and at the right temperatures and having enough food is another issue when they're eating in the classrooms and i will tell you and i'm sorry to interrupt jeannie but i will tell you that if we return to breakfast in the cafeteria the number of students who eat breakfast will reduce by about 50 one of the reasons we have continued to do breakfast in the classrooms even though many of us are like brandy and don't think that it's maybe the best thing but you and i know we have a lot of hungry kids and when when it was optional for them to eat in the cafeteria even when we made them go in there it was still optional they didn't in the classrooms they do so i'm being devil's advocate a little bit because i know we have a lot of hungry kids coming back to school and i want to make sure they get fed so for breakfast that might not change anyway it has been breakfast in classrooms in our elementary schools for several years now i've been against it for several years the food the food comes at bad temperatures you don't have enough for every student you can call the kitchen they won't change it it half the kids can't get what they want anyways and it's dirty it's messy it's unsanitary it takes up teaching time i don't like it then we will need to change i mean if you all go there of course we'll do what you want we have designed our school days and our bus routes to bring kids so that they go directly to classrooms so that they are in their cohorts it's still going to take time if we then route them in cohorts to breakfast at the beginning of the day whereas they could all have breakfast at the same time when they go directly to their classrooms we're trying to reduce the opportunities for for mixing those cohorts so if we have breakfast in the cafeteria kids arrive on campus they get temperatures checked they go to their classrooms and then in some order that would make sense and keep the cohorts together and keep the number of students in the cafeteria small small enough then that's going to take more teaching time what do you mean well because if everybody's eating breakfast in their first 10 minutes 15 minutes in the classroom everybody's done with breakfast in 15 minutes but if we space them out which is what we would have to do if we send them to the cafeteria so maybe two classrooms go for that first 15 and then your classroom goes for the next 15 or a couple of other classrooms go for the next 15 and so it spaces breakfast out so that we can have the social distancing we would need to have in those cafeterias and the cleaning has to happen in between every one of those groups jeanne i appreciate the information you were reading about the the groups and those kinds of things i don't i haven't seen that particular document and i'm not sure who it's for but the things for us for schools and the numbers of kids that we're having at the same time we're using the data that and the information that we're that we're given in in from the ade particularly i agree i'd rather have the meals in the cafeteria and we would do that just as soon as we can so if you want to jump to page 10 so i can make that exa that that example for you or that suggestion and then maybe it would clear up some of these other things page 10 is kind of in the middle of all the bullets that have to do with hybrid phase 2 hybrid instruction and you see the line that is the red line that says students within families will be scheduled for the same pair of days that's because our original phase two had every other day so that's crossed off so if you look at the next line please enhanced health hygiene protocols will be used we know our groups are going to be bigger and in person right now than 12 or 13 in a room so we've taken out the six feet we know our students are wearing cloth masks so we don't have to have six feet between desks or between students so we took the six feet out and said spacing the chairs as you know spacing them as much as we can spacing students as much as we can in any given classroom limit travel on campus etc section one if you would uh if you would add to that at the discretion of the superintendent then that gives me some leeway as the data changes to make those decisions without us necessarily having a board meeting if those data were to change let's say we were already in school if those data were to change on monday we've had a board meeting today i could go ahead and make those changes or start making them and start phasing them in i think it will be better if we can phase into phase three sorry about using that word twice if we can stage our changes into phase three will probably be a lot easier for us to control the potential for exposure rather than just jumping from one phase to the other i would say the same thing for for the next line meals in classrooms at the discretion of the superintendent and limited specials at the discretion of the superintendent so that as our demographics are i'm sorry as our metrics change i can make the changes across the district i could notify you as a board that we were getting ready to do that and then we could do it so we could be doing this as early as mid-october if the metrics were right early november whenever no set time in there just waiting for the metrics especially the metrics that have to do with our own data what's the purpose of no backpack because we can't sanitize it i mean you can't sanitize their clothes or their shoes or jackets but it's one more thing it's one more thing genie and they bring all kinds of things in their backpacks that we don't need and if we're keeping them in their own spaces as much as possible it's one more thing we do not need all right these but these junior high kids have to carry around everything the junior high in high school they don't junior high kids don't carry anything around they're going to be in cohorts just like our other kids the teachers will be moving the kids will be in a space and we don't need any more objects we don't need things that we need to keep clean or try to clean i guess i'm driving over past the high school where there's 70 kids walking out to the football field there's baseball going on there's hundreds of kids in the grocery store when i go and we have to go to school and there's all these strict protocols i mean i i want them safe i have i mean i have kids with immuno issues but we've washed our hands and we've all stayed safe and that's true genie because they're in small groups but think about this we are bringing hundreds of kids back to our small campuses with the adults who need to work with them it's a recipe for disaster and i don't want us to go there i'm one of those folks who ordinarily is gung-ho about let's do whatever and let's just get it done so this has been a very uncomfortable kind of situation for me to have to be the one who's holding the brakes on everybody all the time because i'd rather not be doing that but i really really do not want any six students and i don't want any sick adults we've had zero people leave our district due to covet that's not true for the districts around us you're talking about high school we can't compare what our students are doing with the high school students necessarily i can't control what parents do when they take their students to the store or to walmart or to wherever they take their students but i i would guarantee you that they're not usually there with 50 or 60 other young people in those locations the other thing is we have to be very cognizant of the directives that we have been given by ade the state board of education and in and finally by the trust relative to our insurance but particularly for the state board of education and for the ade if we are not following the recommendations they give us we could take a major major hit not only to our m o budget because we know it's taking a hit but we could risk the 1.4 million dollars of cares money and the depending on how the formula works 600 000 to a million dollars in stabilization money and we need those funds to offset we don't need them so much right now but we are going to need them a year from now when we don't get the funding for transportation that we ordinarily get that's based on this year's transportation so i'm having to think i'm having to think budget parts when i really want to think people i really want to think kids i really want to think teachers but i also have to think about how to keep those employees a year from now and keep our school solvent our district solvent a year from now so how are we going to lose that funding by changing where you know some of these items well maybe not the meals so much not that necessarily but we but we if we're not doing the mitigating things if we're not doing the things like encouraging and keeping the group separate keeping the cohorts oh i understand the big things that we have to do but there's a lot of things to make changes in this isn't going to deny us the funding um not some of them no that's not going to so not some of them no not not all of them you're right corey no no no no okay that's why i was wondering um so not having backpacks is that a recommendation of the health department or no that that came about from our leadership team because everybody recognizes that having backpacks kids having backpacks is one more way for things to to be brought to campus it's one more thing of exposure and none of our students really need to have those backpacks in the way that we have the programs designed but what if they need backpacks for personal use such as you know older girls may need some sanitary napkins then we would make some kind of arrangement for how to deal with that situation we've had that question already we've talked with our folks at the at the sites to work that out but they don't need a backpack to bring a personal sanitary item and students bring all kinds of things that they do not need to be bringing to school but they always have but i don't think that's necessarily something that's going to be spreading kovid you know i mean they've always brought things they don't need and teachers always have had like to put implementations in to say okay your backpack stays there and you don't touch it during instruction you don't touch it until it's time to go home and then why would we need it if they you know we yeah we have them park it in the back and we're not usually facing these kinds of circumstances brandi we have you know we're facing circumstances that are potentially and i don't want to be overly dramatic about this but we all know we're facing circumstances here that for some people are deadly we've already we are already expecting our teachers to help sanitize the areas in their classroom and to help sanitize the the chromebooks that they're going to be using and to do some of those things in their classrooms the last thing they need is another item that can carry things in and backpacks and anything that's fabric any virus will live for probably 72 hours on any of those pieces that kids bring in yes it could be on their clothing as well but we don't need the extra exposure in the classrooms then we definitely don't want to keep masks on these kids in the elementary schools because if it's going to carry that clothes on fabric they're their most risk trading masks and holding masks in my opinion well we haven't had that issue our kids have been very good about how they do with their masks and part that's part of our responsibility is to teach them about that and then um say if a student has parents who live in two different homes and they start the day off at one home and go home to a different parent's house maybe they need some change of clothes or you know of thing not available has caused lots of problems has been that oh on monday johnny rides bus x and on tuesday he rides bus z and on wednesday he rides bus bucks x again we're not allowing that if if he rides bus x he rides bus x and if he's supposed to go to the other parents house on that night the parent meets him at that bus stop it is not our responsibility as a school district to to accommodate a family parental visitation situation just a little more clear on that on the whole transportation transportation is not required that's right entire district that's right but i do understand the point because we will still have kids that come and they might be walking home or bicycling home to a different to a different parent um or they may ride the bus to school and go to boys and girls club after school and need some things at the boys and girls club and then we would need to consider each of those cases individually as opposed to saying everybody can bring all of these things so no kids are going to be taking home homework we would prefer that they not because they're going to bring it back we would prefer that if they're doing homework it might be virtual homework but we would prefer for the time being this is not forever folks this is this is for as short a time as we can make it for as short a time as we can make it well my my opinion is is if we're if we're going back on the 28th i feel lunches should be in the lunchroom i feel like backpacks are backpacks i don't see why backpacks can't come in it's no different than clothing and everything else i can't imagine if my daughter had to go somewhere and ask for a feminine hygiene product she would miss five days of school because she'd be too embarrassed and we would not want that to happen to any student genie but neither do we need to accommodate backpacks for a hundred percent of students just because of those situations well that's fine i'm not going to sit and argue but this is my opinion and sure i'm not trying to argue my opinion is i thought we were going back to phase three not all these restrictions to begin with so i'm kind of confused right now anyway so and and i'm not trying to argue with you genie i'm just trying i have tried to point out every time i have shared information that the protocols and the uh the metrics for returning it was never a secret the idea is we're returning to hybrid phase two some phase two and when we were in our last meeting we said phase three on the 28th as long as our numbers aren't increasing so and that's true okay so yeah we did talk about not not following those metrics because we went into pretty heavy detail about right which is also why i was confused if we were hybrid phase 2 because we were doing some virtual some some in person the executive order the governor's executive order 2020 51 does say that we will continue to offer parents virtual school as long as as long as they need for this year so whether we were in phase two or phase three we would still offer that to parents right which i'm not opposed to offering that but i mean restroom breaks will be scheduled by classroom groups so kids can't go to the bathroom alone no we can't control we can't control our cohorts if kids just get a you know if they're just allowed to go anytime and you and i know that fourth grade on fifth grade on up they're going to be texting their friends even though they're not supposed to be using their phones to meet them in the restroom we have to control these cohorts or we're going to have a problem we don't want we don't want to be doing this forever we would like and we don't certainly don't want to come back into phase one so the idea is to phase in to do this step in between i don't know these same kids are all signed up for soccer for basketball playing sports playing football baseball tournaments swim team they're golfing they're they're all out there together their cohorts are mixed and commingled throughout our entire city i mean look at our rivers on the weekends i i i want our kids safe i'm not saying risk at all but i mean use precautions but at the same time this is to me overkill i will say to you that one reason we have not lost any of our employees based on what they say to us is that we have a conservative plan that's not as a threat from anybody it's that they're feeling comfortable for the most part with this plan to get us through this semester well i can understand conservative and cohorts and keeping the kids in their same groups but i mean no backpacks you can only go to the bathroom as a group you don't get to go to the cafeteria i mean to me i mean you're going to put 28 kids in second grade in one of the schools together i mean and then they're going to go home with their siblings and then they're going to take them 28 kids to their five siblings who are then going to bring it to their other 100 kids i don't know that's my opinion all right we could sit here online i agree with you on that um so i was i was in that that position last time um that that's that's kind of where we need to be i do also understand the idea of cohorts i i get it but i also agree that um you know where where do we when do we get back to normal um you know if we look in our community right now we have two other districts that have been back in school um and they're they're running they're running pretty good um they're not showing which which districts are you talking about scholars they went back full except that they are very very very strict on their cohorts i talked with tony registers i don't do cohorts no no but i mean they're doing the same kinds of things as this so and they've not had any issues has about this whole time he brings his backpack to school he wears his mask he eats in the cafeteria they have about 50 percent of their students on campus and we're looking at 60 of our kids on campus so it's pretty close my big concerns with the with the meals in classrooms and like i told you before dr stewart um that that you know we have a huge cost in that it's it's big um in doing that um can it be done in a way especially with only 60 percent of our students for lunches getting those figured out for a lunch schedule when we were boy junior high when it was still there we'd have roughly 150 kids over two lunches split out but now we have fewer we're down to 60 so you're talking you know 85 kids can't put 85 kids in there and keep them separated you want them not facing each other just like we don't want them facing each other in the classroom okay so we could probably and i'm gonna make i'm this is a ballpark figure so don't hold me to it but um you know i was principal there so i kind of have a handle on that one side of table 60 kids maybe probably 60 at a time so so dang near so it would take like four lunches four lunch times and we've got a schedule already set but does not have four lunches it has one lunch or two might have two middle school two lunches two lunches okay what we're seeing in our numbers we're seeing those numbers coming down fast um i know that i was pushing to get back to school right away last meeting yes you were i didn't want to wait i wanted us back in class now let's get going um but we we decided on waiting until the 28th because of this these numbers that we're afraid of seeing and personally they're lower than i thought they would be they are much lower than i thought they would be i thought we'd kind of maintain and we've seen a huge drop in those numbers will we see a spike no we keep nobody can predict that we have no idea um we the only problem i see is with all of this planning that has been done it'd be crazy to undo um so i don't i'm not encouraging that at this point however um one things that i would definitely like to see like i told you is the lunch thing uh that was i sent that over you know that's that's kind of kind of crazy um i would like to see where we're at for getting back to a lunch even with two schedules if our numbers continue to drop next month we're in here we're back to full lunch out of the classroom and if we need to get in into the breakfast where they just come in at that point those numbers are lower then that's what we do i also had a concern about the backpacks i sent you my email on that that i also have a have an issue with that and the same exact topics that you ladies were talking about personally being being a teacher in a classroom you know backpacks have always been a distraction but how you handle them i know a fox creek they have hooks in the back of the class so that's something that could easily be divided where you have your kids half your kids or whatever you might have have them under their desk their personal space and if it's a problem you go hang it in the back well how many kids have come home with lice and bed bugs from backpacks and that doesn't ever change i mean we don't get backpacks taken out for that yeah um so i mean there's there's definitely things i think personally with the backpacks i think that's a classroom management issue that's to me that's a classroom management issue um the the meals is something that that i could personally say let's see where we're at next month because our numbers continue to drop because it's so much change right now and if word numbers keep going down we can still keep two lunch breaks two lunch periods and get them in the cafeteria and we might be able to do that if the numbers keep coming down yeah and if our numbers come down we can definitely do that particularly corey if our numbers come down you know in school i mean that would give us that would give us uh if we start on the 28th which is a week from monday that would give us three weeks of data before your next meeting for us to know what's happening with our own data yeah because right now we don't know where that's going to go and personally even if even if we do see a small uptick i think our numbers have gone so far down from where they were before i would still be comfortable with that because we saw a huge drop and i don't think anybody predicted that that happening um the the rerouting the bus routes i don't think we even need to do that if we decide to get back to meals we go to meals we put the meals where they need to be we don't need to change that stuff i don't want to go in and change all of the work that our leadership team has done here because they've done a great job but there i agree there's things that we we definitely need to address anything else that you guys had on there i'm on board with the whole backpack thing that's i believe that's that's classroom management issue bathrooms um what was it with bathrooms i'm sorry wash your hands i've been having to use dang porta potties with thousands of people at the baseball fields for months now go to the dang bathroom if you have to go to the bathroom i don't i mean i don't i don't know maybe it's just me but i think that's a bit much yeah taking your whole class to the bathroom is ridiculous because they horse around keep them quiet sit them still keep them segregated you know keep your mask on everybody wash your hands did you wash your hands in the classroom or in the bathroom you don't i mean it seems to me a bigger mess to take 30 of them then let them go individually and have a monitor out that way yeah and in what they've always when i was at the element or the junior high you know we were allowed one student could go if that student was gone for a long time you know we were calling off as hey this guy's been gone for 10 minutes can you go see what's going on okay so if i may the other issue with the restrooms is when we send a group then we can schedule a cleaning right after that before another cohort comes in that's part of the issue of the restroom thing is that we don't have kids mixing cohorts just because they've gone to the restroom and touched things well if they're washing their hands after they're going to the bathroom you know we're kind of but between i don't want to get too graphic here wash their hands when they leave before they leave the classroom and have them wash them in the bathroom and have them wash them again when they come back hand washing overkill i don't know i i mean that's a bit much well i mean why pay somebody to clean a bathroom 20 times a day cause that's what that's all they're going to do is clean a bathroom i don't like cleaning bathrooms well we've added we've added a day custodian to help with any of these mitigation things so to help with the trash after the meals in the classrooms to help with any of the cleaning that we need to do in between you know in between restroom use or between whatever and when we move kids back into the cafeteria that person is going to be helping the other day custodian with that cleaning process so you know we've we've added that personnel those personnel at each site to help us deal with mitigation issues do we have sanitizer in each classroom absolutely we did that at the high school just asking because i like your your thought you know hey get a pump on your way out you're sanitized on way back in hit it again it's right by my door um we're not letting the kids touch the pumps the adults are going to touch the pumps this whole situation has forced us to think about all kinds of things we've never thought about before in terms of of controlling exposure and i think everybody on the on the leadership team is beginning to feel like they're quasi-medical because we've had to think about all of these kinds of things to keep kids safe and the other thing is kids have a tendency when especially the littles have a tendency to over pump and eat it oh yeah yeah so no we want to prevent all of that as well so um and some of the things for instance your example of the backpack thing might be a different thing for us to consider for junior high than for the littles because i i will tell you the littlest bring all kinds of stuff they don't have any reason to have a backpack they bring all the toys and all the junk with them that they don't need um but you know for junior high perhaps you know they're they're different issues for those kids um so you know i'd be open to that their work home i mean are we doing everything on a computer now kids aren't going to touch any paper no they're going to touch paper in the classroom but we're trying to minimize anything that they are taking home or bringing from home that's why we are providing all of their supplies they're not bringing any supplies we won't be sending papers home with the student nope should not be doing that so how are parents going to see where their kids are at what they're doing what they're working on contacting the teacher to see what the what students are doing that's a bit much to ask of the teachers i think i mean brandi you've been i mean i can't even get a call back from the high school because they're so overwhelmed uh my kids work so i don't know how it's how you that's too much to ask of the teachers especially junior high middle school yeah i think the backpacks is more of a classroom management thing in my classroom they would come in get out their folders get their breakfast put their backpacks on the hook and they didn't touch them again until the end of the day which bit homework which begs the question of why did they need a backpack to transport their school stuff their lunch their water bottle water bottles lunchbox lunch bags lunch bags fine they may bring them in wearing all these jackets and gloves and hoodies as soon as it gets below like 80 degrees and we're not going to we're not going to stop that and we they may bring their lunch boxes and we're encouraging them to bring two bottles of water because we're not using at this point we're not using the drinking fountains that's why they need their back that does make another problem then if we are going to be dealing with that is is how much stuff is going to be personal at their desk if they're going gonna have two water bottles if they're gonna have their their hoodie they're gonna have their jackets well the hoodie and things can be on the chair i mean as much stuff as on the chair as possible we're gonna i mean that that does open up that that can of worms is backpacks a nice place to put it stick in your backpack yeah i okay i don't have a big issue with backpacks for junior high or middle school middle school probably but the littles fourth grade down they don't need they don't need backpacks i guess me as a parent i'd like to see my kids work come home i don't understand why their work can't go home with them this is temporary this is for the time being school but from school to home well school to home i don't care about it's the coming back so we don't want them taking home homework completing it home and bringing it back in so what have we done with all these packets all these months that buses were dropping off and bringing in that teachers would have to touch we had we had them sitting for a week before we took them to the sites we had them quarantined for seven days before they went to the sites but getting that work home even if it's not work coming back yeah i don't have a problem with things going home it's the coming back we don't want things coming back you i know my kids when they were little if you'd hand them a piece of paper it wasn't getting home it was ending up somewhere else but that's where backpacks come in handy i remember getting into my job backpack when she's little and just empty and all that three months worth of stuff that's the point corey three months worth of stuff all those papers that i wanted to have would be in that folder um so um okay um is there any other things because we can definitely come back to the backpack to page six because i have a couple things circled all right that i have questions on okay so the top of page six um if an employee becomes ill at work or exhibits symptoms of coven 19 at work he or she will be asked till he work to go home or to a health center um just think it's a little vague i don't know we have we have specific protocols that are written up for um i didn't i'm sorry i didn't pull it off the printer this happens to be the set of protocols for students in that same kind of situation we have exactly the same kinds of well similar but for adults protocols we didn't put all of the protocols in the plan because you can see it's several pages long and these are all protocols straight out of the health department and the cdc and they are exactly the things we are expected to follow could you email that to us please sure would you like the student one also yeah sure sure and we have for all of them we have the notification letters okay anything and then what parents need to do to be able to send their child back to school we have the notification letter for parents that says well if if a child is exhibiting or an employee either well if a child is exhibiting covid's symptoms or has a fever if they just have the fever we're going to notify the parent to come get the child if they exhibit other covid like symptoms then we call the parent to come get them and we send home with the child this list of things for the parent to be monitoring which are the covid symptoms to see what's going on with that if it is deemed a possible covid case then the health attendant consults with the principal about who should be notified what spaces need to be quarantined for 24 hours and cleaned if that needs to be happening a whole set of protocols for all of that and then it also the information also gets reported to the health department on forms that they have given us when it's an adult or an employee the information the employee either calls if the employee's not too sick to do it because the employee probably has checked in with the health attendant so on each of our campuses the health attendant is the person designated to be the person who follows all of these protocols so that we can maintain privacy but the adult then is referred to our hr department and is given this you know it's handled in the with the set of protocols with the hr department that way we have only again one person who knows those critical pieces of information so i'll be happy to send you the protocols and the letters that go with okay and so if a child has a fever and they go home are they allowed back the next day or are they supposed to stay home the next day and then it depends on if they have other symptoms okay so the the protocol that came to us from a state health department through the county health department is is given to the parent in this case and it says students who have covid like symptoms or who have been diagnosed with covid19 may not return to school to school sites until one of the following has occurred and it's actually only one set of protocols there used to be two so i should have changed that one sentence because there's now only one at least 24 hours have passed since the last fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and improved respiratory symptoms if the child had a cough or in you know shortness of breath and at least 10 days have passed since the first symptoms if the student was in fact diagnosed with a covid or a positive or a sense of positive covet test so the protocols are very very clear for us to use if the child goes home just with a fever then the only part that applies is that it must be there must have been 24 hours since the the child's temperature return to normal without the child being given anything that helps reduce fever okay i think that's been a policy yes as well as vomiting but i've seen over the years many times a student would like go home with either or vomit and then come back then come back the next day yeah and we're going now probably we will be more aware of much more of that but in the past it was always kind of frustrating to know that that child was sick and coming back to school right exactly so okay yeah and we will be very we will be very strict with it and the same with adults you know we don't want anybody to come to work who's sick and we all know that teachers are in the best sense of the word martyrs about working even when they're sick in this situation we don't want anybody to to be that way we need everybody to be cognizant of the potential problems and at the same time people do have like allergies so yes well especially if they don't have a fever right so if a child has a cough they're not going home for a cough not if that's the only symptom no the health attendants have been all over this so they're they're very aware of what sets of things you know the only one the only thing that a student would be sent home for for one symptom is the fever because whatever whatever reason the student has a fever indicates that they have something infectious but if they have a cough or a sniffle or something like that unless they've got multiple symptoms they're not going anywhere all right i have one more question on this page in the box at the bottom under cleaning and disinfection facilities it says the teachers will disinfect the classrooms throughout the day um but i thought maybe with the custodians that the custodians would you know they come to get the trash for lunch if we're having meals in the classroom will they also do some disinfecting at that time probably not the what we're talking about there for the teacher is the teacher keeping his or her own work area and then after the meals of course the kids area where they've been eating but we don't expect the teacher to go around and clean all the desks at the end of the day or during the day other than you know unless there's something that needs to be done right after the kids have eaten but mostly we want them to take care of their own physical space you know during the day so you know we're asking teachers to to do kind of the same things we're wanting kids to do which is do all the safe things you know wash your hands frequently and use a disinfectant but also because teachers are touching all kinds of things to keep their own work area clean disinfected and then of course the the classroom would be cleaned and disinfected at the end of the day but in the evening with the evening custodians okay anything else okay on seven we just simply added that the person who is responsible for checking supplies at each site we didn't want to lay anything on the current people that we have employed that you know our regular staff we have employed day custodian and a health assistant at each site using cares money and so one of those two people will be assigned by the principal to be the contact with the warehouse person so that we can make sure that all of the various supplies that we need get delivered i did have a question i'm sorry um under the under the boxes um okay my i have the i have the packet from the other day that was emailed um under special protocols yeah there's there's a paragraph that i removed oh you removed that whole thing yeah corey and i talked about that and talked about the fact that it set us up putting that in our plan and publishing it set us up for some possible issues that the the things that it says are true but publishing it is probably not wise okay so yeah i just had questions about how do we go about knowing when to you know if there's an outbreak and what that pertains to like what classifies an outbreak and how will we know when we need to close a classroom down and things like that if we have a student or an adult in a classroom who displays multiple covid like symptoms and so you know goes to the health attendant is sent home the health attendant consults with the principal part of the what you'll get in this set of protocols is a whole list of questions and information that the health attendant fills out and then consults with the principal to determine who should get a letter saying your child has possibly been exposed and also to determine where the child has been for what's considered a contact time which is longer than 15 minutes and within six feet of whomever so part of that process then would be to notify the others the parents of the other students in that classroom that there's possible exposure we don't know for sure but we think parents have the right to know that there's possible exposure or if the student was in school yesterday and we find out today that the student has in fact been diagnosed with covid we're going to notify that family or the rest of the families of the students in that class that they have possibly been exposed in those serious situations the classroom is closed for 24 hours left to sit for 24 hours preferably with windows open and we don't have that many windows on our campuses so we might not be able to do that but for 24 hours after 24 hours abm comes in and does a thorough extensive disinfection and then the classroom can be used again depending on the situation the client and then that class meets elsewhere but at least the parents have been notified they can choose to keep their children home if they want they're notified to in that notification the the letter that they get says please monitor your child for these symptoms you know so you can keep track of your child's health so there's a you'll see all of those things in the protocols of how all that gets handled an outbreak is defined as two or more cases that are unrelated in other words people who are not related to each other and for which there is no evidence that they have been exposed at the same place at the same time there's a little more to it than that it's a little more complicated than that but it's it's pretty straightforward okay so if we had one case on one say at the middle school and we had a case at desert valley that's not considered an outbreak but if we had two cases in a classroom kids are not related whatever then the health department would declare that an outbreak whatever decision would be made relative to that whether we just close the classroom and quarantine the students and the teacher in that classroom would be a decision that we would make in concert with the health department it would not necessarily mean closing a school it would not mean necessarily mean anything more than the individuals in that classroom being quarantined okay thank you and we hope we don't have to do that on page seven i want to talk about the food delivery um employees can bring their own food which is good um however if a pers what if a person forgets their lunch or maybe didn't you know teachers don't have time to go home to get things right so i just thought that it might be a little restrictive to not let anybody um bring them or deliver them anything some of those some of those situations brandi have to be on a case-by-case basis and you know these are general practices we can't anticipate or and build into our plan every single uh exception so we want to be unreasonable we don't want to be unreasonable absolutely exceptions to that absolutely so you know but we have some folks who uh we have several folks in our employee who somebody brings some food every single day we don't need that i [Laughter] so you know we're so we're trying to head off some of those things you know it's one more thing that we're trying to control trying to mitigate and the exposure and that kind of thing we're going to have some exceptions and we're going to have to i'm hopeful that you all trust me to make some sensible decisions and that i have building leadership who can make some sensible decisions about some of those things because they're we don't want to be unreasonable we just need to be super cautious that's all okay i just yeah i just don't want to be too strict that like if those things happen we don't want our teachers going without lunch or not medication if they start to get a headache absolutely all brought in or whatever so and they could always ask the health attendant for some tylenol you know right if you forget but if it's your own medic if it's your own medication yeah we're not going to keep you from doing that oh sorry no one can come in you know okay and i have one more thing at the bottom um i just wanted a lot of clarification i'm sorry um it says if a student becomes ill at a school site they'll be immediately report to the health office and receive a mask and gloves um but the gloves i don't know if like are they forced to wear the gloves no we're going we have isolation an isolation room on every campus remember we wrote this in june okay so obviously i didn't go back i didn't catch the whole thing about the mask thing because now they're all going to be wearing masks but every campus has an isolation room because if a student or an adult for that matter comes to the health office with serious you know with multiple symptoms we don't want them hanging around in the health office we have another place for them at each site to you know to take care of that they want to wear gloves that's fine if they don't that's okay too now that we have a different you know an individual site for each of each site we have that isolation room then we can uh sanitize that room we have in fact ordered additional cots not the fancy ones that are not that they're so fancy but not the permanent ones like we have in our health offices but you know like camp cots because if somebody's sick they're going to want to lie down they're not going to sit in a chair and we don't want them lying on the floor so you know we've thought that through in terms of what we need at each site and since we're on page 7 i'm still against students not being allowed to travel alone to the restroom put that on my list okay well you notice in that section we put that each site could develop their protocols for that oh except that it does say about not going back okay anything else on page seven page eight you just noticed and separating our students as much as possible within our classrooms and then under communication with parents that whatever it is we're doing we will make announcements we have found that facebook is a good way for us to get the word out and we also are using our dialers again frequently trying not to overload parents with them because too many and they don't pay attention but we want to we want parents to know what's going on no secrets are we good with eight yes okay okay page nine page change at the top instructional supplies and objects will not be shared and will be stored separately as directed by each teacher we have purchased enough supplies for every student to have pencils crayons scissors pencil sharpeners all of the supplies that they need and storage for them for their own desk or their own work area it's not the same in every classroom some are using baggies some are using mesh bags i think the junior high is using mesh bags so it's a little different at each site and by classroom and then just the addition to accommodations are planned for students whose parents want them enrolled at the school in the district but wish them to start the school or any return to phase two or phase three so that just allows us to continue the virtual school as parents want are we still accommodating um at the boys and girls club if they're choosing not to send their kids to school but they were still going to pay for them to go to the boys and girls club yeah i checked i checked on the legality of that i talked with our attorney to be absolutely sure since we did not announce to parents before we put out the survey to them asking which they preferred virtual or in person we didn't think that it was reasonable to suddenly afterwards say oh by the way the safe spaces won't be there since we are using grant funding to pay for that where it's not considered a gift of public funds and it is an accommodation that allows parents to continue virtual if they so choose so we will continue safe spaces at boys and girls and at scooters little scooters through december then we will make the announcement so that parents have all the information they need before they decide what their children are doing in january do we have a number of how many students that were going to the boys and girls club or little scooters plan to go back in a school setting i don't know that we've divided it out that way and is that grant funded money money that we could spend on other things or is it specific to the safe place only well it's grant money that we could use for other things but all the grant money is is tied to what we are doing that's because of the coved crisis right i guess i'm just looking at it as if if we're providing a safe place in the classroom i mean it's forty two thousand dollars according to this sheet that's going out to little scooters in the boys and girls club that could be used for other things in the classrooms i didn't even think about that putting them into the cafeteria or i mean between just the just not eating in the cafeteria and that it's i mean you're looking at over 50 000 um you're talking about the supplies we've already purchased to eat in the classrooms all of those things are already purchased so we've already paid for the boys and girls club and little scooters no we haven't because we pay that on a monthly basis based on the count and the number of students who are actually there but i will tell you that one of the one of the things that's been a good thing is in the last few days after we closed the opportunity we'd given parents two weeks to respond to the survey about whether they wanted one or the other and we really needed to be making our classes we really needed to be deciding so we closed that since then we've had some parents call who for various reasons have changed their mind i put virtual but i want my child in school i'm going back to work whatever well you've already seen that some of those classes are pretty full as it is so we've simply said to them we waited two weeks we didn't get a response or we understand that you have a change in circumstance but at least we can offer you an alternative since we do not have a spot for your student in person right now until january for sure we have a safe space and that has been uh parents have been uh have liked that idea that they have another alternative for their children uh you know if they've gone back to work and and we all know we're all hopeful that people are going back to work and some of them are just learning this week that they're going back to work so it's given us a nice alternative for some folks whose circumstances have changed so anybody that stated they weren't coming back in person no longer has the opportunity to come back in person not until january if they do genie those class sizes will go crazy we need to keep things as stable for kids as we can for the next 10 weeks right i guess i just thought it wouldn't have changed like after the start date on the 28th we had to set up classes we can't we can't we can't wait until the 28th to suddenly say oops now you can't you know because it would be changing clear up until that morning we'd have people on that morning saying oh i've changed my mind so what are we doing with kids who haven't filled out a survey as are the schools contacting those families and finding out what they want no we notified them via via dialers and the newspaper and the facebook page and the web page we gave them five extra days i think it was five extra days we said it was an opt-in wasn't it so if you didn't say you're going online you're registered in class well if they had the server yeah they had the survey and so we put them into a classroom unless they said i'm keeping that's right because we were coming back to school that's right so unless and we gave the parents the option to not bring their child back and that was the online option but that's an opt-in and and we can't wait forever for them to decide that i agree we had to have a deadline making sure i understood that that we all understand that it was an opt-in and i'm yeah and i'm not and i'm really truly not trying to be argumentative here but i want you all to understand the plan that you're looking at and what we're trying to do between now and december has taken six weeks six weeks with multiple people working on this right so to make big changes coming from like on mr roy's report it shows that i mean there's quite a big chunk of missing surveys of what their kids want to do on the bullhead city middle school 109 no responses they are registered into a classroom so there is still a possibility that they keep their kid home plus those reports plus those reports were written before we closed it and before the contacts stopped so you know they submitted those reports yeah so these numbers here so if there's no response they're in person yes they may not show up on the 28th but they're registered yes okay yes i'm fine with that so our classroom sizes could get smaller could get smaller not bigger yes yes we didn't want them changing from an online to and in person because that would screw up our numbers really because then your 28 class might be at 34.
it had been previously to 21. and so that will that's an unexpected impact on our budget in providing those services for an additional year and it's sizable um and we'll provide more information as that becomes a relatively recent um impact on portugal are there any other questions thank you adam uh up next is our policy committee report right back to you back to me again thank you um uh for policy uh we this was our first in-person meeting um so i guess i'll use the summary that's uh that's in the the minutes here uh for the report i i think our our conversation was a little more in-depth but i think this this paragraph sort of sums it up pretty well um and basically uh the meeting opened um what was the day on september 1st uh where i asked the superintendent if there was further conversation or action that was needed by the policy committee regarding the incident that occurred last year with the lapse coaching certification dr solon responded no new procedure that responded no comma but not that there was no nuke there is there is a new procedure that has been put into place to track the certifications and the superintendent stated that he will supply the board with a list of coaching certifications prior to the start of each sports season uh at that time the policy committee agreed that that was adequate uh to for for the resolution at this time um and then we uh uh we had a little bit of discussion back and forth a couple extra questions um and then we moved on to uh discuss about setting our agenda our policy agenda for the rest of the year um uh mainly whether or not we have to change any uh policies regarding electronic meetings and communications and if any other policies come up during the year um we can add them as needed if something needs to be adjusted during this uh this covid situation and that's uh essentially uh my report for policy um uh going forward we're going to um go back to um uh online stream uh because we felt that um having our conversations uh was actually ended up being more transparent if we were online where people could tune in uh via youtube because you know normally no one attends a policy meeting but sometimes uh conversations occur uh during policy that could be of interest and it's easier for uh citizens to observe our conversation on youtube so i agree thank you we're going to do that thank you another quick question especially catherine and ann and i it seems like it's been several years that we've been continuously revising policies and it's a good thing if we feel a little light this year are we pretty much jeff caught up um i i know the student activities policy we're probably going to look at a little bit data but i think are we pretty much caught up with our policies and bylaws refreshing it's been going on for yes uh or five years last year and change was an absolute marathon because there were many years where we adhered to law but never really updated policy in the last few years we had an audit done a couple of years ago we initiated that and then updated a boatload of policies over the last couple of years so yeah we were caught up on that process and now it's just that's great more of a maintenance period now thankfully yeah i just want to commend the policy committee's present and past in particular for all the help to to get us here so that's that's good news i don't want to just want to point that out no no we are still going to check in with kate just to make sure as we always do thank you adam uh uh i'm sorry any other questions from the board tim i i just want to comment on the um having the continuing virtual meetings it was actually a little difficult for me i strongly believe in having meetings in person and allowing people to come to the meetings but like adam said i mean i've been to hundreds of well well he didn't say this but i've been to hundreds of committee meetings and most of them there's almost no attendance ever from the public some of them definitely get it and in the times when i would expect to have public want to attend a committee meeting i absolutely would want to have it in person but on the offset you know if i expect nobody to come to a meeting but we could actually have you know 30 40 50 people watch it online maybe even send in some emails and get a little bit more interaction i think that'd be a good thing so i'm i'm comfortable going with the virtual meetings when i expect low attendance but the other thing i just want to point out that i think is to parents with young kids in town so last year i ran for the board of ed and one of the things that went through my mind was do i want to take all these nights away from my kids and i i didn't really want to but i felt strongly about running for the board last year and so i did but at the same time i think this uh provides an opportunity potentially if we could do the if the remote meetings work the virtual meetings work i think it could provide an opportunity for some parents who might be interested in running for office but didn't want to take away so many nights from their kids um and so that's a that is a reason why i really do like the idea of it thanks and uh and just an additional point um thanks for bringing it up is that um we we are going to be virtual unless um we sort of get a feeling from the community that there needs to be an in-person meeting where there's going to be significant uh community inter interaction uh and usually we'll usually get a feeling of it through facebook where people start emailing uh us about a certain subject that people want to speak about um and so we'll try and work that out because we we are still under the uh restrictions of 25 uh 25 people i think during a meeting in the building or i'm not i forget exactly what the yeah indoor restriction yeah so um so so as of right now unless there is a feeling of you know really a lot of community involvement where they want to speak in person that right now we feel that uh you know this is the best way to to have the community know what's going on yeah and i you know it's been a challenging year when we started a square last year we were uh working with the town to have a i think room 219 210 is set up so that lisa town council committees can be there and broadcast so folks can't be there this is pre-covered by the way so this idea was broadcast to meetings if you could intend it per person i i think um while we're in his code which probably the rest of the year at least next year uh if we can do a virtual great and and maybe when things kind of go back to normal where that is maybe we could possibly do some combination of having you know board members here and remote via zoom at a meeting and if that's something we could talk about we could always amend our policies we're not there yet but so i think there's a lot of flexibility i think we've learned some positives of covet to to accommodate that work-life balance so thanks for that bring that up tim alrighty we're going to move on to school modernization committee update i don't know if ann or andrew wanna he did meet last night yes andrew [Music] so by actually the town council um last evening jim jinx joined the school of modernization so we have our full complement of 12 individuals there was an election that was held to elect both the chair and vice chair the chair of school modernization it was elected jennifer bates who's a community member pta pto president um she's been on school modernization since its inception i'm a member of the community and then chuck net um chuck was i worked with chuck we developed the rfp which actually resulted in the hiring of coliers who is the consultant that we're working with um helping to guide the plan for the modernization of the schools he's a pe so it's i believe it's valuable to help guide the process and manage the consultant so coliers gave a presentation charles warrington he gave an update where they are they're still continuing to review the data touring the schools talking to the administration um to come up with the best plan to move forward we don't have a copy of that plan there's no draft of it yet to share they hired mylona mcbroom or we hired milona mcbroom and they're managing my loan to do the enrollment and demographic study um with the different projections we received a 37-page draft of that which hasn't been shared yet they've done a good job looking at the different population trends in the community there's not a lot of surprises in there there's definitely a shift the community is getting older the average age is 48 which i thought was interesting um birth rate from 1990s there was over 300 births per year we're down to 230 birds as of 2018 um and another interesting fact that i was jotted down last night was is that between 2010 2018 there's been 1 376 new housing units built in town but the population has not increased in the school age so there's a lot of things that we're looking at there and that's going to all get rolled in and then presented to the committee i would add one thing a very thorough report i found it interesting that the enrollment study also reported that people don't move to certain elementary districts within cheshire because they're unlike many other communities our district is considered a solid school district as a whole and the elementary schools are not a re there's not a variance perception of variance of quality uh among the four elementary schools and i think that just speaks volumes towards what we're doing that we have this very cohesive school district as a whole so kudos for that because perception is reality in many cases and certainly in this case yeah they showed a nice heat map of cheshire where the districts are in relation to the home sales and it's you know it's pretty much it's not like uh again said everyone's moving to the highland district because it's best school it's it's consistent which is great the other thing i thought was very interesting too is what was the decline in housing starts they pointed out that um a lot of home sales this year are still waiting for the final numbers but they're saying that there's eternal or existing homes that's that's driving people come in i think they correlated if andrew and remember uh approximately students i think uh average came in to this through those sales so the point was there it was a pretty thorough report and i i feel sorry for vincent and jeff they had to drop out because that's when he got the call for the case um so i was very thorough great meeting a lot of detail there were two there was one thing i know that uh collier's looking for which is the october first enrollment numbers um i told them after tonight we can send them this presentation open schools because there's good information in there so if you guys don't mind giving that to to take care of that and um the other thing that came up as part of enrollment was a lot of focus on enrollment general student population and what dawn to me was whether or not our i'm sorry i could put this down for a second whether or not our special needs student population um which one are we spelled out or uh identified that in rome and how they could should we give them some enrollment numbers around that population from us over the years because i think that could be off on this but i think my opinion it maybe a small population of four thousand students but some of those students require more space in schools special services more ias i talked about that so uh charles thought that might be a good idea just to have their a little bit so i'm not giving you guys more work to do just uh heads up demographics so yeah that's it i think we're meeting again in mid-october early october 5th october 5th the first of the first monday of the month great thank you any questions on mars asian committee sorry yeah faith also talk about how they saw a something going on five years that like an incoming kindergarten class that's when they're starting to see an increase there there was a increase yeah we're gonna start to see a pretty significant increase um with the kindergarteners in like three to four years yeah i think over the next four or five years there was an increase in kindergarten lower grade levels middle school level i think it's it projected to be the same but there was going to be a drop at the high school level for a few years not a significant one but something noticeable and then it kind of picks back up again but the suggestion is that that we are going to start to see as we're planning um that kind of yeah they used three data sources for the roman trends um i i think it was high medium low but they yeah stronger mechanical not there was much difference but they recommended the group use the high projection because uh especially in later years uh you want to have that space to accommodate growth i'm going to try i'll i'll ask uh the committee if at least get the draft out to the board i know it's not for the public yet but it was presented last night so i don't think it'd be a big deal i'll try to share that with the group so you can see those charts better yeah i would add faith that um it's really consistent with what we were seeing from enrollment a few years ago when we did it before there always was this projection of moments going up and are we seeing that and actually we should be seeing that now what you saw four years ago and um soon i think we're still leveling yeah we're in a downtrend still a little bit i mean not again it's like just it's just below the level right 10 years there's been it's been level what was ironic was the enrollment number today we saw was just around 4011.
she's a wonderful teacher she's hands-on it's not that hard to actually do for the google classroom she's right on point but i do have to say and this is a question i actually am one of the lucky parents who get to send my son to get help for virtual because i am oh i work and by where he goes to get help there is a soccer field and these kids are playing soccer in clifton why aren't we sending our kids to school these kids are out there playing together why can't we practice the social distancing in the classroom for our children at half days i don't know why they're playing soccer if we can't send our kids to school they shouldn't be allowed to play soccer in clifton if this is a clifton board of education um you guys are coming together i i think we really need to revisit this don't get me wrong virtual is is fine my son's learning but we need to send these kids back to school my sister lives in total they're in school till one o'clock in the afternoon our surrounding cities are in school i i just i i don't understand that i'm not frustrated and i'm not upset i i want to thank you all for for giving us this chance with virtual but please please really really look into this i just don't understand how kids are playing soccer and we and daycares are open at school in clifton i have a daycare right here and it's opened that's what i don't understand so thank you keep doing what you're doing you're doing a great job and hopefully we can get these kids back into school thank you miss miller and um as i said just continue watching the feed dr bertozzi at the end of comments we'll make his um statement okay next up we have cindy i know and then carla and then amy amendola and then a phone caller ending in five seven seven seven just so you know i've muted uh everyone who's not speaking so you will have to unmute before you speak cindy listen hi um is india noah i live on 65 3rd street in clifton new jersey i'm gonna have my husband speak so um my question is i initially in the first service that i wasn't sending my kids back to school even if after reopen but this is not working out and they're just in kindergarten michael james will we have the option to um i guess to rest in that survey and put him back into school once school reopens um at the end of the comments uh dr robertosi will be addressing any of the comments so if you just continue watching the live feed okay thank you is that it okay well that's that's it for us okay thank you um it looks like carla's next but carla's still connecting so we're going to move on to amy amendola hi there i live at 161 brittany court clifton new jersey and my son goes to school number two uh he's learning virtually um at the moment in kindergarten and the issue that i have is the number of teachers and the ratio we put him into a public school it's really good public school number two knowing that the ratio is going to be something like one to somewhere between 13 and 17 and now the ratio is much higher and i feel he's not getting the attention that he deserves simply because i understand now there's only two kindergarten teachers instead of three so i'd like to understand why that occurred and if there's a plan to get a third one so that we can get that ratio back down to where i was expecting it to be this year thank you miss amendola sure and just keep watching the live feed um comments will be forthcoming for the superintendent after public comment okay next we have the phone caller ending in five seven seven seven you need to unmute uh and then after that will be janet velez and darren altilio hello hello you have three minutes caller hi my name is dana hampton i live on 90 dory drive clifton new jersey uh 07013 my daughter goes to stila b my concern is that um she's a pre-k student uh with special needs and she received services um at clb speech ot and pt and it's very difficult to receive these kind of services for a special needs student student virtually my question is if there can be some kind of reconsideration um for at least opening the school for special needs kids if their class size is already small as it is thank you very much thank you next is janet velaz who looks like she dropped off um after that is uh darren altillo good evening everybody thank you for letting me speak i appreciate it um i'll be very brief uh i uh i have a son who's a senior in clifton in high school and he's a member of the band my concern is not so much that they're not in school and that is everybody's concern not up to you guys i'm sure that's a state mandate however uh i'm very concerned with the quality of the um online classes he's receiving two of the days well most days he's done by 11 30 and two of the days he has one class and it's done in like nine how he possibly he wants to be a dermatologist and he's applying to harvard yale and all of the ivy league schools how is he possibly going to be able to compete with the curriculum is there any plan to beef it up i mean what exactly are the teachers doing the rest of the day that they can't end the day at least at a normal time if not later i mean you know everybody's at home we should be able to spend a little bit more time with our kids it's bad enough that we all have to be at home and i get it we have to be at home but you know since we have to be at home is there any process or any evaluation process in the quality of the education that they are get currently getting and be getting or should be getting what is the plan and what what exactly are we doing with that that's really what my concern is thank you thank you mr solo can you men can you state your um uh your address for the record 20 fair amount possible 20 fair amount the avenue if you didn't thank you thank you very much okay the next three callers are thomas followed by two phone callers one ending in one zero eight five and one ending in five nine two two so thomas you have three minutes uh thomas you're muted good evening my name is i live on 166 spear avenue i have uh two children in the school system one is in school 13 in first grade the other is in free the new pre-kinder program in school eight annex um my wife and i are both professionals i work on you know i'm a director for ideology she works here in with the city um and we use zoom meetings every day um but i'm noticing with my children it's uh it's a struggle for them to learn i mean as as adults even in this meeting that we're watching here we've witnessed most of the adults have trouble using the zoom meeting yet we expect our pre-kindergarten our kindergarten children to to know how to use this pay attention and focus the adults on this video know this respect um can't focus on the video right we're all fidgeting um so imagine my my kindergartener and my first grader um how they're doing this um i guess i i mean i understand why the schools aren't open you know where it's safety right i would definitely put my kids in school when they do open right away but what kind of additional assistance is is there for two working professional parents that as hard as we try to work from home and give them the attention that they need for school um it is difficult right and in the kindergarten the first grade program um you know they they're struggling um i guess the teachers are doing a great job i mean they're doing the best they can at zoom right they're not in front of the kids so i'm not complaining about that but i definitely think something more needs to be done um you know to to ensure that they're receiving the education um even if that means closing the school and opening through this year or next year's summer um but i don't know i'm afraid that if my pre-kindergarten doesn't get the education he requires and goes on to the next grade will he be behind is this going to be a situation that we have to deal with um you know for the next five years where he's trying to play catch up because he missed um you know half a year or an entire year of education due to the format that's all i have to say thank you okay next we have a phone caller ending in one zero eight five uh just so you know the phone callers you're all muted so you need to unmute before you speak one zero eight five after that we have another phone caller five nine two two phone number ending in hi my name is francesca and on lakeview avenue um as i listen to all of the parents commenting um i do understand the frustration that they're having with their children through the online remote learning however everyone's experiences are different and to my surprise uh my two children one in high school and one in um going to woodrow wilson they're doing very well and again to my surprise and i must commence and and i don't think you the teachers are being commended they're doing a great job at least from my experience so far with my kids and inform them what needs to be done with the family schedule so i do really really appreciate that because there was a lot of confusion in the beginning and every single teacher for my son and for my daughter they've been sending emails galore uh plethora of them is letting them know what their schedules are will be like for that morning so that is so much appreciative uh appreciated and how well they're doing in communicating with the kids so kudos to the teachers uh who are doing their best with the remote learning it's all new to everyone so um i think they're doing a phenomenal job as well as the board members uh my only question is um if it should be to to uh go back to school and when it's okay to go back to school well they still have the same teachers or will be a different teacher so uh that's all my question and thank you again for uh to everyone thank you yeah we get a couple people leave and rejoin so next up will be iphone and then a phone caller ending in one zero eight five um iphone you have three minutes hello 90 east 9th street clifton new jersey i have a seven-year-old with a diagnosis of autism and adhd so having him sit in front of the computer is absolutely impossible the only way to get them to sit is to keep them distracted with something else which puts learning on a back burner my son is very smart in math and reading and all the things that i could teach him at home which is not the problem the problem is what my son needs is he needs a social setting he needs a social setting of his peers not his friends he needs to learn how to act appropriate in public he needs to learn how to sit and learn he needs six or seven other kids his age with a book open so that he copies his friends so that he learns this is how you do things my son needs the help that i can provide because he needs the social setting the school provides to advance as a human being he is digressing in autistic behaviors his adhd is off the wall the worst possible thing you can do to my special needs child because my kid is the only person that i can speak for is to put him in an isolation setting and to taunt him with computer learning now we get maybe two or three of the day's assignments done but there's way more than that um he hides under tables he runs away i have the help of behavioralists from the school i have the help of occupational therapists from the school i have the help of his caseworker his teachers are wonderful but the setting itself absolutely 100 does not reach him and what does reach him is very very little now um these children the time that's lost it's lost forever my son is still maturely in the same day that the school closed back in march and these are the things that are overrunning doctors that are overrunning private practices to the point where there's just not enough people to help the only people left to help are you and i am begging you to please please please put that hybrid schedule into effect in october for the sake of all the special needs children because the things that aren't being discussed are mental illness suicide rates teen depression these are the things that are happening because of this isolation and we need you we need you to open so very very badly because we can move mountains and others but there's just certain things we can't do and what we can't do that's what we need you for and i'm just begging you to show up for these kids thank you okay iphone um one last chance here you have three minutes if you could hear us you need to unmute and and you can speak for three minutes okay miss danny i'm not seeing anyone else in the waiting room okay miss danny if i may yeah so we're motion to close i'll wait until after mr smith mr daley okay um dr robert josie the floor is yours thank you um thank uh i i really want to give a heartfelt thank you to all of the people who you know called in or joined us tonight and shared their their situation um make no mistake about it i know this board knows that this is not easy that this has been extremely difficult more so for parents of children with special needs more so for parents who are at work and have to find extra help and care for their children i'm a father of four a divorced father of four whose three of my children are on a hybrid schedule one's completely remote and it's and i have to go to work and their mom has to go to work and i know i get it i absolutely get it it is my plan to open up schools on october 12th this board has said publicly that we were going to reevaluate the conditions in the community on october 1st for a reopening on october 12th today is september 17th if i had to make the decision today we're opening on october on october 12th we're opening on october 1st we will come to together as a board and i will be making a recommendation that we open up on october 12th it will still be a hybrid schedule um but our children need to get back to school so i hear you i do sympathize with all of you not that that makes you feel any better but i hope that you know that that's from my heart i really do i really do sympathize with everyone who's struggling through this so if i could just make a couple comments to some of the more specific questions that were asked um if if a class right now has 21 children in it please remember that when we go back to school some of those children will be still remaining remote and only some will be in class so there will be no circumstance where we will have 21 children in an indoor classroom so just be my be aware of that half of those children will probably be remaining remote for um for the um parent who wanted to to change their mind please contact your child's principal if you indicated on the survey that you were not returning to school but you want your child to return to school on october 12th please contact your principal our board policy states that you're only allowed to do that at the end of each marketing period and there's a lot of reasons for that not to get into right now however there's also a clause that says under certain certain circumstances we can make if we can make accommodations for your child to return before that we certainly will so contact your principal if we can bring your child in uh we certainly will um sports was mentioned a lot today i'm not a doctor but i just all i read about is that it's just safer to be outside um [Music] to be in personal contact with somebody means you have to be closer than six feet for more than 10 minutes that does not happen um on the soccer field or outside it's it's much less likely for that personal contact to happen and that's the reason why sports have been allowed under the njsia which is the state organization that governs sports in new jersey so the seasons are starting in october and we're opening up school in october but i get it i get the you know the perception that well kids are outside playing they're together why can't they be in school the difference is because it is it is more dangerous children are more susceptible people are more susceptible to catching the virus indoors um will they have the same teacher when they return to school yes the vast vast majority of children will have the same teachers when they return to school there may be some cases where it can happen but that will be the exception and not the rule mr el tillio i'm going to have your child guidance counselor reach out to you there's no reason why any student should have two classes all of our high school students have a full schedule maybe your son's a senior you may have some electives or may be able to add some classes to his schedule so i'm not sure what's going on there so i will have the guidance counselor and or high school principal reach out to you to discuss that uh because i certainly want your son to go to harvard and we have to make sure he's in the most rigorous classes that he can possibly take um just i'll stand by my general comments for for the rest of the comments that um that were mentioned that's that's all i have for now uh miss danny i may speak some more later thank you dr arbertosi uh next order of business is education and administration could i have a motion for ea 1 through ea8 uh questions comments discussion yes not on that is that ea one yeah ea one am i in the right section yeah ea one is the approval virtual board meeting am i correct yes yes um i'd like to make a motion to have that tabled um there's numerous things missing from this uh um resolution uh there is no mention of board members or administrators that wish to remain uh virtual that there would be uh um it basically says that the entire board would be going back in person in in in public so uh i think this needs to be tabled i think it needs to go to a few committees to get uh cleaned up a little bit and uh i'd make a motion that ea won't be tabled second madam chair i have a question about the resolution itself why do we need a resolution because i thought in the beginning in march we suspended our regular order of business so um i'm concerned that we don't need a resolution but um if there's uh board members that need to go hybrid and also we haven't addressed how we're gonna allow the public to participate in meetings if we go um in person um they should be allowed to come in person there has to be some kind of mechanism to um make sure they socially distance wear masks but also allow the right number for the capacity of the room so that also has to be addressed as well but i thought that because we suspended our bylaws that we're running on the covert and the reentry plan and all those other policies that we just recently passed covers this for us because it talks about remote and hybrid and also in person so that's just my thoughts focus we're going against the executive order here no because we're we're um this resolution will go against it um and you're 100 right but we we our our restart plan for the students are hybrid um come october 12th right so that should also be allowed for the board and also if and then no board members should be singled out nor should they have to tell anybody why they don't want to come everybody has their own reasonings but we should allow for both we should also allow for both for the public as well but i'm saying scrap the whole resolution and just make a motion to amend our bylaw that's all basically what you have to do so yes my my suggestion i agree with you uh miss basford what do we even have to amend the bylaw because right now we're saying that we relaxed everything so since it's all relaxed couldn't we just decide as a group that we want to have a hybrid option absolutely absolutely like you said i don't think we need to change anything we just need to make the decision as of when we want to do that and give people the accommodation if the group feels that that's what we want to do correct but i would i would be for i would be for an in-person meeting so long as the public's there right you know being in a room what purpose does that serve at least the people are there you know before the meeting after the meeting they could express their concerns people were you know were elected for that reason to speak to the people so i could understand that reason i'm sorry dr robert i just have a quick comment thank you miss danny i just want to let the board know that administratively we can run a hybrid meeting if that's necessary meaning if if we have people in person and people at home that can be done so whatever the board decides administratively we can make that happen okay now miss basford then mr abedrabo um that was my question that was my uh okay you you too the super thank you mr mr albrabo thank you miss danny listen it's simple right at least in my opinion is that if we're going to um if we're going to let's say superintendent just said october 12th fills up the today kids are going to be back in class um we should lead by example we've all said this multiple times there's obviously ways to do it superintendent said that there's ways to go hybrid mrs baster said herself and i agree uh as well as mr canoba we really don't need a resolution um at the end of the day whoever can't for whatever reasons cannot whoever can can but i also recommend that we don't do it in school six we do it at the high school um in the auditorium this way we are spread out this way we do have the public there and make sure that we have one path going down one way and one path coming up the other way we can't do that in school six that's not fair because then we deter people from coming for for safety purposes so we need to make sure we do it the right way and i you know i yeah i i know there's have an opinion that we should do at school six whether it's going to be some sort of shield between us or whether we're six feet i personally don't care as long as we do safe um yes i have a baby at home but at the same time that's upon me because somebody mentioned to me why would you want to do if you have a kid at home but that's up to me to take care of that to my kid i'll handle it at home i get tested covered voluntarily every week just in case so you know we all take our personal precautions but we have a dual responsibility to the sport of ed and to the city to make sure that we lead by example and have these meetings in person if we're going to tell them to go back in class thank you miss gutierrez just one uh just making uh just noting something that's all fine you do have a policy that allows you to have both just remember that in terms of allowing the public into the meeting we still have it hasn't changed as of this afternoon the limit on the number of people that can be inside for an indoor meeting and i believe that that number is 25 so i don't see that you could once you have all the board members and the administrators and be there you'd have a very small number of people from the public allowed to be there in person that doesn't mean that you can't have the folks the people participate in the meeting electronically so let me ask who do you miss danny's gutierrez and whomever else wants to answer this so let's say we have let's say we do at the auditorium all right we have all our board members administration mr rose with with technology mr mellon whomever right we had let's say we go to 15 that's 10 left up to 25.
that's right and this way no no no you chose to stay online you're staying online tell me and where we could where we could we tried to leave a couple of slots in every in-person class and in the on the online classes for those 200 kids that we haven't seen yet you know we may not see those 200 kids but we can't ignore them either we have to plan as if some of those kids show up okay so it's been a guessing game i mean it's yeah juggle juggle juggle any other questions on page eight or no we're on page nine sorry we are on pace page nine i think the part at the bottom is self-explanatory don't think i need to read it to you at the top of page 10 i just made the changes that that moved this from the every other day to the hybrid that is virtual and in person and those changes all reflect that you know they're just reflecting that that change and we have a lot of things on ten to talk about and those are the things you all want to talk about any other that aren't on the bullet point or any bullet points we missed so far we have the meals the backpacks and restrooms anything else on the bullet points we want to discuss after go through all the pages oh i just have one question um well it's on the bullet point which one did you want to add um well it says the one student per bus seat but i think i read somewhere else that's two students per bus seat right it depends on if we were in phase three we would try to do that we may not even be able to do one proceed it didn't seem feasible it's it's not we're just going to have to see we had to find we had this is another reason we needed parents to decide or we needed to decide for them so that we can set up our bus routes and know how many kids we're going to have on each bus so it may not be possible to have only one per seat i will tell you the cdc is still telling us one child every other seat well we'd have to run six bus routes we can't it's not possible it's not feasible so but we but we have uh we have heavy duty let me tell you heavy duty cleaning stuff we have backpack sprayers and and those kinds of things so buses will be sanitized at least twice a day and and sometimes three times a day so we're going to do the best we can with that siblings can sit together that's the one thing that might save us a little bit is being able if we got three we might put three in a seat if they're brothers and sisters um but we'll try to keep the others as much but we will load we will load from the back of the bus yeah the siblings aren't going to like that but it's going to help us but we will load from the back and we will unload from the front because once again you want to you know avoid exposure as much as possible so yeah it gets tricky and and i will say to you it's a side note but i will say to you it's been pretty tricky the last month for transportation and they have been troopers pat and will have bent over backwards to do everything that we needed done and some of it's been crazy and some of the current routes are crazy and now they've added the delivery of meals twice a week and they will continue to do that even after we are bussing kids to school so our transportation department has been stellar yeah i just thought maybe we should say we'll try to put one yeah i was like how is that possible i don't think it's possible but i know that we're trying to do our best i can and make probably see permanent seating arrangements and things like that so and i can i can modify that to be a little more realistic that's one i missed okay i can put when possible yeah that's the number i made on it yeah where possible when possible um okay any other questions on page 10.
and that was their low number i think well that was so that's what kind of so i i'm glad i reminded that so that 4011 enrollment number did not include home school so we'd be 440. but it's right there i think andrew if you have it up well yeah they're saying the high the high level for the high productive model assumption shows that over the plan for 4 60 students over the next five years but before then there's gonna be a little bit of a dip with enrollment right what year were that was that gonna happen low point yeah guys thank you yes please for an observation uh as i was watching the meeting last night i think my takeaway of that presentation was that it really feels like we have about five years to get our act together because it once five years is up it really seems like things are going to start taking off again and so it really seems like we need to be in place and ready to go within the next five years with whatever the plan is going to be as things start moving again for the first you know up through it was like 20 years or something like that so that was my interpretation maybe i'm wrong well mine too my initial reaction was had we been able to do it when you do three years ago we'll be on that track but nonetheless you're right yeah it's right i mean our our schools had higher enrollment you know as is but the needs have changed so i'm with you and i'm sorry i'm sorry random one more thing so uh part of the discussion last night too was there was a a summary showing of potential options i guess as the committee's been talking all these months you know someone said hey i should start the high school how to start the middle school no so they just laid all stuff out and i think it was chuck that asked me i fear who was asking me what what the board what the board wants them to focus on where to start and my answer was i talked about is we can't tell them that really we're looking for a plan we're looking for options whatever they are you know once the data has been finished enrollment studies housing trends the school feedback colliers is going to compile all that and based on that let's let's see what the committee comes up with i mean uh i i told him i don't think we're in a position to say hey start the high school or middle school we kind of the last plan but all options are open tell us what you guys see and we'll work with you to figure out the best option so if i was mistaken with that please tell me yeah i mean i i was a little bit thrown off when you started into that discussion with you know we have no deliverables yet from college of college or from our living room to look at in order to help guide that decision so when he started asking if it was going to be the high school or middle school or the elementary schools i was a little bit yeah without any tangible evidence or to look at enrollments or what the school conditions are projections i wasn't sure what he wanted from us so i think we're all excited in that committee to do something you know it's so i saw that i don't think so but you know again this is why we have colleagues and you know help and they're going to help guide that decision too so i think we're getting there i think next couple months while the data points finite we'll see what options play out yeah tim so aside from code in the last six months i just i am kind of skeptical about growth the next five years student population what were the two or three bullet points did they give two or three bullet points to say why well but i mean but i mean the main drivers of it did they did they give it a lot about the housing yeah i mean there's a hundred and let's see real estate's picking up yeah there's there's about 140 some odd approved new housing units um either approved or under construction currently in town okay um so it was based on that and then looking at just the overall developable land in town yep um and then they talked with a lot of real estate agents over the summer about homes existing home sales and there's a lot of out of state folks who have been moving into town coveted yeah because of all the remote work that's being done now that people will be moving it's predicted that people might be moving out of the cities and into the suburbs actually cheshire is considered no and that i find that totally that makes sense where people would move to yeah no that makes sense to me but it wasn't the projection wasn't driven by new housing development it was dependent on existing housing stock turning over which was sold the real estate market's pretty hot probably will be for a while you know a lot of market rates are low the other thing they also pointed out was as far as affordable housing they had the number in there too i think there's with the new development that's been approved it's over 140 units but they projected potentially maybe 50 or less students would probably enroll in schools as a result of that potentially don't really know uh but that could be absorbed with our decline right now so it seemed to be that because education is doing very well in cheshire and that's driving people to come here and as long as there's housing stock to turn people over to come in it's that's what's probably drivers and also we have a nice community and so forth so so what is the buying road the one up nearby road the new apartments that's 100 units you said over a hundred units yeah 40 114 yeah so that is a small one single family it's 184 new housing units planned in town today thought it'd be built probably in the next two years is the basic idea okay yeah i thought it was very positive all right thank you but we'll save that projection hopefully that lands that forecast no there's a basis for it it makes sense to me now i just think like the last 10 or 15 years i don't think there's been a lot of growth no so why in the next five years and that's that's it so that makes sense but even that growth is really small compared to what happened since the mid 90s it's still you know oh yeah yeah yeah but something a good question i'm sorry to belabor this one it's i know we got a chance to talk about too much uh we actually got to do something so number five we have approval of minutes in our packets we have the meeting minutes from the meetings held on august 20th and september 9th i don't have any changes to the minutes that i saw if any board members have any alterations or edits to be made mr chairman yes i'd like to make a motion yes sir uh move that the board of education approved the minutes uh from meetings held on august 20th 2020 and september 9 2012.
if we do it properly by having people robe and make sure we make some sort of way that hey listen you know what you want to come ask a question come ask a question depending on what the line looks like people can wait outside it's still good weather right now that we can still do that have them wait outside and just rove it around where people can do it and we can use that side door rather the front door or vice versa this way everybody gets to come in we don't cap it to whatever we need to everybody says well nobody could say well how come that he or she went in and i have to wait outside first come first first come first serve i just came out of work i can't so this way everybody gets the opportunity this is again my personal opinion um so we just there's a way to work around it it's just we need to think outside the box like we already have been over over the past few months it's password um thank you madam chair um i know at the city council they um ex they had a person of personnel escort the the uh participants the public to participants into the uh chambers and had them sit down uh if they got to their number they stopped and they had a waiting line outside we could do the same thing we have the side door on on the auditorium they can go out that way they can come in through the top there's so many ways to do it um i'm counting 15 on this zoom right now as far as administration we have just become very creative and we need somebody that's going to actually uh be forceful enough to control the crowd if you want to so say but i'm all for it i think it can work mr casper thank you miss danny um just to concur with what everybody else is saying um as long as it's safe for our students as of october 12 uh and they're coming back as long as well as our teachers who are now back in their classrooms and uh whereas we make accommodations for them as well that have to teach from home and we're also making accommodations for our students that will be learning virtually as of october 12th we can also make accommodations for our board members that are unable to come to our meetings um we should lead by example and it goes with the saying um oh god let me see this it's um do as i say not as i do so we have to be careful with what we're doing as well and how we're perceived by the public the only the only question i have is um how are they letting us put students into classrooms into every classroom that doesn't designate 25 it's 25 in a classroom less than 25 six feet distance so in my mind no no one should went outside if anything we have satellite rooms if room a b c d just put people in there and stacks of less than 25 or socially distance or however you want to do it with seats and then like you said uh someone would usher them in say okay the first three people want to speak you know maybe you could have a tv set up inside of there and they could be watching the meeting from there as well and then he could just usher them in i don't think anybody needs to be outside we do we do this at school now which is an example sorry i think once again mr canova has uh his common sense bringing on tonight and i think that's exactly how if the board wanted this to happen that's how we would do it we would have a couple classrooms or rooms opened up where the meeting could be live streamed and those who wish to public make public comment when it's time we uh we we escort them in so um i think that works if that's something that you want me to um make sure can happen just let me know when let me know for what meeting and of course any board member or any administrator that can't be in person for whatever reason certainly we're going to make accommodations for those people and logistically we just want to ensure that any of the rooms that we do use are cleaned afterwards so for the next day for school so miss gutierrez so madame president go ahead um so mrs gutierrez i was just going to say so just needs to be revised then obviously just mr smith and then i could second it to revise to remove um ea administration would have to remove it well no you may not you made mr smith made a motion to table it i thought that miss bassford had seconded it i wasn't sure no i didn't understand he did oh you did not just take a vote vote on a table if administration is not removing it then we need to vote on the table yeah disabling it that's what i'm saying okay i just want to go on record i'll i'll remove it okay the only reason why it's on the agenda okay because at the last board meeting you guys told me to put it on okay okay then your motion to have it removed yes okay so jim smith amend the emotion to have it removed the a1 is removed by administration it's no longer in the there's no need to either you're right in the vote process it's been raised by administration one no longer exists okay yeah so just do two through two through eight okay so um motion for two through eight originally it was a motion by mr casper than me mr abedrabo so any questions comments [Music] okay see none row call okay so we're voting on ea two through eight two through eight mr abigail yeah miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes and i will fix it in board dogs um mr smith yes miss danny yes motion carries next order of business is personnel can i have a motion for p1 through p26 [Music] motion by mr casper second by mr abhidrabo any questions comments dr arbertosi danny can we move um remove 19 and 20 for discussion and executive session please okay mr casper are you okay with that yes and mr abdrabo yeah okay so it's uh 20 and 21.
we'll be coming back tonight we're coming back to the bullets okay i get that okay page 11 no students will be allowed at school so this is under if we were in phase one we hope we don't have to come back to phase one but it just allows for those those things that we were required to do in executive order 2020-51 any questions on 11 okay 12. may i make a note on page 11 the attendance um because we have had it have had questions about that the good news is that we've been allowed some discretion in how we define attendance for virtual students and so and that's been helpful for us page 12. um we're just wanting to make note because of course this will the fi whatever and it's never final but when this revised plan is posted on our webpage we just want to assure parents that we're going to continue to send the dialers and do facebook and we want them to be responsible for paying attention to that all right so that's the last page so back to 10.
is there a second faith seconds and the motion is moved at the board of education approve the minutes from meetings held on august 20th 2020 and september 9th 2020. all those in favor it is unanimous thank you team correspondence the only other uh well we don't have any kind of job i'm getting ahead of myself okay i do not have any correspondence up to the board that was requested in red and for record do have coveted emails uh i'm sorry you're not the secretary madam secretary do we have any correspondent i have no correspondence to report thank you mr trump thank you kathy i i didn't mean to uh overlook you i just trying to beat 10 o'clock sorry yes that's a joke um thank you catherine so number seven is superintendent reports this yeah we have some co-related emails we did receive an additional email asking about more information on special education that just that we send some out and we will send something from the special education office update on that um i think marlene thank you so much for earlier in the meeting talking about the absence policy uh it was we've gotten a few emails i got nothing critical just that i think a couple parents are caught off you know that um the child had a fever and want to stay home but in there in that situation where there is no class remote classroom way to plug in to take an absence i think the only you know the issue there is i'm sure it'll be a relief the parents know that the abstinence are not going to be held against them which is great and you know it reflects on that this year i think it's just a they might be feeling like they're missing out the opportunity to do remote learning you know if they had a way to do it and my only ask is if i know it's not easy i know it's it's especially for the grade levels that don't have this set up or in someone's home to do the same thing they do in class but remotely i know it's not always possible if we can find a way to try to make something happen i just got to imagine as the flu season starts when i get folks that um will be home at least want a packet to work with that they could i don't know but i think we could put that and i i know we've talked about it so many times but it was a way to put that policy the summary that marlene did it out on the cover website yeah we'll definitely cut down your email traffic yeah we'll definitely do that awesome but thank you that's the only question i had related to the covet update any other questions related to kovid superintendent i know you have one time you were waiting your match was coming off yeah no i'm just wondering um so as i said before i really am just concerned about you know the infection rights going up above one percent keep the kids in the schools so before sports start are we going to be having another meeting and hearing from chesapeake dph somebody love this and i i want to be i want to be directed about it i so i looked at the reopen connecticut and tell me if you're on board with basically what i'm saying i looked at the reopen connecticut list it's not just i don't want to say sports i want to say extracurriculars um you know yearbook is that happening is it happening remotely is it happening in person um i just want to get a better idea about this with the goal of keeping the schools open um and when i when i looked at specifically one thing which was sports there's the reopen connecticut guidelines and it has high medium and low risk and it had you know football is a high risk and soccer so i'm talking fall season soccer has a medium risk and i you know i i don't quite understand what the difference is just watching a sport um and so i tried to look at look for details of the criteria used in setting these risk levels and i couldn't find anything and the people who were running the reopen connecticut uh they didn't appear to be involved in sports per se there were public health people and there were a variety of people in education but i just want to know like it doesn't really make sense to me um and i want to be careful about this so i'd like to hear more from people before we go engaging in contact basically which you know band is is banned happening right now just to be clear on that there's you have a large music program what's happening what's not yeah the uh national organization that oversees band performance has canceled the season the the um the projection of aerosols is significantly greater through instruments that would typically been played in a marching band show um so even with mitigating strategies you know they they decided that that would not be appropriate um and i don't know if they are seeking to move that to the spring or not but the band program was canceled the you know i i don't feel like i have the expertise to make decisions about um medical impact you know is the department of public health his um i think spent in some cases perhaps too much time going through this stuff along with ciac ultimately deciding that there are sports that are safe to play we've had not only a number of kids like you know you think about just our high school sports or our interscholastic sports but a boatload of kids in our community i happen to ho coach a bunch of them on a hockey team um are participating in athletics all the time now um they've been doing so safely for an extended period through the the spring now i can't say that or through the fall excuse me in late summer i can't say the same for football there aren't youth leagues really um engaging in football most of the shoreline conference teams that our younger kids play in have canceled football for the fall following really that dph guidance but other sports have been playing all along and been managing to do so pretty successfully so you know if the department of public health is saying it's safe i know that our many of our students have been engaged in it i also recognize that emotional well-being um as you've said too that you know we want we recognize that component to being involved in athletics the arts we want to try and continue to to provide these opportunities if medical professionals can tell us we're doing so safely i think for most of our athletics that's the case um i think we still need to be cautious they still need to be very closely monitored and i would like to try and do more of that along the lines of of non-athletic contests too right now it's all remote all of our clubs are remote until at least october 1st that was part of our summer plan um we're adhering to that plan i pray that october 1st comes and we have to make a decision about clubs in person because we're still in person things are still going well but that's kind of where i fall on that the whole thing i guess the the thing that goes through my mind is i know so i know sports have been ongoing throughout the summer but i just wonder and again i'm not a public health person or a doctor but i hear about the asymptomatic right i think demographically you know younger people kids are more likely to be asymptomatic than older people but i just wonder i mean if there's no real testing going on in any large-scale way are there a lot of asymptomatic people who are who are the coaches that are out there in the summertime are they in their 20s 30s 40s lower at risk and then so i'm a 65 year old teacher in the school system i'm higher at risk the asymptomatic comes into the classroom and then all of a sudden so you you see how it plays out yeah of course but those those kids go home and but if they're asymptomatic why would they go home they no those kids go home after contests they go home after practices to family members yep that aren't 12 and 15 and 18 years old okay so the likelihood is yeah so okay if indeed there was a a greater viral spread i think one could deduce that that you would see more uh impact on our numbers um through this period okay which again thank god has not been the case and you know that's i don't i don't i certainly don't want to be perceived as cavalier about the approach here because i i just spoke earlier about how critical it is to wear masks outside of school and you still have to be smart frankly when i see kids engaged in athletics they're supervised and tend to be better than when i see them not engaged when i see kids walking down the street with you know a pack not in in um you know in something organized or just walking down the street oftentimes i'm disappointed to see that they don't have masks on or whatever and that's not that's not you know exclusive to cheshire by the way that's just kind of maybe demographic you know just that age but you know when i see them participating in sports they are pretty good about adhering to the same way we see them in school they are very good about wearing the masks and i the precautions they're taking maybe it's because they don't want to miss out on school maybe because they don't want to miss out on athletics they're really pretty vigilant well you know i see it with our kids on the hockey coach today team like i said many of those kids are cheshire residents um so um shout out that they're at practice right now actually but uh you know i do think that for their mental and emotional well-being we we also have to calculate that in but i think that medical experts are i'm not making that decision like that's not that's not me that's swaying that i just recognize that that's a variable for kids i i don't have the medical background to make that decision yeah no i understand that i just when i looked at these categorizations yeah i did like how did you derive that right it was a good question it wasn't sports p i mean i didn't see the names that very sense to me they had titles and stuff and it wasn't sports like i just don't get how you say football's this and soccer is this speaking of to the fall season because two people running downfield right next to each other for right now it's not 15 minutes right right i just want i i would love to see some more information just the criteria used in defining those things yeah ironically if you talk to a football person like that that strongly believes we should be playing football they would tell you the same thing like you know what's what's different where's the data what data do we have to have to be able to play football because the data is so favorable today but you know at the end of the day the medical i would defer to the medical experts who made that decision and i don't think it's a good idea to be playing football right now if they don't think it's a good idea and i know that's what you're saying you really all of us our first priority is to make sure kids receive a great education and do so in a way that's healthy and safe you know that they've deemed the healthy and safe piece around athletics and i think that's a critical part of education so what i sort of recommend so i you know jeff you mentioned october 1st being sometime between now and then as you gather more information about the club sports it yeah i certainly follow the experts medical advice you know obviously the direction for chester park has been getting an amount of control procedures not too i'm not really worried about that um i think that's for transparency for a community you know i'm sure just as there were you know unfortunate football players wanting to play this week that couldn't there's probably other club folks and i can't wait to get together with my group next week yeah robotics or wherever it is a way to get the board and again it shouldn't it's what might be opened up versus i guess it lists everything that we have clubs intramurals i know we had that somewhere we brought up a fine school year a couple years ago yeah but there's a way that you know when you have enough information to categorize all that so here's what's going to happen not going to happen and these go to the board because if if we feel there's something on there we should talk about we could try to get meaning in but if nothing else you know you know there's there's also an equity thing in all this too you know it's [Music] your parents out there that hey you know at the time why is why can't sports play but you know but you know my daughter who realized not my daughter but someone's daughter relies on yeah and a club activity after school for social media can't you know yeah but they're able to be able to do that through virtual virtual yeah so i know if we actually need a meeting next week but i'll def i'll kind of see how things go with you jeff if you feel there's enough information there that we should talk about some of these things or at least send us an update where all these things are where you think they're going to be next year october yeah we didn't say we would start clubs on october 1st and clear but we do we would evaluate around october 1st yeah um and so you know we have a board meeting on the third it's probably a good time to talk well there's one on the first to open forum we're going to talk about how to do that one but worst case we can reuse that for something else yeah uh open forum would be difficult so i kind of i want to get to new business it's starting to get to past 10 o'clock we got three items in executive session so is there anything else pressing on this superintendent's report could we please get out of the way quickly okay i just i'm wondering who is ultimately responsible for these because i'm reading all the decisions is it is it dph is it the governor is it us who makes the decision all of us because i'm totally confused every day i pick up the paper fair question i think it's who you ask when it comes to football the dph has said cic can make that decision ciac has said well local districts you know you go play football now if you want but dph is basically advised against it and i've heard that some districts are saying you know what we're going to play we don't care what you say we're just going to go start our own little our own league um over here and go play that now that could be bravado early i don't know i i don't know of any formal announcement of that but i've heard that and so they're saying you know local district for football but dph is really the guidance that we use before it's worth faith um on our board chair list group that okay i asked a question you know i have yet to hear from any board in any district that voted the board themselves voted on sports or voted on taking action on any other activity relating to this they all have defer at least with with competitive sports have deferred to the superintendent and athletic directors to the guidance of dph ciac and jasper i haven't seen any boards you know formally vote on intramurals or clubs et cetera they tend to rely on you know the advice of superintendent but the same folks because you know if it's contact the local health district so ultimately those experts that give input to us the superintendent and most boards have been [Music] letting the superintendent you know make the decision this is something very egregious there so i it just seems to change every day though the input so who knows what's going to happen next week on any of this stuff i just i don't hold my breath no problem uh we have no old business thankfully we do have new business we have a affirmation of our strategic goals now we did this last july uh yeah before the new board took place so i just want to spend a few minutes on why we do this every year at this meeting and then we can get into it any takers or there's nothing to talk about i mean with respect to we do have to develop a strategic strategic goals on an annual basis for our policy um we have to affirm them on an annual basis not develop them like i said earlier in the presentation we designed these in 2011 designed to be run through 2021 or 2021 yeah 10-year plan um as i said this year we hope to be changing those or at least revisiting um them uh for the future so these are these will be kind of the last year of the plan and and we did clean them up a couple years ago and really have been focusing on those two because you look you saw all of them you can't possibly name them all nobody could tell you what our strategic goals were they can now scl and complex thinking people don't forget it so it's got to be something like that moving forward too i think yeah i can't believe it's cr10 yeah right i am looking for a motion board thank you anna is there a second catherine seconds uh any discussion comment really quickly um and uh or freshmen these are the same uh items that we spend a better part of a year on 2019 right we went through all of them line by line so uh a lot of ev we went through all these things and we did uh make updates and tweak some words that that um that we debated heavily on sometimes about the meanings of those and so i think that uh uh the the um the uh the strategic objectives and goals are uh our sound and i think will serve our our uh our system well so yeah i think it was last july the last update yeah um so this is an annual thing it is yeah so we didn't look at it really at all this year did we did it go through no because i'm not planning no i said okay now you've been busy i get that what about it no no they don't we don't go through them because they're upset like it was a 10-year plan that it was established last july and so now this year they ex like basically expire yeah and we will review them this year and it'll be a stakeholder group that'll review them and make proposals for new goals moving forward and who sets that stakeholder group is it the board or you um historically the superintendent has worked with trying to um select and pull solicit i should say sure you gotta find volunteers yeah well right now it's um it's really tough for that stuff yeah but we'll hopefully get like i said earlier to clear water and be able to focus on this okay right now it's kind of on autopilot correct okay thank you fair enough yeah so any other questions as soon as i don't know the questions the motion is move the cheshire board of education reaffirms the cheshire public schools strategic objectives and goals for 2020 2021 all those in favor thank you it is unanimous i have no update um as far as upcoming meetings uh we usually have uh open forum meeting in the fall um we have one intently scheduled october 1st 2020.
19 and 20 19 and 20. any other questions yeah you know i'm sorry i had a question i had a written down i forgot for pete for 22 on the virtual workshop didn't we already vote on that last meeting it's dad miss kusalavi oh i didn't see your name i apologize mr levitch okay roll call okay so 1 through 26 tabling 19 and 20 for exactly mr avadravo yes miss bassford yes miss beltran yeah mr canola yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr smith just a question that that adding miss cooch 11 she's you're just adding her to the to the rest of the group it's not an additional 900 it's a group fee correct thank you yes miss danny yes next order business is finance and facilities can i have a motion for f1 through f7 so almost mr abu drabo motion second by mr kanova any questions see none roll call it was i'm sorry who seconded it i'm sorry second bye mr konova thank you you're welcome roll call mr abedrabo yes miss password yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes mr casper yes mr smith yes miss danny yes next order of business is public recognition this portion of meeting is open to the citizens of clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and or directly related to the operation of the clifton public school district residents are requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to state their names addresses and subject matter comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and responsibly forthcoming if when appropriate the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful the rights of other individuals speaking matter pertinent specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights aborted by the laws of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they're legally responsible and liable for their comments i'm just wondering if for members that would speak if they have access to the chat if they can type their name in an address in the chat this way we have a record of it uh that's a good idea if anyone's if anyone's calling in they won't have access to that but everyone else should have access okay so if you can um access the chat room and if you can put your name and your address this way we have a record not for you max no address for you max i'll do the same as danny did remind students they don't need to do that no if you're a student no you just state your name and you can speak anyone who is not a student though if you can please put your name in the chat and your address it'll make it easier for mr mountain also as well sure um just so everyone knows first up we have max and then lori lalama and then andrea orrock and that's it for now mighty max all right um so hello board i am max rubin the senior representative to the board of education um and i have um my first speech of the school year so i'm first going to mention a bunch of stuff that our school's been doing and then i do have a couple questions for the board but i'll get to that afterwards um so first um if you don't know already the clifton high school has their own youtube channel called chstv and every morning we usually put up morning announcements on the morning news that we have tvs and smart boards in each class where we can broadcast them and since we obviously haven't been able to do that we've been filming the anchors including me have been filming us doing the morning announcements from home on our phones and sending them to mr mcconney he's been editing it together and they're still going up on the chs not the c clipton public schools channel but the clifton high school youtube channel every single morning um and people are still watching them they're getting hundreds of views so teachers must be putting it on their classrooms and presenting it during their um classes and one thing that's really awesome is that most clubs are still going and they're still going strong i have a list here of all the clubs that are still active and have either had meetings or have meetings planned for the future and those consist of a race club psychology club physics and engineering team gli asian club key club which is currently hosting a food drive stage crew student council writing center basketball team wordsmiths computer science and coding club future business leaders of america model united nations esports girls who code club akadeka future teachers club spanish club yoga mindfulness club drama club heroes and cool kids and of course my club the clifton student union have all been either running meetings or have meetings planned and we've been announcing them on the morning announcements and giving their class codes so students can join those classes also marching band has still been going strong uh right now we're in the process of planning a show that we want to do at the first football game it's our traditional pre-game show but we also have a bunch of other stuff planned um also um our guidance department has set up virtual info sessions from various colleges um nyu is one of them i'm pretty sure rutgers newark and several other colleges are going to hold virtual um virtual info sessions since people can't go toward the colleges in person um and also i'd like to mention for any parent out there if you're having problems with your chromebooks or any technology please go to tech support at cliftonschools.net and that's it for my announcements about school but i do have a couple questions if i still have time um the chromebook shipment delay was mentioned several times and a couple parents asked about it so i just wanted to ask for an update maybe you can address this later dr robert tosi maybe even address where you think the chromebooks are physically like if they're almost here to clifton to new jersey yet um that would be awesome if you could answer that and also i just want an update on the teen center um there was just a really successful rally held over 500 people went from across the state of new jersey um but one of those one of my students um who are in who's in csu with me asked if the teen center is saved would something else have to be cut and if something else was cut instead of the teen center what would be cut or would any of that happen um thank you that's it thank you good to see you max um also i have a quick question um since there's a student representative part of the meeting and the agenda do you want me to join the actual zoo meeting or is just going to the public portion fine enough miss danny i was going to suggest that max should be a part of the meeting because when we're when we're in person the student representative is there so if if the board doesn't mind we will share with max the the link in the future so he can join from the beginning i don't mind all right thank you miss danny um and thank you guys bye-bye danny maybe you could answer max's question well you know what we'll just wait till all the comments be because in case there's somebody else the student has school tomorrow it's a good point okay that's a good point miss dan if you don't mind i don't i don't mind answering no go ahead go ahead thanks uh oh max first of all thank you uh you're always so very well spoken and uh i've been following the uh the youtube announce announcements i've been seeing it because it also goes out on twitter so i've been liking it and retweeting it so keep up the good work with that the chromebooks were here in july on a ship and due to some sort of international trade issue a political issue they were sent back to where they came from where they are this very moment i don't know but our expected shipment date is september 30th give or take three or four days so don't quote me on september 30th it's september 30th give or take a few days uh our tech department tells me that once we receive them within two or two two or three days we will have them distributed to uh to all of our students uh and as for the funding for the team uh the teen center um the governor has stated that he uh that that what the teen center does is valued but that there's not money for it however there is hope that he is going to restore the funding um because it's it's a different type of funding um i couldn't tell you where if that funding is restored where that would come from it could be from anywhere within the state budget but i don't believe it it wouldn't be from anywhere within our local budget so if the funding for the teen center is restored it's not going to take away from any other programs we have in our district believe you're next yep well good evening to everyone my name is lori lalama and i'm the president of the clifton education association and i would like to start off by first thanking i want to thank the teachers the paraprofessionals the nurses the child study teams the counselors the custodians the secretaries i want to thank the supervisors the vice principals the principals janina kusalevich mark tisian marc gingaro michael lucy dr robert tosie and because we have all worked together and this is something that hasn't been done in many districts and i really want to take that opportunity to thank everybody because this has been so difficult on everybody and we have worked very hard together and i hope that the community and the parents understand this because we only want what's best for the children and to make sure and the staff to make sure that we're all safe and we're all healthy because the worst thing would be to have somebody bring it home to their family so i really appreciate everything that's been going on the next part for people that don't know what really happened and and dr robertosi already explained it an electronics company used by lenovo the heffel bitland information technology company is one of the 11 companies in china that the u.s commerce department has imposed trade sanctions against due to alleged human rights violations according to the article that i read lenovo is no longer working with this company and is and is bringing three new factories online so this was the reason why this was a state and east coast problem the next thing does the facilities committee go and look at the work that's being done since you're in the committee because if you do i would like to tag along since i'm on a facilities committee too and i know that mr kenova you came through with dr robert tosi in the beginning when he first started to check out different schools so i would just like to find out see if that committee goes and actually looks at the projects that are done and then um i know the staff would love to see the board of ed back in person same thing with the hybrid if people you know have medical notes or or need accommodations but we would like to see you know everybody back in person for board of ed meetings too so if we're back you know for the most part we'd like to see the boarded up of ed members back too so this is um all i have right now and i hope everybody has a very nice weekend thank you thank you miss llama next up we have um andrea and then chloe popowicz good evening how is everyone um my name is andrea orrock and i'm at work at school 12.
um what we have on here that for discussion is the meals backpacks restrooms bus routes we're going to add to bus routes where possible right so i'm going to take that one off because we're just going to add where possible on that so let's start at the top with meals are we all okay with next month saying if our numbers don't skyrocket um we go to two lunches and get them in the lunch room yeah so kind of see what what happens now or do you guys want something different i mean the plan is already set right now so they've already worked to you know make the whatever happen so i would say i'm playing with waiting month on the lunches mr president i could suggest that you say meals in classrooms until further notice and then that lets us change that when we need to or my original uh suggestion to you uh uh which was uh well on that one superintendent discretion superintendent answer next month and i think everybody wants to know exactly what's going to happen there so is everybody okay any objections to that i'm fine with waiting yes sir [Laughter] that'd be awesome that'd be awesome all right okay so we're all in agreement with that visiting that next month yeah that it definitely would that it definitely would so mr president would you like us to change the wording on that i think we can just put until further notice and then next month we'll have that on next meeting and we'll discuss it and get that because i think we're all in agreement unless we see a huge skyrocket in numbers we're going to be opening up our lunches the backpacks what's your recommendations for backpacks bring a backpack it's going to be a train wreck if these kids don't have backpacks kindergartners can barely carry one item let alone their lunch their water bottle their jacket they're going to lose things we're going to have an astronomical lost and found i think everybody should be able to bring their backpack with school items only and like i said before that's a classroom management yeah and i think it's very doable uh any can we say with school related items only i don't and give examples like lunch box water bottle maybe if we do that as a thing we can recommend recommended school items so any objections to that because already they're not supposed to bring toys you know so just with the recommendation of what to bring in your backpack yes but backpacks we're taking out the no backpacks yeah all right okay the restrooms what's your suggestions for the restrooms wash your hands and go to the bathroom i'm sorry just wash your hands wash them before you leave the classroom wash them when you get in the bathroom wash them when you get back to the classroom okay that one the restrooms is not in this bullet list unless i'm missing it it's elsewhere it's elsewhere where we can fix it though so you tell me how you want it fixed yeah you tell me how you want it fixed one i mean isn't the school rule already one person at a time per classroom yeah isn't that already our school rule i know um at least one school has um set times while they did when i was teaching set times to go to the restroom for classes um but there was always students who did need to go some students do have bathroom issues and need to go more frequently which is you know not the best idea for a teacher i was always like okay if you have to go you have to go but um if they want to schedule a class time i think that it's depending on the school because i know some schools do but i think we also need to be realistic that students can't always wait till that designated time one of our current handbook rules is that students can cannot go to the restroom during direct instruction so if you're okay with us maintaining that that is in our handbooks and so it would still allow students to go as you all are talking about but otherwise we'd have some students who would always be gone during direct instruction why don't we just leave the rule what it is but the sites already have their established setups is that kind of what you're saying and it's consistent across our sites so we can do it relative you know we can do it in in accordance with the handbooks and just take it out of here if you want i would like to see bathroom usage be taken out of here completely okay because it's in the handbook so they already have the rules so we just take that out all right so bathrooms and backpacks are taken out yes um the meals we're gonna see until further notice we'll discuss that the backpacks could be there saying they may bring backpacks with recommended recommended items so it's not taken out it's just changed right yes i just want to be clear all right bus routes when uh where possible we're adding that to there did i miss anything now this is like we've like dr stewart said the beginning this is a living document so as as we go things can change and if you have things that come up that we need to discuss we already have things we're talking about next meeting we can absolutely do that um but i do want to commend uh our staff they've done a they took on a a pretty pretty hefty challenge here and um i think even though i wanted to see us back sooner um the 28th was was the right call i think we did we did good there um so congratulations to the staff you guys did a great job um on their behalf thank you they have worked hard yeah yes we i appreciate that too i i agree and i feel like in comparison to other districts in our area we are very organized and the communication has been nice and our documents work when you need to use them thank you kudos to our district for being able to do all that forth that yes yes all right i i also did include just as a point of information for you you got another little attachment with that and somehow i don't have mine in front of me oh yeah the uh the handbook for no the other one the handbook for virtual we had we did publish this on the website and i had forgotten to uh share it with you earlier but when we presented the hand handbooks for your we indicated that there would probably be supplements to those based on the circumstances so this has been published in and has been shared with parents through this whole phase one and will continue uh and it's in english and spanish on the website can now what are we doing about the cameras are they the cameras on uh for the virtual uh in you mean from the teachers the the students are their cameras on yes they have to be on okay because that's my biggest problem is you know icons i absolutely hate teaching to an icon and we've at the high school district they've been very lenient on that idea however now if they must have it on and i would i mean that's not on here unless i'm missing it um it's we yeah we expect that the student has it on during the direct instruction if the teacher the virtual teacher gives the student a little assignment to go do because we don't want we don't want the little guys on you know on there there's instruction going on needs to be no i think it needs to be in the expectations that during instruction the the camera must be on okay and not these oh am i i'm having internet issues i'm having no no no no no your camera must be on so okay yeah i'll make sure we get that added thank you yeah yeah because i that that's a big that's a problem i definitely have so i would like to see that yeah i know it's kind of a new a new area but i mean maybe under expectations of parents and students i know we've got younger kids who are home with siblings and the older siblings are trying to do their classwork while still trying to watch under the younger siblings i mean if there's discipline issues that we need to deal with maybe have a little bit more leniency for first time offenses for things yeah we've it hasn't been a huge problem i will tell you that that 99 of the kids have been wonderful 99 of the time um the the one percent who've been not so good um have been not so good so uh but the teachers are doing an amazing job even of managing behaviors on uh you know on on online and i think they're also i think they've also learned some interesting you know the the student who can't sit still you know can still be attending but it's certainly less distracting to everybody else in the class when the student is bouncing around at home and not bouncing around in the classroom so lots of lots of good things are happening relative to that but discipline's been not a huge huge issue yeah our staff has really stepped up um yes like i've got to see um i get to watch one of my fellow teachers um an amazing job amazing job um so i have i don't know if you've kind of seen me in the background i kind of drop in and kind of see what's going on and i'm impressed it's it's way better than i ever thought i would never be able to do it is it is fantastic and i know that's just one little glimpse into what we're seeing from so much of our staff and they've changed the entire way you teach and i was i shared this with you last time i was absolutely blown away with how awesome it was and is that student in mrs cotter's class yes yes he's he's one of the fellow teachers at the high school sons and uh i get to see every day um what's going on and it's it's awesome fantastic fantastic i just can't say enough how impressed i am and that's and i will tell you corey that's really consistent across all of our sites with all of our teachers um they have really really really stepped up it's it makes me very proud to be an educator and it certainly makes me proud for this district i've not heard a single complaint about an elementary district teacher yet good absolutely fabulous i hope you didn't jinx it thank you now they've been at it long enough they're pros now all right uh we don't need to we've already done our action right we're not approving anything on the return return to school plan um if you're all okay with not doing it as a as a motion if you're just okay with you know saying yep this is good and then what i will do tomorrow is i will send you the proposed revisions that you have requested and uh and if you approve those tomorrow then we will get them posted no later than monday but hopefully yet tomorrow all right we're all okay with that oh my gosh we still got all that new business [Laughter] yeah was doug good with that too doug you okay with that okay moving on to item 4.1 regulation gcca our professional support staff paid time off dr stewart thank you mr president and board members this looks really crazy it's because of the way that what happens when kim goes on to asba and and fixes it it will look good when it comes back out the only real change here is because we issue our contracts to our teachers and our other and our other certified employees based on number of hours worked per year as opposed to days work per year we needed to make sure that this policy reflected that so that's really the only thing is there's one line being added in here that has the hours corresponding to those days and it just looks weird so that's the only change it is a regulation you can vote on it tonight any questions on the regulation okay i'll move we approve item 4.1 regulation gcca r second all in favor aye corey burgess hi randy dubois hi janie borland so moved item 4.2 gcd professional support staff vacations and holidays dr stewart thank you mr president same thing here added that one line and got a whole bunch of red yep got a whole bunch of red and a bunch of stuff but it's exactly the same thing all we're really asking is to include those hours so that so that our policy matches our practice which is kind of backwards but yeah any questions on that regulation okay then i will move that we approve the first reading oh that's a reading sorry thank you oh yeah oh yeah sorry sorry it's a it's a policy all right uh first reading of policy aca sexual harassment dr stewart mr president members of the board this is the policy that i referred to in my uh the information i shared with you from the asba law conference and it is a first reading so you have some time to go through it but you will notice that it significantly changes some of the practices and um safeguards but this is matching the new law this is matching the law yes okay any questions at this time that that is a first reading so if you do have some we can have for the next meeting uh first reading of policy acaa title ix sexual harassment this is a new policy i think it's yeah it's a new policy and it is the other piece of change from that change in the federal law for title ix so this is a first reading and so you have plenty of time to look at it before next month so once again a first reading so if you have any after reviewing if you have any questions we can discuss that next month uh item 4.5 fox creek ice machine dr stewart the ice machine at fox creek is used by fox creek sunrise and occasionally ice is taken to diamondback so it's a workhorse and it has been repaired multiple times and is beyond repair we put out requests for for quotes on it and in fact had to go searching because we really only got one response and the response the initial response seemed awfully expensive to me so i had molly make some phone calls including to that original vendor and got a way better price that you can see in the agenda and so i recommend that you approve that we purchase a replacement ice machine for box creek and by the way this is not an item that we can refer to sfb because it does not directly relate to students and instruction any questions okay we did follow all of our procedures absolutely any problems there okay all right then i would like to move that we approve the ice machine for fox creek high second randy dubois all in favor aye corey burgess hi i'm doug hi brandi dubois hi janie borland item 4.6 ac for the music room at diamondback mr president members of the board this is an item that has been shuffled back and forth between our district and the sfb since february if you recall when i originally presented the proposed capital outlay budget to you i indicated that i had put a line item in for us to replace some things that seemed to take forever with sfb ie air conditioners and after submitting it multiple times and having it sent back right after i sent the original agenda to you we received word from sfb that once again we needed to modify this request to be repair of this air conditioner this air conditioner is old enough we can't even find the records for when we purchased it and it has been repaired multiple times we went through the quote process which we have to do anyway if we're submitting to sfb and i'm recommending to you that as a district we go ahead and replace this air conditioner and stop playing the games with them the low quote is nine thousand dollars any questions about the air conditioner all right i would move that we approve the ac for diamondback music room can i get a second all in favor aye corey burgess i abstain brandon oh sorry hi douglas hi genie borland abstain brandy dubois thank you item 4.7 adoption of proposed extra duty stipends mr president board members this is our annual process of approving positions and approving the folks to go into those positions and so you have the names and the positions in front of you there's no change in the amount paid for any of these positions they are the same as they have been in previous years and on each list you can see the funding source so for proposed club addendums that's a budgeted line in our m o budget which you approved in july the team leader positions are in the m o budget and the classroom or the committees the district committees are paid from classroom site fund i recommend that you approve all three of these okay i will move that we approve item 4.7 the proposed extra duty stipends hi second all in favor aye corey burgess hi brandy dubois hi jeannie borland so fast thank you uh can i ask that we move four nine in front of four eight can we do that let's let's jump down to four nine uh new board member uh discuss that one first as we're sitting right now we have a full board coming in uh we actually have two new board members coming in in the election cycle however we do have what one vacancy right now a vacancy right now that we could fill um i had made a recommendation and then forgot about it and didn't follow up and that's my fault but i would like to appoint uh and send that recommendation for an appointment to mike file in kingman to fill that vacant seat at this time any questions comments questions mr president does do we have some folks that are running that mike would be able to look that yes sir that was going to be my recommendation okay we have two individuals that will be joining us um and my recommendation was to appoint one of those to join us now because they will be on the board in december anyways january january sorry i agree all right all right i'd like to uh nominate charlene diaz to join us on the board i second that do we have any other nominations at this time okay uh i would like to call for vote uh to approve charlene diaz as a recommendation to mike file for appointment to our board uh all in favor aye corey burgess aye brandi dubois hi genie borland all right so moved now on to 4.8 asba delegates and alternate mr president last month you were ball and told more or less to be the delegate when mrs burleson went to the to the website to register you for that position it will not let you let us register a delegate unless we have a an alternate so open for your all discussion on who might be the alternate this will be a virtual session this year so nobody has to go anywhere uh and um but i suspect it's gonna going to wrap up the better part of one day kind of we sent the word out and asked um didn't get much response sent it out too i had a great response so you're volunteering i'm volunteering ms diaz i nominate her great thank you i like it and since she's not here to defend herself can we get that handled to get her on the board and timely manner submit that um she's already been discussed with right yeah kim did talk with her and then and then brandy contacted kim right after that so unless brandy really wants to do it it doesn't matter to me it's up to you guys mrs diaz can do it i thought she had more time on her hands being retired and all yeah especially since we're not using her at diamondback right now so all right okay we'll make that happen thank you do we need a motion on that or it's probably a good idea to have a motion we had a sport i nominate miss diaz to be the alternate i'll second that all in favor aye corey burgess doug you there we might have lost him he's like you you replaced hi brandy dubois hi jeannie borland so moved okay item 5.1 future topics do we have any future topics other than the meals for the the next meeting um i guess we'll see what the next few weeks bring us all right so uh upcoming event is that uh delegate assembly on the 17th uh from eight to twelve and they'll send hopefully after we register because we haven't seen anything yet so i don't um but yeah great we'll get that done and our last item is setting a time for the future mini meeting does october 15th work seems fine is that our normal thursday that's our normal thursday right yeah um no need for a workshop this time we're good there's no future topics so all right so just set our meeting october 15th at 5 30 p.m we're all good for that okay so our last item is a motion to adjourn i make a motion we adjourn that's fast i'll second that all in favor aye corey burgess hi randy dubois hi genie borland we are adjourned thank you [Music] you
it's marked as tbd because we're not sure how we're going to have uh it usually as a public open forum we talk about various committee topics finance planning et cetera here in town count the chambers i'm not sure how we're going to do that with covid so um i'm not sure that is going to happen but i'll work with the board and superintendent see what we could try to do worst case we'll repurpose that meaning for something else if needed or try find an alternate way to do an open forum i think that's sometime this year october 6 2020 there's a policy committee meeting at 6 30 p.m we'll be virtual october 15th is the next board of education business meeting 7 30 p.m here in town council chambers october 19th 2020 is a current committee meeting at 7 p.m uh and it'll be a virtually over youtube channel i do have a motion to um adjourn an executive session um i move that the meeting be injured into the executive session to include dr sullin mr massiana miss solano to discuss unit negotiations with no action to follow it's very second uh actually and beat both of you ann seconds all those in favor thank you we will be adjourning executive session there will be no action to follow hence there'll be no follow-up meeting for those of you watching this evening thank you so much for sticking through this hopefully uh you got a lot of good information to begin the meeting on the reopening some culvert concerns please contact us via the code email if you have any further questions and be happy to get back to you all so we're gonna go dark at this point you
i'm also the pride and fast chair for the clifton education association each year the clifton education association provides free events for the community and we also co-sponsor events at different schools last year for example we provided a lunch buffet for our veteran assemblies at woodrow wilson we did stem nights at different schools we did pumpkin painting and other different craft nights this year we'll be hosting different events with social destiny and safety guidelines in mind our first event we are hoping to shoot for in october and we would just like to let the community know we're hoping to do virtual events such like story time with santa more craft nights paint nights and we're hoping to connect with local pizzerias to do pizza kits so we can do pizza um cooking at home so it's a nice way to interact with our families in the clifton community um we also would like you please everyone to follow us at twitter at cliftonteachers and at instagram at clifton education for upcoming events and we hope everyone has a safe and healthy 2020-21 new year thank you thank you okay just to queue up the next couple of folks here we have chloe popowicz and then robert pariser and then mary geary chloe hello apocalypse i'm a student at clemson high school clemson student union and girls international is holding a voter registration drive on september 21st to 25th during high school photographing week we ask all students and faculty to register to vote if they have a wedding you must be 17 to register or can't vote until 18.
we would like to extend the drive to include to include the clifton community we asked the board of education to post about registering to vote through through all file or through their own and post on the clifton school page and every page in the district website about registering to vote and pass for the wichita drives we were successful and we were hoping this thing for this one thank you may i just ask quickly what is the date again december 24th through 25th okay well we just send me any information that you want posted on our website and social media you can email that directly to me and i'll take care of it okay thank you you're welcome if you're speaking if you're not a student if in the chat you can just type your name and your address thank you unless you're on the telephone then you'll just have to say it um mr goldman you're here for later in the meeting is that correct uh correct everyone hi everyone i'm here for the executive session so okay so we're gonna move on to got it um thank you we're gonna move on to mary geary and then sash walker mary if you can hear us it's your turn to speak okay we're going to move on to sash walker sash you're muted so if you unmute hi good evening everyone i'm sash walker from 45 doherty drive and i have a quick question i have a daughter and i'm school number two and her teacher is now doing remote but she's also slated to do in person when the schools reopen so my question is will there be a dedicated person for the remote students after we reopen um if we lose um our teacher or will she still be expected to do the remote students at the same time as she's teaching the kids in person thank you miss walker dr robert ozil answer at the end of the comments thank you thank you just watch the live stream thank you you're welcome the only other um public comment is call-in user one if you can hear me call in user one please unmute you have five minutes okay calling user one that's you go ahead yes my name is peter patinski i live at 78 venice road um i'm just i met coleman earlier about earlier in the meeting um i'm wondering why the teachers are still being sent into the school when no students when no students are being sentenced into the school and mr canola has stated that the board of ed meetings are being are not being done in person because there's no public people can be there well there's no students going to the school so why do the teachers have to be in the school why is the board of ed treating this differently than with the teachers um five of you voted to put teachers back into empty buildings i think it's hypocritical um i think the five was percentage canova avenger daily and miss beltran um it's put it i believe that is putting the teachers at risk sending them into the buildings and when the district endured a massive budget cuts from the state when why open buildings and waste money on electricity and and additional cleaning i think it would be safer and more efficient if teachers were home and going virtual with the studio if that's the route the board wants to take my opinion is this district could learn a lot from wayne school districts and copy what they're doing i think students and teachers alike should be back in school that's that's that's my bottom opinion on it but if you're gonna go the route you guys are going it's it's backwards for for lack of a better term and i think that a border fed would be and i know this isn't a requirement anywhere in for most towns but i don't understand how when it comes down to something like this there's nobody on the board that i'm aware of that has teacher certifications or or degrees in dealing with or experience in dealing with students or teaching students and and or pandemic or anything like this and they're making decisions for these kids and for these teachers and what people think is best for them when there's no experience in working with kids anyway they should bring in more experts other than the doctor to help with making these decisions for better education for the students if you're not going to send them back to school okay um so we will uh board members can comment um after a board member after a public comment is closed so thank you very much i think that was all miss danny okay you none motion to close miss danny second uh motion by mr object second by uh vice chair basford next order of business is board member comments and i believe we start with you mr canova okay good evening um as my daughter begins to cry in the background so i do have a 10 day old here so let's uh just bear with me for a second um so a couple of things that uh i just want to answer uh i guess one starting with the the person who spoke last the decisions we're making here to reopen are not made by the board of ed those decisions are made by dr robertosi and his team those are the professionals in the industry they're working with professionals from clifton and uh in health working in the regulations and and the rules set forth that we have so our vote is simply just a uh a show of support for for his decisions and i think personally i think he's been making great decisions um i i know personally i do have two daughters in the district and uh every wednesday teachers are remote and sometimes the teacher will say oh you know i have something here to show you but i don't have it's in the classroom right now the teachers tools are in the classrooms so i understand why a situation where a teacher is in a classroom can be beneficial because everything is there there's no distractions you have your board you have all the digital technology it's all laid out in front of you the network is controlled by the network administration in the clinton district you don't have to worry about other people sucking up and what not in situations at home uh i can understand whether those decisions were made uh and that as dr robert jose said before we may all be going in anyway on the 12th so it's all a remote point uh and i do support the board of ed going back so i do concur with you on that um as for uh mr lama you did ask about the finance of uh rather the facilities committee yes dr robertos and i did do a walk through at all the schools uh and that's when i got to see everything when we do have our committee meetings we are shown some images of things that they feel are wrong or not working correctly or broken and then usually after that we see some some images of things that are fixed so we have seen some of those before it doesn't happen all the time uh just depends on the situation and possums that brought up what we talked about but um we could ask for more of those and see you know more of what's going on in the district um and as the student brought up uh max he brought up how there are our youtube channels right now where we're doing broadcast for i think it was channel one when i was back in school that they showed prior you were in a whole room and they would show a channel one show um i wonder if that's possible to show before students connect so i know my daughter connects 15 minutes earlier i wonder if the teachers could just connect and stream that and play that youtube video while people are connecting so that students could get on and have sort of that camaraderie and you know hearing the happenings that are going on in the city and things that are going on and just draw people together maybe that could be something positive that we see you know lately all we see is never as negative things and talking about all these coveted issues and issues of social distancing maybe we should start trying to uh bring the community back together again i think that could be a good way to do it and another point is i saw i i heard somebody bring up something about you know reopening and how some people may have to stay home and still stay remote i wonder if we should be sending out a new survey as we get closer because there were meetings where i remember we were talking about aftercare and child care and some parents had opted and said you know now that i hear this i may want to keep my kid home or i may want to send them in so i think some things may change as we get closer and we probably should send out another survey as we get closer just to get a gauge on what's really going to happen when we get in in session um that's all my comments i had for tonight thank you mr canopa mr daily [Music] thank you madam president um brief uh first of all on meetings um i am personally supportive of uh having the meetings in public with the exception that anybody has any issues that it also be done virtually i just want to make sure i'm sure the administration will make sure but obviously one of the most important aspects of having a meeting in public is having the mask and the mess and the way you wear it it's not only the mask and the way you wear it needs to conform to cdc uh regulations so you need to have it over your mouth and nose um you can't have any breathing the portals those are not no longer deemed to be effective so i i'm sure dr robitozzi will consult with our health officer in the city to have that that goes uh so i'm i'm all in on the hybrid uh and i think we should be in public uh because i think i'm also very supportive of education in the classroom with a caveat that we need to be as safe as possible and that's not the case but um i've spoken about this at every board meeting and nobody seems to have a reaction to it um the health officer has reported to us that the biggest spikes in clifton is amongst individuals under 19 years of old so they're out wherever they are and congregating and that's how you get this spread so the parents uh have a responsibility in opening the schools if we have a big spike because where we have a a lot of infections um you know it makes it impossible for the the superintendent to make a decision yeah we're going to open it and we if we're having infections all over the place so uh the parents are playing need to play a role in aiding the ability for us to open the schools and keep them open during this process so there is a responsibility it's not just the board of education and overall the state is mandating most of what we can and cannot do in these roles so um uh and i know the administration from top to bottom have done a tremendous job and an extremely difficult situation this is uh unprecedented we haven't had anything since the early 1900s like this affect the whole population of the country and its world nobody can travel even to other countries uh more or less sometimes other states but you know travel to international destinations is virtually shut down uh so this is a worldwide pandemic we have to be smart about it as as as one of the governors says but you have we have to be uh with the right precautions i think we can do it but everybody it's not just the board of ed everybody needs to do the right thing here and making doing the best we can to not spread any infections and that that starts with mass and social separation um i'd like to thank mr rubin thank you for your comments as always it's always enjoyable to hear from the students and of course uh miss la lama always great to hear from you and i also like to thank all the the citizens who who've made their uh um made their comments here tonight uh we do listen um and we do take a lot of information that uh the superintendent and staff um gathers to give us uh the best guidance uh both for him and for us and how we proceed in this in this uh pandemic that will include comments i wish everybody a fun autumnal equinox which will be in a couple of days so i don't know if everybody knows what that is but i'll let you figure it out thank you mr president thank you mr daley mr casper thank you madam president happy spring to you too mr daley a happy fall i should say or one depends on how you say it um i'd first like to thank all the speakers that came out this evening um we do take your your comments to heart um talking about going back to school um as much as i'd like to go back into my classroom with my students it is quite tough teaching from a computer as well so i can just imagine how our students are feeling at home uh learning from a computer uh sitting in front of a computer for three straight hours before i even having a break is quite tough for myself um so i'm looking forward to going back to school once i uh once my district opens up as well um also going back to uh having the board go back in person as long as uh it is safe to open back on the 12th floor our students i see that um we should also lead by example and should be in in person as well for those of us that can make it um we should be we should show our students and our staff uh that we're in it with them um and lastly i'd like to thank all of our retirees for your uh dedication to our district and i'd like to thank the two groups that had made a donation to our district uh this time around uh happy autumn everybody and i'll see you in october thank you mr casper mr smith yeah i'm not going to prolong uh my comments too much as i have voiced my opinion numerous times i think my board members are incorrect by saying we're leading by example the example would be to do the safe and correct thing and not put anyone in our buildings until it's uh it's appropriate and safe and um i think dr roberto since schools have gone back uh in session uh there were f five new districts today that were in person that infections resulted in the school and they now are not remote and i believe we said we would watch these other districts that opened up in person and learn from them and then go accordingly so i'm a little surprised that we're still shooting for an october 12th opening if more districts continue to close because they opened and there's infections um i just think we're leading for trouble um and it's it's dr robitosi's call but as a board member i will continue to voice my displeasure for it um i don't think that's leading by example for the board to go back in person if anything you're leading into the problem um so i can't agree with that at all many people have come up and and i sympathize with so many people and i and i wish i s i had the answer here and i and i think dr robitosi wishes he had the answer and the governor wishes he had the answer and right down the line i wish we had the answer nobody asked for this pandemic nobody invited it nobody wants it we want it gone we want kids back in school but we're gonna do it safely that has to be done i understand that kids are not learning at the same level i understand that and i sympathize with that but at some point they're gonna get back in school this virus is gonna go away and they will be back in school they will be educated in buildings and in schools it is going to happen at some point and i just asked everyone to be a little bit more patient but nobody asked for this stupid thing i wish it was gone tomorrow i wish we could have a huge party tomorrow and open up our schools and celebrate and that's just not reality as mr daley said that's just not what our world is facing right now but to put people in harm's way i will not support that so with more districts closing i believe since this all started and school had gone back i believe there are 18 districts in the state of new jersey that were in person that are now not look at the city of new york look what they're scrambling to do that their buildings are not safe yet to put kids back into school so they were smart enough today and made adjustments to their calendar we did it we'll look at it again october 1st and i would hope that if it's still unsafe i know and trust our administrators and dr robitazi that he's not going to put people back in an unsafe situation and our teachers should be teaching remotely and should not be in schools at this time until it's safe ask our board to reconsider the two public sessions because we don't abide by them anyway the public is tremendously confused um supposedly the first session is for agenda items i don't think one person tonight smoke on an agenda item and i'm not i'm not putting the blame on the public at all it's it's confusing having two public sessions ask the public to come to the microphone once on whatever they wish to talk about whether it's an agenda item or it's a personal item they have stop confusing the public uh morning announcements max i i watch i watch the morning announcements every morning uh you guys are doing a great job and people are watching it and you're getting information out to your fellow students so keep up the good work and um chloe i thank you for bringing uh that date and that information to us um and uh if board members do not know uh the band is uh the band parents are selling krispy kreme donuts as a fundraiser um if you haven't had a krispy kreme doughnut see dr robitozzi smiling i know i get him to smile uh please try and support your uh band i believe tovah is handling the orders um you could uh email her or get in touch with her um but uh if there's any other announcements uh like that if the board could get uh notification on those things uh we surely like to announce them here and we also like to be aware of all the fundraising going on thank you that's all i have thank you mister smith mr abedrabo give me danny mr smith the best way actually this is not eating the krispy kreme doughnut it's actually seeing it being made just fyi uh that to me is actually more filling um and less calories let me start off by saying as a you know school 16 parent the tricky tray being held outside and i know it was discussed during the meeting they will be camped outside with their cars and lawn chairs and and being done all outside so i give them kudos for doing that as a new 16 school parent i want to you know seeing my kids again i've said this as a board member doing things safe as a parent i want my kids out of the house by 6 30 a.m even way before school starts waiting at the door uh it's difficult it really is um and for my pre-k kids the special the special services that he that he needs as well um it's not it's hindering it's not helping being out we've done things safe let's go back to our original meeting when we had a 5'4 vote or 5'3 vote whatever it may be to go back to school we saw what you know we we heard our teachers we heard the public that going back into paul into uh remote and seeing what the governor all said about remote we did it we took the precautions um these kids are honestly from a parent perspective these kids aren't learning as much as they should be to how far we can go in the school district in the school year with without really sitting in the back and hindering them absolutely is is problematic but it's also problematic that we have these kids and students i'm sorry kids students and and administrators and teachers to make sure that they are safe that these 300 some 250 committee members came together and made sure that it's done safely again i give kudos to his administration um i'm willing to put my two kids in the hands of the superintendent and that's and i don't trust many people my kids um so you know i asked our parents do the same uh and our districts do the same and he's going to make that that smart decision safely as best as he can and i and i've said it before and i still stick 100 behind her superintendent that he'll make the right decision with his administration for our students um it was mentioned that public portions confusing yes i agree it is confusing and i think more of a reason to take our hand at being in person uh if anybody can if people can make it they can make it if they can't there is other options to do so to make sure everybody is safe in their own personal health issues and physical issues so it'll it'll be interesting to see how the next few weeks happen it's it's it's a school year that trust me nobody wants to have it's a school year that people can wish away 2020 and hope 2021 january 1st in the morning that all this is gone um but we need to take it week by week day by day and roll the punches as best we can and trust our administration will make the best decision they possibly can you know we have great experts uh to um the parent our resident who spoke said that we don't have teachers we have two teachers on our board who who have their own uh day-to-day operations that they see and i'm sure they keep it in mind when when they discuss um board school returns on the board and and the rest of us too i mean we have great board members who bring various expertise to the board um and i i trust the sport i trust this administration and let's see what the next few weeks brings thank you you're muted miss danny sorry um miss beltram hello sorry um i was actually just about to on a light note gonna call out frank casper on not sending me a birthday card but he just did i just found it in the mail so frank you're safe although you didn't wish me a happy birthday and you wish everyone else happy birthday so i'm a little offended but it's okay i'll i'll i'll move along it's i'll live um i just want to say thank you for all the teachers uh for getting into the groove and doing the best to educate children i know all the parents at first were a little shocked by our first couple of days which were just intro but the kids will learn that um you know they'll get into the groove and in college too the whole first week they call it syllabus week so it's a little bit of a practice for higher ed when your first week of school is just saying hello and getting um getting all of your materials together and i hope that the chromebooks will be here soon so everything will start going a little bit smoother and i'm hopefully that we'll see all the students back in the classroom i was pleasantly surprised to hear danny i'm so positive that hopefully we'll be able to get back in by our hopeful deadline of october i think it's beneficial to the students as well as the administration our society as a whole to get the students back into some sort of structured learning environment there's very limited time for some students especially special needs to learn certain skill sets and i'm really afraid that we're going to leave some children behind for their entire lives by missing um speech levels and and different socialization skills that can only be developed within certain points of the brain development and i hope that everyone continues to stay safe and makes the best choices for you and your family that is the key to this you have to make the best choice for you and your family if you feel afraid that we have the virtual option even for the board members we have the hybrid option um so i really think that as long as you're making the best choices for you and your family you shouldn't really worry too much about the choices that everyone else is making it's really coming down to personal responsibility and with that said for tonight um hope everyone has a good start to autumn and um enjoy the cool weather this weekend thank you miss beltram miss uh vice chair bassford hi good evening everyone um to the last caller uh i want to just reiterate what mr abu drabble has said we have two educators on our board actually this um the members of this board we have almost 11 000 students that we call our own uh and so we do take pride uh we do our due diligence we work really hard people do not realize the number of hours that are spent by this board on committee meetings on advocating on their own going to different meetings all over the state having a chance to use our voice to make sure that um we're we're we have a seat at the table and that we are doing our due diligence for every single child and family in this district um so um by saying that we don't know what we're doing um is is is hurtful and it's offensive that's my new buzzword for the week offensive to the two educators that sit on this board and the other members that have put a lot of time into this um this this volunteer role we don't get paid so um i just it's hard to hear that um uh watching some of the comments this week on different facebook pages is hurtful as well uh uh people don't realize that we're trying to make the best decision in uncharted waters these are uh extraordinary times uh every district that i have the pleasure of listening to i was on a state meeting on saturday morning before i started my work and there's all the legislative districts and everybody was talking about not being able to accommodate their their their members of their community because of just different various reasons and that everybody has to be mindful that we're trying the best we can with what we are given it's not easy no matter if we put everybody back in school for two days a week somebody would complain about that a half a day a week somebody would complain about we we made decisions based on the facts that were given to us by the experts in this town the people that know our numbers the best and we made the decision to hold the children out of school for the reason that was given to us and some reasons that we can't disclose we were given that's why we made the decision is is it the best no but are we trying to make it the best yes and on that note dr robitazi i'm going to call you tomorrow because i i am struggling with the um the comments that were made by one of the special needs mom it was very hard to hear her um speak about the the um her child and um i i think as a creative group we can think of some out of the box uh accommodations for the students that are really struggling unless we're told we don't know if nobody tells us what's going on at home we don't know what's going on so i'm sure the education committee maybe they can have a pop-up or maybe we can all give dr robert says he an email on what things that we have but i have some ideas that i think would help in a in a quasi way until we go back to full day um three times in the last two weeks i had max this is to you i had the opportunity and the privilege to advocate for the student-based youth service program one at our legislative meeting with the 34th legislative um district members and senator nia gill actually gave us her word that that was on her agenda and she was not going to let up on the governor one at the legislative meeting i took 10 minutes to speak to my colleagues and i have all of them emailing the governor now from every legislative group in the state of new jersey asking him to keep that student base use program because i know for a fact personally how valuable it is at the high school and how what they do for our district but the highlight of my week was on tuesday when i was on a zoom meeting with the governor and i submitted my question about a week ago and he called me out and he actually answered the question about the program so um it's it's good that we all use our voices whenever we can so anybody wants to reach out to the governor be my guest it's the student based youth services program that we are concerned about because in this time of isolation in this time of need our students need that service even more um jim uh when it comes down to everybody's comfort level that's what i uh respect on the board if people want to go back in person as long as everybody socially distanced and keep comfortable i have to i have to respect that and i also have to respect the board members that don't want to go back in person it's it's about comfort it's about what you feel safe on um and we have to make sure that we respect the needs of our students our staff members and administration and our board members as well um and on that note if you want to change the structure of the um the two public sessions all you have to do is a new business make a motion and we can bring that up for discussion about eliminating one of them it may be a better idea if we're going to stay remote to change that for now because it is confusing to the general public and they don't know they can come back in for another five minutes and the uh people call in tonight so i kind of chucked it up to the fact is that we had a policy on the on the on the agenda about the reopening plan so when the people talked about their school and their accommodations in the hybrid versus in person and remote i kind of choked it up that they were legally allowed to talk about that so that's all i i think that's about it but um i just wanted to i wish everybody back to school i hope that in the next couple of weeks the numbers stay low and that we get the word from our um health officer that it's a go and we can bring the students back and that we can get everybody back to a quasi upside down inside out backwards normal that we are now living in thank you madam chair good night everybody thank you madam vice chair um so for my comments um first of all i want to thank all of the speakers um second in terms of going back to in-person meetings i'm fine i think that um it's important to obviously think about everyone's situation and be mindful of those that you know have issues and um just be accommodating and especially in this time where many people are um you know very stressed and it's caused a lot of anxiety um one thing i would like to talk about is um i'm an educator and i'm teaching in the virtual setting and i have to say that it is very challenging and it comes with challenges and i've been teaching for 18 years and when you think oh 18 years and it should get easier and this year it was very challenging it was very stressful for me um because you're trying to figure out and if you are in this field and you love children and that's why you did this and that's why i became an educator you want to make the best experience for your students you want to be mindful that they're going through stresses and you know that they are experiencing this new normal and i don't want to i understand that for children with um you know who have some learning disabilities this might be very difficult but i speak to my students every single day and i ask them how are you doing how are you going through these challenges of being virtually and an interesting thing is that they're getting used to it i mean unlike i think adults um children tend to get used to things very quickly now am i saying that we should be virtual for the whole entire time no that's not what i'm saying i'm just saying that maybe look at sometimes a little bit of the silver lining and again i understand that the mom said that you know her child is going through some experiences and i totally get that and like commissioner you know basford said put our heads together and maybe we can do something and we don't know if we don't if we're not told if we don't know what's going on um i know that as an educator you know i'm always asking them and some things that have been interesting for students what they said was that you know they this had they've gained a greater appreciation for their education because they're outside of that setting and this in like mr smith said this isn't forever and i think that um if you're a good teacher um and i thank those teachers of the clifton district um the administrators who are trying to make this work i think that you try to always find some silver lining or some skills that you can teach to the children at this time i tell my students that this is you know how some corporate world works and i tell them that there's skills there's different skills when you are interacting with somebody in this virtual way and you know isn't learning and being in a school and isn't that one thing about you know learning the skills in life and so just this little opportunity and i know that you know dr arbertosi said that you know we'll be you know he anticipates that we'll be back in um you know october so just to take this time and i understand that there are other challenges and i'm not trying to in any way insinuate that um what somebody might be going through in the challenges and and the frustration yes i get that but that you know maybe to try to um impart something of what is some knowledge that you can gather from this experience to say you know this is different in the way we communicate and many of the students say well you know i i really want to get back to school because i want to be able to throw something at someone and get the teacher a little riled up you know we all have a laugh you know because that's the social aspect but i mean let's face it too that when they go back and i do have um you know someone that my nieces and my nephews that have gone back and the social setting is different and they when they go back to school they realize that the social setting is a little different and um for example just one was you know um the classroom's not rotating he's not going out anywhere and he actually thought that it was a punishment for him that he was he's in school with students but because he wasn't rotating um you know he thought it was a punishment and so you know we had to sit down and talk to him and say you know this is what's going on so i think just because the students go into school i think they will find that to be very different and so when i'm with the students i mean that we're in a situation nobody asked for this situation so the way i look at it is that i want to relieve some of their stress i want to relieve some of their anxiety i want to hear how i can make it a better experience and so i'm glad that we had individuals that did call in that shared some of their frustration because then together if we know your frustration as ms bashford said we can collectively put our minds together and we can help you with some challenges that you may be facing because we don't want you to face them and again i mean it you know takes a community to raise the children and we didn't ask for this you know we didn't want it and we want to be obviously safe and i do think that um as mr smith said when we go back which you know i anticipate will be in october as dr robert jose said but i think our new normal might be you know oh somebody in the school um contracted covid and then there'd be protocols and then maybe it'll go back to virtual and for a week or two and it might be very disruptive so i think that um i think the most important thing is that you know we we try as a community to find um a way to help these children cope because that's what i find is that when you talk to them when you ask them what they need that seems to settle them a bit that seems to help them and i'm not saying i have all the answers that's not what i'm saying i'm saying that if i can't find the answers i try to find somewhere else you know a child study team whatever it is principles vice principals administrators everybody to help me um the parents to get on board so that the experience is um the best it can be and as an educator and i think i can speak for a lot of educators there if you're in this and you're in this like 18 years you know five years i mean you made it through that they would say you leave before five years so if you made it after five years you care about your students and i thank you you know the clifton staff clifton administration for the time how frustrating it is that you're there doing your part and i know you're doing the best that you can do and um obviously if i can tell you to work from home me personally it's a profession that doesn't get that much respect i would give you that um but that's not my call um and of course i'm not in the clifton school system i can't see the entire dynamic of it so i have to trust that dr roberto's he knows and from what i understand he's very you know um uh you know if you have issues or things like i know that he's there and he listens so that's all i have to say thank you very much dr robert chozi thank you um [Music] is there feedback okay thank you madam president just want to uh give a brief update on on back to school as you know we started the 2020 school year in a fashion like no other on september 8th with a full remote schedule for the first time in the history of clifton public schools we had the parent portal fully available and remote we know i know there were some hiccups i know there were some issues with some parents having access to the parent portal uh we're working on those we're working on making it easier for everyone to access it but that was a considerable goal of mine from last year that many things could be done through the parent portal and i'm glad that that worked i know there were some bumps uh with students getting into google classrooms and and picking up materials at schools and things like that uh i believe that most of those things have settled down now and have been resolved but parents i encourage you if you're having any issue with with your child and and remote learning please first reach out to their teacher their teacher is going to do their best to help you if the teacher can't resolve the issue the principle is going to help you reach out to the principal if the principal can't resolve the issue please reach out to me and i'll do everything in my power to help you i just want to give a message to to my staff to my teachers to my administrators to all of our support staff you know it's hard to hear people um call in and and say how you know remote learning is not working and i just i don't want any of our staff to take any of that personally because it's not about what our teachers are doing our teachers and our staff and administrators are going above and beyond what's ever been expected of them they're doing something that they've never been trained to do and so the criticism isn't about what you're doing and the job you're doing the criticism is is frustration it's everybody's frustrated everybody's frustrated with this stupid virus and what it has done to our society um i just want you to know from the bottom of my heart you're doing an outstanding job you've you've you've transitioned you've done everything we've asked you to do on the first day of school i met with all the teachers remotely we had three meetings i met with all the elementary teachers middle school teachers and high school teachers and told them we're going to do everything in our power to support them through this so please continue to to do what you're doing and know that you have administration support so reopening is the big question and it's a question that will be decided on october 1st it is true what was said here tonight that several of the districts that have opened um have had to close maybe not fully but individual schools or individual classrooms we need to be prepared for that i want everybody to understand that if we reopen on october 12th we need to be nimble enough to go from hybrid learning to complete remote learning the very next day and how those decisions are made is if there is a covet case if it is a student or an adult we contact the health department the health department will make that decision for us based on contact tracing and how many people were exposed it could be that just a few students need to quarantine it could be that a class gets shut down it could be that a school gets shut down if there is a severe outbreak it could be that the district gets shut down so we need to be prepared for that um that's what's happening in some school district now there are some that have been open and haven't had any issues i'm hoping that if if that's us that we fall into that category but here is the superintendent's dilemma here's my dilemma so um two board members that i have a tremendous amount of respect for mr smith uh mr edraba [Music] both said the same thing they said i trust dr robert tosi to make the right decision and i appreciate the fact that they have trust in me but they both have different views about whether we should reopen so one of them is going to be disappointed or at least one of them is going to think i'm not making the right decision and that's the dilemma it's not just about our board members it's about our community so i'm not going to make the right decision on october 1st i'm just going to let everybody know that now on october 1st i'm going to make the best decision that i can make based upon the available data that i have based on the recommendation of health experts um and that decision is going to make some people happy and some people unhappy and that's why there's a lot of vacancies for superintendents around the state of new jersey um everybody's fleeing it's it's if if superintendents can retire they're retiring um it's not got a long time for me i got i have four kids and they're young so i'm not going anywhere for a long time as long as this board will have me but i just want to be be be clear in that regard i don't know that i can make the right decision because i don't know what the right decision is but we'll do our best to make the best decision and finally um i want to thank our board i don't like the fact that any of our board members were criticized tonight for any reason the board has specific responsibilities that they're in charge of and then i have specific responsibilities that i'm in charge of the board cannot be criticized for decisions that i make that are solely my own so i will take the criticism about having teachers teach from their classrooms there are very good reasons why i made that decision i still believe it's the best decision but that was not a board decision so the board shouldn't have to take criticism on that these board members volunteer their time countless hours to sit in meetings with the administration to set policy to work on the budget to set priorities and i just want you to know that i appreciate what you do and i think the vast majority of our community appreciates what you do it's just that everybody's frustrated with the situation so i'm sorry that you were criticized for tonight tonight for something that really was uh not um had anything to do with you um and know that we appreciate you we appreciate all you do and uh on october 1st um we'll we'll make a we'll make the best decision that we can make thank you thank you dr orbitosi next order of business is new business madam chair i have a correction to make i just want everybody to know that we have three teachers on the board we have two current teachers and one retired teacher uh you yourself um lucy danny frank casper and jim smith is a retired teacher too so uh we we we're in good hands in with the district with the with our decisions thank you madam vice chair uh new business mr smith are you yeah i i i would like to make a motion that um that we suspend uh the two public session uh excuse me yeah the two public sessions and just make it one public session for for the virtual right now and if we could bring it back to committee and look at permanently removing it uh all together i'll give that a second okay motion by mr smith second by mr casper do you want to do a roll call uh madame can i ask yeah um we have this if we're going to go to one have it later on in the meeting so people can really get a good flavor and of what's going on because a lot of times i used to hate when we had the um the three seconds on the agenda and then there would be votes there would be discussions it kind of comes too early in the game so if we could move it down and then listen this way we can hear what everybody can hear about the meetings going on and then voice their opinions that would just be my uh i'm sorry dr robert does that's my opinion again mr abedrabo did you have your and then uh dr robert rosie i i did um mr smith said for the virtual portion of this uh does that mean also for the hybrid when we were back in session as well which is the next meeting uh no we don't have two and we only have one in september right yeah correctly only one in september uh yeah so so i just want a nice one i i just want to i split uh i just want to you know clarify that you know what's the fault because if we're going back into into person next meeting is for hybrid as well or this is tackling our last virtual now good good point i i forgot we only have one meeting in september um so i figured we'd have one more meeting virtual and then it could go to committee to decide how we want to go forward on it but since our next meeting is going to be hybrid i would say uh to continue to do do it as long as there is um not a hundred percent in person um for the public so while we're outside of normal business correct mr casper you're okay with that yes thank you madam president i just wanted to point out that i i do agree if we're gonna go to one public public comment it should be near the end but you have to be mindful that although nobody tonight focused on an agenda item there may be an issue in the future that the public may want to discuss before the board votes on it so i i my my recommendation and i see their lease nodding her head i think legal recommendation would be you could do it later in the meeting but before any formal vote is taken on anything of substance just in case there is somebody who wants public comment on that so can we take a meeting by meeting no i don't think we could predict what the public's going to care about you know i think well i wanted to say see that's why with the chat um if we get everybody to state what it is on the agenda that they are addressing which number on the agenda then we can say okay well if if it's you know when they can't speak to the number on the agenda then you say okay well there'll be a second one uh you know second public comment towards the end so that's why i really thought about that chat and i thought that that was a great option because if they put their name and their address or if their student just their name and which item on the agenda that they are addressing then that really takes that out because if they can't put the number of the agenda that they are addressing what number um on the agenda then they they have to speak later uh da miss beltram because i know you and then um mr daley and mr smith miss beltram yeah i was just going to bring up what um what danny said about it has to be before the vote um just so that we can take comments um from the public whether we have i don't know it's kind of hard to tell like you know if how some how we're gonna know if they're gonna call in for it's hard the hybrid format to do you know to know with only one if we vote before it so i think we're gonna have to somehow either keep two or just do one in the beginning like a long one mr daley yeah i think myself maybe judy also probably remembers uh this uh there was a ruling many years ago it's called the rutgers ruling and what was going on at rutgers is they convene the meeting and then they go into executive session for four hours and not that we're gonna do that and they would come back out and it really stifled public comment so uh you know our our attorney can weigh in but you know you almost have to play this a little bit uh by uh by the situation uh we can't wait forever uh so i would say maybe not the end of the meeting but but maybe just before uh we go get into the agenda but um i you know council can guide guide us and guide the uh the president on on how to make that call when when the public uh comment is appropriate but i know you can't wait forever and have the public at the very end of the meeting because uh if i remember correctly there was a ruling um on open public meetings act because of the rutgers situation well that had to do with the fact that um if i may um just answer that that had to do with the um the fact that they were going to executive session for hours and hours and the public never knew when they were going to be coming back that's why when we go into executive session we always say that we're going to be we're going to take x amount of time and that there will be action taken or there won't be any action taken that way people don't wait around um but whatever you decide you can have you have a policy right now you have a board policy right now that calls for two public comment sections one on items on the agenda so that people can say whatever they want before you vote and then on anything else after you vote you couldn't combine the two but i echo dr robert tosie saw me nodding my head because that's what i wanted to say also i would strongly recommend that you make that if it's going to be one public session and you can do that you can either adopt a new policy or you can suspend that policy for an indefinite period of time and have only one public comment but make it on items on the agenda or off the agenda but before you vote because i don't i don't want you to decide to vote on something and then people speak and it's something that they didn't want to you know they wanted to be heard on so either way i don't know that i think whatever you decide just try to do it consistently because otherwise people will be really confused i think miss gutierrez what you're saying and um from what i've noticed that many of the individuals just tended to speak um at that first one and then we didn't get too many um in the end so um i think that you know at the end it's already you know it's it's done um so i think that you know if we're doing it the first one then what you know it's before we vote so that they can give their opinions on anything that we're going to be voting on so the first one is is perfect where it is number 13 i feel number 13 they're they're giving their opinions on agenda items that we're going to be voting on in after 14.