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it would leave us with three elementary schools three elementary schools total and a new middle and a six through eight middle school sorry so it's the assumption of the k through five building eight through six correct okay thanks thanks adam uh catherine and then faith um i'm not even sure uh so the the options that will go out to the community in this survey are just the first thing that will go to referendum so it's either a sixth grade middle school standalone project or a six through eight middle school and a new elementary school you chat together yes yeah but it doesn't matter but or well it does because chapman's a pretty small school so right so i'm trying to get my wrap my arms around what it is that the community is going to be like sort of pining on so that that would be a new middle school in new elementary school smaller one and then the third one is is just a new elementary school a large er elementary school on the north side of town yes i think you've gotten middle school i think you've got it um without it but but the the balance of the phases will not necessarily be put out there for for any sort of public uh reaction which is fine i'm just trying to understand if people are going to feel like they have enough information to weigh in on one of these three options um but i mean i guess if if the goal is to just start getting a sense of community interest in you know okay which direction do you think makes the most sense then that's fine i just you know it'll be interesting to see what comes back i think catherine i don't really have a question i just wanted to say the the the goal of the survey is to get that back the first couple weeks of march so they're trying to formulate right and so we're trying to form what the questions are going to be so the whole phased we we won't be there yet but if you're coming to the board of ed in the town council by march 1st because the survey needs to start they need x amount of they have to finalize it by the 26th in order to have results in by march 1st the 26th of january yeah okay okay the survey needs to be finalized within the next couple days in order out to get the results back for march but that will give the committee enough time to absorb the results and come to the board and the town council with whatever the final idea is final plan i'm i'm sorry you don't know no it's it it's a it's a good it's a good question i mean the survey the survey results are going to come later than smc oops informing my town it's that's alive okay but that's okay um let me talk just briefly about the survey um we have we did finalize it just this evening prior to this meeting and um but then it needs to go to the to the whole it was just a communication subcommittee that um finalized it with the um tomorrow i think tomorrow it will be sent to all of um the school modernization committee members so that our next wednesday meeting we can approve it um and then that's what gets started so the survey is done by telephone and it's it's pretty involved and it gives the three scenarios uh for phase one and it shows um monthly dollar amounts that your tax taxes would increase um on an average home to cars and that's all stated in the service so it's a phone survey that's going to get 400 responses and then in addition to that it will it will go out on the internet and um people can can fill out the survey but that's not going to be what's analyzed the 400 phone calls uh part of the survey are what will be analyzed that's what they've determined but we will get additional information because we're anticipating that quite a few people will um if they don't get called uh we'll want to see what the what information is there and in that way we also just get we'll be able to get a lot of information out to people about the project thank you ian uh before i turn out of faith once and on something so uh yes was last night um just for expediency uh ssc members will be able to see the survey and if we have any feedback we're going to send it to rich jen and chuck we'll collect and quality and by the 27th i think rich in a committee we'll have some answers for those questions so i would definitely think that the only uh and i'll send this feedback to the group as well but my concern is if the survey just focused on the first phase and does not talk about the entire plan it's it might um at least if there's references to the entire plan so folks can see the end-to-end journey of each phase and the reason why i say that is i've noticed on some of the emails that snc members got in some of the um posts on the forums that uh again not every to file the meetings uh or find the information even though it is out there on the town website thought that starring shortsighted or starting with elementary school shortstated that um starting with um the high school not starting it wasn't short-sighted but they're not seeing that picture that shows a starting point and that everything is accounted for but then again i can understand the survey calls if you're calling them with a total 400 million dollar uh spend over 10 years they're probably less inclined been down that path before so uh but nonetheless confident that reference but definitely before that survey it should be uh it should be very interesting so thank you man faith you've been waiting you had a question i i i'm with catherine i'm trying to wrap my head around it but i think i'm there and i trust you know we we formed the committee or the town form the committee um of intelligent thoughtful people so i'm i'm putting my trust in everybody and then getting the job done um so um [Music] i my only suggestion would be um you know and again over a 30-year amateurization i'm not sure how much land would actually impact um the cost but but i know it was raised last night i think by matt bowman that um we should have an idea even some estimate of what the cost of the land is going to be and what it's going to add to the project and and so i i guess i am a little concerned with the survey going out and giving one cost um and then having that big price tag tossed in there so you know i don't as you said ian you've got the the survey ready to go but that is a concern um and um just um i i don't know i i i trust you guys i think [Laughter] what the survey really does is puts out three three different levels of okay and it's to get just some idea of the appetite of whether people would be able to support uh that project that phase one project at if this were the um the effect to your tax monthly tax rate okay with the understanding anyway that's okay but with the understanding that there has to be a two and a three in there somewhere that there are three phases to the all of these building projects and they um you know again each one will be approved each subsequent phase will be approved but it's understood that there is a package so as tony said they need to understand the full scope and and um but anyway i'm like i said again i don't know if i it's not even a question it's just more ruminations of an old lady but i think it will be very helpful to the board when uh you get received a survey yeah i agree which will be next week tony i i i think jen said last night we'll be able to see uh discuss the survey at smc 27.
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ray penny announced three levels of awards at our meeting vincent harrington from patterson has obtained a new board member uh dr rachel calpeezy from little falls has obtained a certified board member and nancy schwartz from pompton lakes has obtained certified board leader jason della from brown and brown associates prevented on the new health care benefits reform law chapter 44 was passed unanimously by both the house and the senate the biggest slice of the pie is the health benefit plan at 37 percent uh districts that have the sehbp it eliminates all medical plans other than direct 10 and 15 as of january 1st of this year the new jersey educators health plan which took effect as of and the garden state health plan will take effect as of july 1st of 2021 non-schb districts can keep locally bargained plans but must offer equivalent plans to the uh the educators health plan as well as the garden state health plan um the nj ehp will roughly save a person forty seven hundred dollars or half of their contribution new hires as of 7 120 or later must be enrolled in that new plan for seven years pre-medical retirees will also be enrolled in the same plan um the savings incurred should be made uh it is suggested that the current savings should be made to future tax levy pay uh payments chapter seven uh section seven of that law uh should save 300 million dollars over three years if it doesn't the new plan team will reconvene to make changes to the law the districts can save uh the projected uh savings then there are certain things in the new plan such as pain management services have been capped such as acupuncture at chiropractic at 35 and physical uh physical training at 52 dollars um out of network provider reimbursement is uh two hundred percent of what medicare would allow which is called reasonable and customary uh let's see i don't to bore you too much more uh the net spendable dollars will depend on your paycheck rehol withholdings which ranges from 20 to 35 percent the chapter 44 cleanup bill caps contributions for employees who earn more than 125 000 at the same rate of those who are earning under uh they were waiting on the governor to sign it uh there will be new updates for the garden state health plan which starts uh july 1st of 2021 and the garden state health plan offers new jersey only provider networks and payroll deductions that are even lower than the new jersey educators health plan uh if that's all i have on this one is there any questions yeah mr uh mr president yes mr daley make sure i'm i'm not muted here no you're not mr daley you're up okay good um uh i saw miss castro i mean it missed wasn't from mr casper it was from the health the insurance company um i've had preliminary talks with mr uc and um uh we we're going to get into that very shortly our our health benefits costs for next year um right now we believe it's going to require an increase in our allocation of funds into the healthcare plan because the difference between the drop in chapter 78 and and that and the savings that's projected it does not match up and it looks like it's going to be a negative number we don't have that but i've raised that issue with mr yusi and he is concerned as well uh so as soon as we have that information which hopefully you'll be shortly uh we'll we'll spread that to the board even before we do a budget so but we're looking preliminarily that our health care costs will increase and not decrease uh as a result of this plan thank you any other questions seeing none we have policy miss bassford would you like to yes and uh thank you uh president smith i also want to um address something that happened earlier and i want to go through you to the superintendent when i questioned the fact that um and this has nothing to do mr awad i was trying to protect your interest a board member was not present when the original meeting occurred i'm very concerned that he should have abstained i had to go back in my book for robert's rules of order the board must the board member must be president as to witness to verify the meeting minutes are correct not just reading them for of the document so he should have abstained so you're incorrect mr usee uh and um i just wanted to make that because that's our our um bylaws do uh cover us that if we're not it doesn't state in the bylaw because i have the bylaws up here and i i research them during the presentation um and we are covered under robert's rules of order and that is a robert rules of order uh technique so i just want everybody to be careful that when you're not present at a meeting you shouldn't be voting on the minutes because you're not witness to them and um i didn't see you on the zoom i don't know if you were watching the zoom but they were verbatim so you really should uh take error on the side of caution okay so the policy committee um met um on december 8th 2002.
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the board policies are there are there any questions from the board members for the second reading of these board policies seeing none i'd entertain a motion to approve the second reading of the board policies issues 106 as presented motion by tammy hines second bye second by lisa schumacher you do uh vote for me please john long yes greg meyer yes scott middle camp yes greg o'connor lisa schumacher karen anderson yes tammy hines yes great motion carries on to the return to school plan do you want to talk through that uh with us certainly we've um as i've said many many times we're at a fork in the road and on one path you could go in all day k12 but to do that you'd be adding in a lunch and you don't want to keep the classes as hybrid the other way is to go all in um with six to 12 and to do that you'd be at a half a day and so what we're proposing is that right now k5 is all in half a day uh monday through friday and we're gonna be all in eight to three with friday being the eighth 12 30 day so everybody's you know it's going to be monday through thursday 8-3 friday 8-12 30 for the k-5 6 12 we are currently hybrid half a day and so what we're changing is to all in for half a day 8 to 12 30 and that'd be monday through friday as i said earlier the goal is to move fourth quarter all in all day we're going to need to get lunches by that time we should have all of our vaccines done vaccinations should be complete and we'll have a better idea of how our contact racing is going and how many people are coming back and whatnot um miss heinz and mr myers were on the return to school committees as was uh mr reeves and dr costelli there's pros and cons both sides none of the plans are making anybody thrilled i've had people tell me we're moving too fast i've had people tell me we're moving too slow the recommendation right now is to go all in k five to three with friday being eight to twelve thirty six twelve all in eight to twelve thirty and this the proposed start date is when that would be the day after president's day which i believe is february 16th okay did you talk to john yes he is he is he he thinks this is great he says it's time for them to all come in he still stands by there's been no transmissions at the schools and um he's at the point now where he's saying whatever you need to do to be able to get those kids back in we're ready to get them back in so i say mr wagner was pleased to hear of our plans so by going all in six to 12 for half days we are not going to have social distancing correct and that's not an issue as we're going to have to quarantine people and you're going to see people getting quarantined there are i mean people are going to um continue to contract this virus right now the the expectation is is that you control you quarantine the close contacts um it's it's frustrating because the kids that are being quarantined they're not seeing them get sick so why are we quarantining them because we're told we have to so you will have people still going to remote through this process but um i believe that the step we're at right now all in is the right choice did you um do the survey how many are going to be remote for the next quarter but we did not do this no how many high school kids are remote right now um they are our school with the largest amount um but it's really hard to say how many are going to be coming back with the all in i'd have to say freshmen and sophomores are going to be returning juniors and seniors maybe not so much yeah i'd say my biggest concern for any group right now is our senior class and making sure that they are all going to be ready to graduate and able to graduate um i think that the phone calls and stuff that i've heard when we've got kids at the top of the class they're still at the top of the class and there's not a big concern for them i'm still worried about the ones at the middle to the bottom and i'm afraid a lot of those are our remote kids and i certainly would hope that the parents are emphasizing to the kids that going to school is their job and that they have to be there whether it's online or in person or whatever i do have concerns about having that many remote but and having them all back in i still i still am a kind of like the the hybrid all day because that would if we're not concerned about the social distancing i don't see the issues with the launch as much yeah that was discussed and and um i don't want to say consensus but i think that that what was communicated to me through a lot of the various parents is that they want their children to attend school every day and they're the hybrid is is causing a lot of them to struggle and so um there's pros and cons to going either way i mean it makes sense to go either way that's what's so vexing about this problem um i'll just say i haven't had a phone call that says i want my kids all in um the ones the phone calls i've had are go hybrid they like the hybrid they like having half the kids there at a time because um then they've only got half as many that would be in contact and they could have the social distancing um i just would have a question if we're going all in what are we doing to take care of our teachers and our staff i mean we've talked about teachers behind shower curtains um and i've got instances of more than than one plexiglas what are we doing to protect our staff i uh more than one plexiglas uh barrier and the health department said that that would not be suffice unless it was a box so i don't think that that is you know in terms of removing from the isolation right so i don't think that adding more is really going to solve the issue they would have to be isolated of course maybe it's reducing the likelihood of some kind percentage-wise of dumb contract you know contracting it um so yes but then the socially you know emotional part obviously for our teachers is is something that we look at every year but definitely this year and um we actually today uh had a brainstorming session uh of trying to put some meaningful things into place um to try to provide some opportunities should somebody wish to to partake so hopefully we'll get those rolled out as well the other thing is you know you have the benefit of being able to look at other differences and there's districts ahead of us and there's districts still behind us we're kind of in the middle and moving forward um but the health department has made it quite clear they're not the transmission from student to teacher is really not occurring in the schools because the teachers are staying the six feet away and that's the key thing is is that you know you need to wear your masks and you need to stay at least six feet away from the group um for the teachers to be not quarantined but as far as the quarantining that's different than actually getting sick and they're not seeing the transmissions in schools is what i would and i find it very sad that 72 percent of our high school teachers do not want to come back or want the kids all back in when we have the younger grades those teachers are close to the kids side by side doing activities helping them with stuff and i i just i find that very sad for our district that 72 percent of our high school teachers don't want the kids back in all all the time yeah and i think that both of the teachers though said it they want them back and they just want them back in safely and so it is frustrating that we are all so divided and and you see it in the covid you see it in the politics you see it just in the world in general and it's and it's frustrating because um there is there is division i i i wish i knew how to unify people but you know when it comes to kobe there are a lot of people that have feelings about it and i can't do anything about that i wish i could on the health department website today i was reading that so starting monday the vaccinations they're going to be moving to phase 1b starting on monday which is like residents that are 65 and over plus frontline essential workers which would be our teachers yeah when i talked to mr wagner this week he's doing the 80 year olds now he's dropping down to 75. once he gets through those he'll he'll open it up for the teachers and we're ahead of schedule according to the website today yeah he believes that if the vaccines keep coming in the rate that they are we're expected to get the vaccines the first week of february and uh we've been talking about whether or not we'll take a snow day and let everybody go and get them done or if we can get it scheduled for the afternoon so that you know when 12 30 hits they can go to the fairgrounds and get them vaccinated we want everybody vaccinated and i'm excited to see the vaccines i don't want to say that it's going to be the first week of february because i don't want to jinx it um but right now if the according to mr wagner if the vaccines keep coming in the way that they are the teachers are next is there an option for an on-site vaccinations that you do have health care workers in the buildings yeah no not yet we would have to go to him and i guess he they used to come out and do the flu shots i'm not quite sure what the procedure is different than this versus the others but uh what yeah it's probably the tracking yeah or the temperature in the handling storage i spent a lot of time listening to both sides of this argument and i've tried my best to keep an open mind um seems to me the primary concern of not returning is unable with inability to social distance but in my experience that the kids aren't social distancing outside of school they're choosing to get together they're obviously not wearing masks i think if even if they didn't social distance and we're masked i think they'd be safer in school than they are the general public and i think it's important to keep in mind we're not requiring anybody to come back to school if somebody is scared if they have somebody at home that they don't want to get exposure to they'll have the option of remote learning so we're not forcing anybody we're making we're providing a choice is all we're doing we're not forcing anybody to do anything well you mean the students students correct right any other comments or questions on the plan and just one more thing to add in terms of the all kids back in the parents that have been calling me have really expressed the need to get their kids in just to get them moving in the morning not walk down you know with a blanket wrapped around them on their remote day but to actually get up get ready get dressed be productive and i guess it's basically their emotional well-being as well you know and i forgot we during our committee meeting i brought this up and there is a study that i brought up i think a million or two ago and it's about productivity on people and basically it says that when when you get up just think of all of us on the weekends we get lazy if you don't get up and get moving you tend to coast a little bit longer when it's a work day you get up you take a shower you get ready and you're working that's human nature and kids are the same way i think if we we need to get them up get them engaged and then they can they can carry that over into the afternoon instead of vice versa is the afternoon uh remote learning or are they just going half days no they will have uh office hours and they will be doing remote learning and they will be doing some prep the kids will not have instruction time specifically laid out in the afternoon there will be office hours if the kids need help they can get it remotely through those office hours and the teachers also need planning time and you know they are getting a double burden with remote learning so they do need some prep time to handle both jobs any other questions or comments on the plan seeing none i'd entertain a motion to entertain a motion to have the students on february 16th return to school every day with k through fifth grade attending monday through thursday 8-3 and friday 8 to 12 30 and 6 through 12th grade 6th through 12th grade attending monday through 3rd monday through friday 8 to 12 30.
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kenny checks in and lily ernst checks in for the panthers bachmann gets it up and good the red hots leah bachmann will be at the line for one free throw comes in shooting once again a 76 percent at the line she had an n1 as well in the second quarter she's looking to repeat her efforts here in the third and short did not get that one to fall and we're gonna have a foul committed by the olympians albany spear will pick up the foul her first team's first 408 remaining here three-point ball game in favor of the olympians the oh still in their zone and a travel violation committed by the panthers bachmann will take the ball out and gravy throws it up court to albany down the left-hand side she slows it down and at the top of the key to bachmann she dribbles to her right hands it off to sage down low to bachmann she spins inside woodard strips it away but the olympians keep it alive back to bachmann dribbles inside back to melee excuse me albany sage spins and cannot get that one to fall on a great box out by woodard and she keeps that one alive kent up to thompson up and off the mark but draws a foul she'll be at the line for two thompson comes in shooting 79 percent at the free throw line so she'll be at the line for two excuse me the refs called that one on the floor so thompson will not be at the line for two 325 remaining here in the third quarter addison takes the ball out and gives it to thompson tree dribbles left down low to mishuno addison fires up the three and short and a strong rebound there by grivy as she has two defenders on her you can really tell the panthers are doing their best to stop her tonight as sage dribbles and will travel turnover committed by the olympians 306 remaining here in the third quarter jennings county basketball once again three-point ball game in favor of the olympians kenz has not scored so far who hit four three-pointers as woodard gets the shot to fall she's been red hot here in the second half cuts the lead down to one as albany will draw the foul meschino picks up the foul her forwards team sixth foul one foul away from being in the bonus officials time out clock kept running after the whistle so they were going to put 242 back on the clock 15 points for woodard here who comes in averaging 16.3 points per game i'm sure she's gonna surpass her average see if the olympians could get something to fall gabby dean muscle way up and good [Applause] gabby dean gives her four points and woodard fires up the shot but off the mark panthers looking for a foul sage stall up to albany spear takes a long jump shot and off the mark and kept a lie by corinne gravy with the offensive rebound across to albany bachmann inside and blocked by woodard but she will draw the foul panthers fans not happy that is a i don't know call there even as an olympian fan that call was questionable with 202 remaining here bachmann is at the line 4-2 she is one for two here tonight and good bachmann gets the first one to fall and misses that one so 50 on the night from the free throw line for bachmann under two minutes here in favor of the olympians bachmann steals the ball and she's going to dribble it down and a travel violation committed by the olympians great hustle there by the panthers to get back on defense and cause the travel violation and the turnover committed by the olympians 142 remaining here as addison looks to fire a three could not get it tries to draw the foul but off the mark great idea could not get the fall though and out of bounds and great hustle there by the panther that is number five addison kent who tried to save it but will be out of bounds olympian basketball but we're gonna have a timeout taken by the panthers a 30-second timeout with 127 remaining here in the third quarter once again 127 remaining here in the third quarter leah bachmann leads olympians with 18 points here tonight she's been doing a fantastic job inside and mid-range jump shots here tonight after the timeout taken by jeans county will be olympian basketball bachmann's going to take the ball out here [Music] and gets it into gravity that's one of the few times i've seen gravity be able to get the ball in that easily as stall passes it up top to bachmann up high to gabby dean and up and good [Music] bachmann almost gets the steal in it's going to be olympian basketball great play there by bachmann gets the olympians fan on their feet olivia elmore checks in number 20.
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so i imagine wednesday yeah see you too i'll find out i'll see if we can get in the van i was on a communication meeting actually at five they um went through and revised the changes it should go uh get kicked back to the communications group tomorrow to be very expeditiously sent to the um full committee this weekend yeah for discussion on wednesday good andrew and ann any other uh commenter no tim tim's eager oh tim sorry i see you pop up there thanks thank you yeah um so i'm just one of the surveyor this is a professional surveyor who the reason i ask this is kind of generally speaking i have a whole bunch of questions run through my mind that don't need to be answered right now but you know uh do they have a list of phone numbers do they have a list of cell numbers home numbers i don't know what it is i mean um and i know that that's changed dramatically uh who do they do they know who is it just self-identification by the person who picks up the phone that i'm a taxpayer is this all stuff they're taking into account yes okay um and uh you know what they're doing actually no no no no no that's fine that's why yeah it's it's very scientific and it was explained to us pretty thoroughly um but i could not turn around and explain it all to you no no no i mean as long as they know what they're doing i mean look at all of us have run for office we've probably made phone calls and the homelines don't really work that much anymore so that's all i'm wondering about um i'm not sure it's just home lines to tell you the truth well no as long as they have a list and it's related to people who you know you know people switch sell lines they move out of town they might still answer the questions but they have no impact that has no impact on their taxes and if it's one or two people out of 400 i don't care but you know collect across the entire survey i just want to make sure that it's relatively good and it's a professional surveyor that you have so okay on that note 10 and if i remember correct i remember a few minutes ago that they will hit the form of the number so if there is a situation where they call the person and just have one within cheshire they'll go to another one but they'll get their 400 actual cheshire residents so yeah they want to check on the caller id too when they call and we're picking up demographic information also so better okay no that's good thank you and uh so i think i'm just wondering um the will the survey include anything i know two things will the survey include anything about location location of well i'm just curious to point out though the point that i was making before about putting a high school like up in the southington line does it mention anything about that it's just these three options it doesn't say where a new middle school would go it's just would you support a new middle school so some of the survey is much wider it addresses um all of the modernization what people think about it did you know or what are these items what's important to you in terms of modernization let's gather some information on the project as a whole but only phase one for those three options is um is broken out to sit to find out what the appetite for supporting these those three options phase one options would be and that's because that's one of those three options okay and it does include open-ended uh and so this it includes open-ended questions so they can get they can get qualitative data to sort of sort through that and is there any um is there any targeting of this this is is this limited to school system families or is it everyone in including seniors so they may very well get the response no to everything and then we get an indication of where that stands as well because that's the option of referendum one find out whether they're business owners in town ages whether they have kids in school had kids in school you know there's questions surrounding all of that okay great thank you is that it i think adam and catherine have questions oh my god you guys are quick uh go ahead adam and then no i just had a quick comment um if i recall uh the the sample size of 400 was meant to be statistically valid to encompass all people all walks of life in cheshire so that since it is a smaller sample size that that whoever does get the survey their uh answers will sort of echo amongst the community so it's supposed to be statistically valid correct that's my understanding too thank you adam uh and catherine yeah i just had one quick question which is because i didn't see all the numbers which of the options scored the highest on your matrix it was the option 1a rena which is build a new k-6 elementary school i thought the middle school had a higher score yeah i think the middle school there was an 80s for middle school and element new middle and now hold on let me just find actually uh i'll bring up i'll find a spreadsheet nope you're right 2a 2a yep phase one build new 68 middle school yes okay i vote for that we should say that the options have changed a little since the phases and the options have changed a little bit when we did the the scoring on them correct andrew yes yep they have yeah because they consolidated uh a lot of phases in the phase one whereas they were broken out but it's still the same schools i mean the same order yeah if um if i you know what no i'm not going to try to share my screen no no let me see uh the presentation from two meetings ago where uh jen and chuck walked the group through the rankings every option how they scored uh now you're welcome for your viewing pleasure catherine yes absolutely thank you very much and i know that was uh uh you know fair amount of time on snc lengthy update but it's very important because we're smc is nearing the finish line we can see it and uh you know both the board of ed and town have a lot to chew on uh once the final two options presented to us tune in on the 27th if you can because jim jascott our our town finance director has been uh grinding away as an abacus the last couple weeks uh doing quite a bit in depth analysis so the committee is supposed to get um for for at least those two plans that we just showed you those two phases of those two options um financial impact cost to the town cost to debt service the ratings uh et cetera are broken up by schedule so i know as a calculator is pretty much caught on fire by now i've turned a number so it should be a good meeting and that'll give us all a good good idea of you know as those options are structured how it's going to impact us financially so thank you and by the way if there's any questions just send them over to smc committee uh like us uh jen and the team address them at the meeting so if anything with survey the options fire away they're happy to respond uh moving on we are uh we don't have any understanding committees uh meetings so we're gonna move on to approval of minutes uh we actually have a few meetings um i would like to approve these as one batch but in our packets we have links to the board education meeting held december 17th 2020 which seems like it was just yesterday the board education special meeting held january 5th 2021 and the board education presentation meeting held on june 14th which was last week on the superintendent's budget presentation uh do any members have changes to those minutes i do not i don't seem to be raising their hand would someone like to make a motion to approve those minutes mr chairman i would like to make a motion thank you mr gripple is very second catherine seconds sorry andrew she just beat you sorry it's quick um uh any discussion great seeing as there is no discussion the motion is that the cheshire board of education approve the minutes of the board of education meetings held december 17th 2020 january 5th 2021 and july 14 2021.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
this is from last year's policy committee the policy committee was uh began at uh 603 attendees were myself uh board members joe kenova frank casper jim smith administration was dr danny robituzzi mark teigen luis ross also president was rachel harrington the committee reviewed bylaw zero one five five which is on tonight's agenda board committees to clarify language in the bylaw to insert a mechanism to establish when the work of an ad hoc committee ends it is recommended to add that the language uh to the end of the second paragraph the ad hoc committee will be automatically discharged upon submission by the ad hoc committee of its final report to the board number two the committee reviewed policy five one one one eligibility for resident non-resident students discuss what a discussion was held regarding offering reduced tuition for employees and staff a survey will be sent to the staff to determine interest on such a program the committee will work on language to add to this policy to address the issue and will then present it to the recommendation of the board the meeting adjourned at 6 38 pm uh and mr luis ross wrote the um the um the minutes any questions seeing none thank you are there any other minutes no right okay our next uh portion is the uh public recognition this portion of the meeting is open to the citizens of clifton for the purposes of addressing any subject matter pertinent to and directly related to the operation of the clifton school district residents are requested to sign the register oh you won't be doing that um you'll be stating your um your name and your address in the chat if you could if you can't put it in the chat if you would state it subject and your subject matter comments are limited to five minutes per person issued raised by members of the public may or may not be responded 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 of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and not 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 be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should be consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments um mr um mr usee is there is there somebody in [Music] jeff horn yes i can remember his name i'm sorry um mr horn is there anyone in uh we have 12 waiting is it my understanding that we go to the student uh speaker first that's correct okay i will let in max rubin max you should be coming here mr horn if it's easier you can let a few people in at a time and just you know tell them that what order they're going to go in and mute them if i may i'm sorry just as a reminder for the student um not to give their address since they're max uh welcome to uh the board meeting always nice to see you and um the floor is yours um can you hear me we can hear you all right thank you all right um hello board of ed again it's max rubin student representative um first of all i would like to thank dr robertosi for deciding to keep the schools closed for another month and ten days until we reevaluate on march first again you know physical safety is always the number one priority and i think you knocked it out of the park with that plan and i'm glad that so many of the board members support you um just a few points i want to bring up during this meeting um so upcoming s.a.t testing at the high school i know a lot of my students a lot of my fellow students had questions about this uh mr doctor informed me that you should definitely register as soon as possible because spots can be filled up quickly the next date at chs is march 13th that's the next day you can take your sat after march 13th there's also may 8th and june 5th as of january 12th which was nine days ago there were seats available at chs i'm not completely sure if they're still available but i would just register as soon as possible and then you'll see if they're still available at chs again the dates are march 13th may 8th and june 5th for sat testing i was lucky enough to be chosen for the referendum citizens committee where we're going to be talking about the humongous referendum that was the big presentation at the beginning of the meeting um me and a few other students are going to be involved with the committee and during my last student union meeting since i'm also the president of the student union i asked my fellow students to to tell me items they would like me and other members to discuss during the referendum meeting and we actually came up with this big list of possible improvements infrastructure improvements to various schools things that we've observed over the past few years and we think could be improved um and i'm definitely going to mention some of those at the referendum meeting i believe it's january 26th at seven o'clock so i will definitely be there and i have a list ready of things i want to talk about for that meeting two of our csu members um rowan awadala and victoria olive both juniors have volunteered to take part in this summit called activist x academics it's a summit about racial equity within schools across the country it seems like a really good opportunity and those two members have volunteered to represent the csu and also just the clifton school district in general um there's going to be many students i think it's from all over the country because there were like different time zones listed for the meeting time so i think the students are all over the country and the summit i believe is going to be february 13th i could be wrong but it's in the middle of february and it just seems like a really good opportunity for our students to participate in it and we're lucky that we have two very intelligent highly motivated students who are both juniors who volunteered to take part in it and i'll have more information when i get more information i'll relay it to you guys um the next question i had and i don't think this was mentioned it might have been mentioned and i missed it but when we first opened up for hybrid you know what actually i'm not going to ask this question because we're going to be all virtual anyway so never mind i'll table that question for another time the last thing i wanted to mention is the chs morning show is continuing to make great content to stay up to date on winter sports uh school organizations school meetings clubs anything um just check out the clifton high school tv or chs tv youtube channel and we have the morning show for every single day we've posted this year and we're continuing to provide consistent updates on what's going on in the school district um that's pretty much all i have i'm looking forward to discussing the referendum i have a lot of things i want to talk about and i'm excited to talk about it with other students teachers and administrators um this has been a really long meeting and you guys have i i don't know how you do it how you stay this focused i i yeah i would go crazy but um that's awesome that you guys are so dedicated to our education that you're not even getting paid and you're just you know you're you're just you know taking taking one for the team and just you know giving us this opportunity to just i can't even put it into words um i'm kind of just in awe but yeah you guys make this school district what it is and i appreciate that so that's it that's it for my comments for tonight max thank you very much did we write that check out to rub i know [Laughter] um before you leave i i just want to make a brief comment if i could um because i don't know if you necessarily always hear our comments after and they may be at midnight or so tonight anyway so um but i i want to credit you and your entire morning crew um i enjoy watching the morning announcements every single day and um for those that don't know um this week is called name uh no name calling week yeah it's supposed to be in the gay straight alliance or gender sexuality alliance i think they're called now against bullying and yes to kindness and uh make people feel included and make people feel welcome did i get that correct um yes yes and um i think for next meeting i think you should um do a special uh invite your special friend um that gives the movie and play critics at the morning announcements bring him to the board meeting um i know the board members would uh surely get a kick out of that and uh in this free next meeting uh see if he could attend but really uh congratulations to you and to all the the the staff um that do a great job on those morning announcements i i just think they're great so keep up the good work oh thank you so much that's a sign of me you don't see very often all right that's a good sign okay thank you thank you so much i'll see you guys at the next board event meeting thank you have a good night i'm max bye all right next up we have a phone caller starting with uh four one zero if you could uh just state your name and um address for the unless you're a student uh you don't have to do so if you're a parent or taxpayer if you could please just state your name and address for the record go ahead you have the floor hello uh phone number starting 201 410 you have the floor uh you don't have to do so if you're okay we'll go on to the uh next one we have uh phone number starting [Music] if you would state your name and address for the record unless you're a student and you have the floor a phone number that starts with three two seven if you can hear me you have the floor all right we'll move on to the next one starts 272 actually not three two seven that's a three nine something oh i'm sorry you're right 973 yes that's me hi um my name is jennifer and it's avondale ave first i would just like to say thank you to mr canova for everything that you stated tonight i really really really appreciate everything that you said um i'm gonna give you a quick personal story and then i have some notes that i took from everybody's comments tonight so my son is nine years old and he is in the fourth grade and thanks to all of this virtual nonsense he is now suffering from panic and anxiety attacks my once happy energetic playful loving silly boy is having panic attacks over virtual learning and it is awful to see this and to experience my child who doesn't want to get dressed anymore or get out of bed because he's depressed who starts therapy tomorrow i hope none of you ever have to suffer like my nine-year-old is suffering like many other young children are suffering due to this nonsense now to some of the comments that i heard tonight teachers getting a vaccine teachers made themselves an essential when they decided to not open the doors of the schools those vaccines should be priority to the people that are out and about working with the people not behind a computer screen so i disagree with your comments about teach teachers getting priority until you open those school doors they should not be priority and i'm also sure that it won't be mandatory for teachers to get a vaccine so they'll use that as the excuse as to not opening the doors because they don't feel comfortable being vaccinated also specifically to mr abedrabo you stated that your children are bored also and that you can't wait to get them out of the house because you can't handle how loud they are it is not just about boredom these kids are having true mental true mental issues do not minimize these issues because your kids are bored most kids are not just bored but they are actually getting depressed and having true mental issues and your comment was offensive dr robert tosie you said you struggled with having sports being allowed if classes cannot be done in person nothing should be done in person nothing if it is school related it should be virtual or in person all or none and i have one more comment teachers are on social media posting pictures of themselves out at family gatherings at parties for the holidays at restaurants eating if they can go out and about and live their lives they can certainly be in a classroom wearing ppe and with all the proper protective equipment that the school spent so much money on they can be in a classroom with all of that if they can be putting themselves out in a restaurant maskless eating thank you for your time thank you next up we have uh brian o on the iphone brian o if you would state your name and address for the record and then you are free to address the board right that is brian o okay nothing from brian oh um looks like next we have um chloe popovich chloe you're a student you don't have to state your address go ahead you have the floor chloe good evening i don't understand how you can have winter sports but not enforcing learning we need enforcing learning as a student it's just a free form students are taking classes from all over the united states i have a classmate who is taking class classes from the bahamas every day if sports can meet why can activities meet it's a small group setting it would help the mental health of students who are not in sports thank you have a great evening thank you very much uh next up um it looks like um daniel milo uh i know that's not daniel but if you could just state your name and address for the record please and then you're up and just unmute yourself my name is [Music] okay you have the floor you can address the board okay first of all very happy to see a lot of familiar faces and new faces i'm very very happy uh in the middle of this this is a a really happy day for me because uh for i've been actively fighting along with other parents for the renovations are are district buildings mainly aces and proper ventilation in the classrooms i spent five years in the building of my kids school as an hsa president and i witnessed firsthand that even kids protected under the 504 act were being deprived of the proper ac accommodations with the excuse that the buildings were too old but now in front of us is finally the possibility to make a real change for the kids and the teachers and the staff i was delighted delighted to learn that our superintendent shares the same concerns regarding the renovations and updating of the buildings and i'm so happy to know that finally our board of education is decided to support this i'm here again and again to urge you to beg you to do everything in your power to provide the kids who are the main reason for having the world of education with proper accommodations with proper ventilation with proper air conditioning goes against this the person has never been in the buildings in may june september or even october to experience that suffocating heat during this pandemic we learn something very clearly we need proper ventilation in our buildings and if the pandemic didn't teach us the importance of the ventilation in the classroom then nothing will this is not a luxury we said this so many times again and again but now i know i know that everybody's on board to do this it's time not just to be in favor of this proposal but actively fight to make it happen to make it happen is our obligation as a parent as a resident to make it happen and is your obligation board of education to do everything in your power to make it happen for the kids thank you so much for fighting for this we've been waiting for so so long thank you so much thank you very much uh next is donna popovich please state your address and you have the floor good evening this is donna popowicz i live on dale wood road um i i have just a few comments to start with this seemed like a really important meeting and i'm a little surprised that we couldn't get to cub public comment until more than three hours after the meeting started that really seems to me to limit the amount of public who is still available as we all have other commitments in family in jobs putting kids to bed etc this really did seem like an important meeting um it was kind of ironic that the meeting you present us a plan to raise our taxes is the same meeting you tell us that you're not opening schools um that's your choice but here's my question if we can run sports there are a number of extracurricular club activities which meet in small groups if it is so important for the emotional social help of our students to meet who are athletes why is it not important for the emotional social health of our students to meet who are not athletes or who are athletes in the academic arena finally um and dr robert tosi and mrs kusalevich i have written you both numerous emails about the quality and i use that word in quotations of education that we are receiving online i am not going to call out teachers or anything that is happening but i am telling you that nothing has changed in one class we are 13 chapters behind we need to cover 13 chapters for an ap test there are things going on that are we need to fix if we are not going to school we need to up the game on the online education provided at the high school level when classes are cancelled which they seem to be more frequent than i would like there are no subs i know this is an issue district-wide but that means some weeks my child only meets a class for 30 minutes that's it my daughter who just spoke earlier is taking ap and honors classes it's amazing that classes could only meet once for 30 minutes so if we are not going back until six weeks after they are vaccinated which by my calendar brings us to april then we need to change the way we are using the computers and the online education because it is not effective i encourage you at your next word of ed meeting to please hold the public session in a timely manner the citizens of this community should know that they can start this meeting at 7 00 and by 7 30 be able to speak at this rate as mr smith has said i will not be here to hear the commissioner's comments or your responses to my statements have a good evening thank you miss papawich uh next uh looks like lori the llama hi good evening everyone my name is lori lalama and my home address is christopher columbus middle school um so i just i i'm so happy because when i listen to the word merv it makes me smile so i am so excited for that referendum you have no idea so as everybody knows i've been fighting for that for the health and safety of our students so i'm very happy i know that we can work together dr robert tosie between the cea because i don't know if andrea is on so we've already discussed it so we can work together and we can bring it to the different schools because i have a large zoom so that would be helpful so we can work together on that and that would be a positive thing for our district i am so happy you have no idea i was doing the happy dance but i don't think you want to see it now um the other thing that i want to bring up is that besides the skills that the kids the content that they're learning as i'm the teacher of the year for 2015 i have my master's in educational technology i'm certified through ucla as an online educator and the kids have learned besides content adapt they can adapt to anything they're collaborating they're networking they're thinking outside the box and those are all skills that they're gonna need later on when they get into the high school when they get to college in the workforce those are important skills and and right now the jobs for my middle school kids don't exist yet so the skills that they're learning now during this difficult situation is is a bonus for them in that sense my middle school kids are by 8th graders are ceos of their own theme park so they designed their brochures for advertising they design videos so there's things that they're learning and skills and platforms because when i teach middle school i teach skills for real world so the kids learn a lot of different platforms that they can use later on and the other thing i wanted to say is that the entire staff throughout the district have turned on a dime they have turned chaos into something beautiful and new for their students when everything seemed dark the hard work and perseverance brought light this has not been easy but we will strive to do our best for the students of clifton public schools thank you ms lalama next it looks like we have uh lucia hi that's my daughter's account i'm on her oh okay this is the record she of course cherylie caramucci woodrow wilson middle school um was an educator of the year from last year and i've been teaching self-contained special education for the past 19 years i just wanted to take a minute to address specifically uh what the self-detained teachers have been doing and what we've been seeing in actual classrooms so while in-person instruction will never take the place of virtual learning i wanted to share with you the really great things that are happening in our self-contained classrooms every teacher regardless of the content area has invested a lot of time and energy and helping students navigate and learn google classrooms and various other online resources we've established new routes teams and returning to school too early and then having to close again we'll disrupt these routines which we know is so important to our population our students are now familiar with the expectations of their online classes and have been comfortable with online learning self-contained classrooms carry out whole group lessons with students as well as small group instruction to help individualize the student's education and provide more one-on-one support and we've been doing that through the utilization of breakout rooms um and our wonderful paraprofessionals that work alongside of us so we've been able to really incorporate individualized learning through this virtual platform we also noticed that there's a lot less distractions uh doing this virtually through the breakout rooms than there would be in person my colleagues i have even noticed a decrease in inappropriate behaviors that we normally would see in our regular classrooms one of the biggest changes we've seen is the increased level of independence amongst our students many started the year needing a parent or guardian sitting right next to them to keep them on track and to access their assignments many students have been able to feed the love of support and work independently without assistance students have learned how to read their own schedules they've improved computer skills and they've learned lots of different platforms on the computer and these are all life skills that they need in the real world teachers are providing the same exciting lessons through wonderful interactive activities and online learning resources the online and digital lessons have improved students motivation and engagement clifton has dedicated teachers who are working hard in every building to provide the best virtual learning experience possible we want to say thank you to those of you who are using the data and science to keep not only the student safe but the staff as well we did have a couple concerns um i know you guys are addressing the ventilation being that it's extremely cold out right now it would be difficult to be in our rooms with the windows open we will have some students that do sensory issues are unable to wear masks appropriately covering both their nose and mouth and we were also concerned about vaccination not being available to us right now and then there's really not a lot of information on the vaccine yet saying if we're vaccinated are we still able to carry that virus into the school and affect the children there or carry it from our students back home to our children at home so we are very grateful that we have a little time here to kind of get some more answers to those things and make everyone a little more comfortable going in the special education teachers of clinton are working very hard to provide the best online experience possible and we are so appreciative of the emails we've received from our students family who hear and see what we do on a daily basis and send us kind words of encouragement and support thank you guys thank you very much next up we have mark runciak please state your uh address for the record and uh you have the floor you just have to unmute yourself mark you hear me now we do yes thank you mark brunsiak 20 holly street yeah uh i just want to let everybody know what i think i think this board meeting was the most out of touch board meeting that i've ever been part of since this past august you spent over an hour today talking about floating bonds for over a hundred million dollars to upgrade the schools that have no students in them and you have no date whatsoever that you're going to allow them to come back to school not just that it's we're asking to have an option to have our kids go to school that's what we're asking for but you're asking us to float a 100 million plus dollar bond to upgrade schools while you kick the can down the road for when students will actually be able to go to the classroom why can't you kick the referendum down the road too to when the parents who have a choice are allowed to give their give their kids the choice to go in there a caller just called in before she's devastated you heard her her son is devastated she's got to take him to therapy now there's a value to mental wellness as well everybody so that's all i'm asking for i'm asking you to kick the can down the road it's so out of touch you're asking people to pay pony up some tax dollars for upgrades for classrooms that have no kids in them how persuasive is that you're talking about the interest rates that were even lower last year the interest rates were lower last year can does anybody have a a crystal ball to say what the interest rates are going to be down the road maybe they'll be the same the same amount right and i think everybody would be fine upgrading all the facilities for a hundred plus million on a bond if you could get a date for the parents who can give their kids the option of learning in school thank you for your time thank you and god bless america thank you mr runciak next up we have um michael rogers uh please state your address for the record and you have the floor you're on you're on mute mr rogers i should know better i'm doing this remote learning thing mike rogers clifton high school of social studies department um in a few hours i'll be teaching the great depression and the social cultural political effects that crisis have on people and what you find out and i think dr robert tosi's a fellow social studies teacher in times of crisis which you end up seeing are a lot of the divisions and the faults and the weaknesses of the society that were present well before a pandemic well before an economic crisis and i believe we're starting to see that this evening many teachers uh many people feel that teachers are a major part of this problem about going back and all that and i'm really not really going to respond to that years ago i spoke truth to power at a board meeting i've won a lot of awards and have been recognized a lot over the years but years ago i spoke truth to power with regard to someone in administration but the truth to power i want to speak to today is not the administration or the board but the power of public opinion and the public opinion that um teachers and students are not critical to civil society is troublesome to me on january 6th many of my students later in the day after remote learning started to email me about the events that happened at the capitol building and the email started rolling in at eight o'clock i posted on my google me that would i would i pulled the students should we have a impromptu meeting and talk about what happened that day at nine o'clock within an hour 54 students responded i'll be there mr rogers they didn't ask for a grade they didn't ask for extra credit they didn't ask why do i have to do it they needed it back at the end of may when unrest unfolded throughout the country due to the incident involving george floyd a similar incident happened and i had one of these nine o'clock impromptu remote learning sessions no extra credit no grading no data just students yearning to be with their teacher if you follow history the greatest lessons in all of history have been done under trees on the top of mountains in caves in cloistered monasteries in laboratories in some of the most unique places but what doesn't change is the critical importance of the relationship between teachers and students long after and long before boards of education and administration and data-driven instruction and all these wonderful things there will always be teachers and students as long as there's a civil society i take offense to when people say i don't work hard for a little bit but then i realize i have nothing to prove to anyone but my students teaching is different than all other types of work there's different types of work in this world i worked at kfc i worked at the produce department of shoprite i worked as a landscaper i worked for 10 years as a greenskeeper at a golf course or why going to college and starting my career more importantly i've watched my father as a truck driver my mom working in a liquor store and my grandparents and my great uncles working in those factories along the passage river i know what work is we work for our families we work for our loved ones this is important but teaching is a vocation teaching is different than work a vocation is something that you do from the heart it's something that you do for something bigger than yourself so therefore the opinions of some kind of roll off your back when you approach teaching as the vocation as so many of my colleagues do and the thing about one more thing about the classroom is not a part of society it is outside of society it doesn't play by society as rules the things we talk about in the classroom the things we learn and discuss in the classroom are designed to help fix that society or to better it to make it more civil more loving compassionate truthful and rational there's only a few places in this world where love and rationalism can co-exist and create and produce great things and that's the classroom no matter what form it takes in a few hours my students again will have great attendance they'll have their readings done and they'll have some good questions for me thank you so much have a good night thank you mr rogers uh next from the cea we have mrs auroch hi how are you good evening everyone thank you um i just want many of you know my name's andrea aura i'm a proud teacher at school 12 and the clifton education association pride chair through pride the association has been sponsoring many community events last night we co-sponsored a workshop with a high school key club last week and uh last week we also handed out kindergarten enrichment kits to schools 4 12 15 and 17 and we have many more events scheduled for the rest of the year i want to personally thank all our members of the association for volunteering their time and their talents to help out with these events the feedback i receive from the students and the families of clifton is incredible especially in these days when we aren't able to physically see our students we are still making great connections with our families with these events and the outpouring of support from our families our students and our teachers and our staff has been incredible i also want to speak out as a teacher i'm seeing all the hard work and creativity we as teachers are doing well virtual teaching the at-home classrooms that are made the projects to keep our students engaged are great i have the opportunity as my teaching job this year is as an esl teacher to enter different classrooms under google meets and my colleagues as i service some of their students in their classes the assignments that these students are presenting are amazing they're making comic strips to practice their vocabulary creating small videos it's truly giving them an advantage in this ever changing world they're collaborating they're using technology they're working together our minds in motion program after school at school 12 has become virtual this year and the students are loving every minute of it they attend each day they're eager to sign up right after school one student even said and we put it up on our twitter i'll quote her right now this is why i love coming to minds of motion all the classes are fun and even when i'm tired after school and don't feel like coming i end up coming and enjoy what we do and i don't want to leave that's a testament to what we are doing right now this is a testament to what the entire staff in clifton has been doing and will continue to do so so i want to thank you all who are doing their best to give the best to our students i hope this referendum passes when it goes up to vote in april because it is what our city needs the clifton education pride team where would love to co-host zoom events sessions for the community to have questions and answers just like laurie said we have a zoom account that can hold up to 500 people uh once the dates we can collaborate and send out information in multiple languages and we can put it out to our families and social media accounts but once again thank you for everything have a great night thank you mrs horock we appreciate your comments uh next up is um stephanie langer hello i'm stephanie langner i am both a teacher in clifton as well as a resident i did add my address in the chat there for you i wanted to start by thanking you dr robert tozie for the decision to keep schools closed in for in-person learning until it's safe i think while it is valuable to point out the distinctness in clifton's district as a reason to hold off comparisons i think it's also valuable to start zooming out and looking at a bigger picture here the wall street journal just posted an article on january 16th about what's happening internationally with covet and closures have begun being announced in countries like the uk germany ireland austria denmark and netherlands they are some of the countries that were able to reopen very quickly because the pandemic was under control one of those countries was aiming for herd immunity and they've recognized the flaws in those plans so when we see countries that were ahead of us in the first and the second wave starting to make changes it might be valuable to zoom out and see what there is to learn from that and i think the data in clifton is personally very scary for me because i happen to be in the age group with the highest number of cases and my students are the age group that has the second highest number of cases and if that's not a cause for concern i'm not really sure what is and i hear the fear and vulnerability in the voices of the parents that chose to speak tonight and i understand what it is like to battle mental health issues and i really have great empathy for you as i'm sure your students parents have as well and as your students teachers have but the reality is seeking support for that is better than losing a life and there is learning going on and i've seen some incredible programs being implemented i know at christopher columbus miss vaquel our sac counselor is implementing mindful monday practices to help establish better mental health routines with our students for those that are concerned about this referendum this is what you're looking for you want the kids back in school we need proper ventilation for that you want teachers to go back to the building we should be protected from spreading a virus to your children we need the opportunity to have those vaccines not just to keep ourselves safe but for our students i miss being there with them too but in my google meet the other day one of my students was able to share how over the weekend he got hands-on with engineering unbuilding and rebuilding the parts of his computer those connections are still being made when we talked about friction and motion i had a student share a video from going sledding with her family comparing how the speed of their sled changed when she rode with her younger brother or her younger sister because of the changes in in math they also spoke as a family about how friction plays a role i think there's beautiful opportunities here in this moment and just in case any of you missed it i'd like to share just a few lines from amanda gorman's poem at the inauguration yesterday she said we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one there is always light if only we're brave enough to see it if only we're brave enough to be it and i think those of you stepping up and saying let's prioritize the physical health and safety of our students and staff you're being the light pushing this referendum forward is being the light and i thank you for that thank you very much uh next up uh says dustin but i believe it's mr kiefer if you uh just state your address you have the floor yeah hi my name's tom kiefer my son is dustin kiefer and he goes to school five but not really he actually goes to school upstairs in my house and sucks and this whole thing is i can't believe how you guys start off by doing a comparison between vertical and horizontal things when the kids aren't even in school we should start off with how the kids are going to get in school a select date mr robert tosie pretty much summed it up from my understanding with the vaccine that's what you guys are waiting on so rather than string us along and do march 21st and march this and next month just say hey once everyone gets vaccinated next year let's shoot for september and make a solid plan all the other stuff in that presentation was wonderful i'm not don't don't misconstrue my words that was great the guy the guy joke representing you exactly was talking about and not no no but faith but you're going to tell me at the end of the presentation you're going to show me a chart where i got to pay 200 more in taxes so the kids can part of that could be 40 million dollars for new toilets with my kids going to school upstairs pulling his hair out crying hating life that's that's okay to you guys there's some disconnect here where we need to get together and figure this out this is crazy there's parents going mad kids are staying home you you're telling people to pay two extra dollars for a parent i'm lucky i'm lucky that my my wife gets to stay home with the kids what if you have this situation and now you can't go to work and you're working less to stay home with your kids and help them and you're going to raise their raise all this money from tax money for what this whole thing is crazy we need to get the kids back in school we need a plan if you guys hear the code that's fine that that coleman is real but come up with a plan there did this whole you know covering my butt thing let's replant for next month next month man we've been waiting it was 14 days it's gonna be a year what what's happening make a solid plan this is what's happening when the numbers get to this when the vaccine comes out what happens this is crazy and it's so frustrating as a parent when my son he loves school so much and now he hates school he hates online learning it's terrible when we have dinner at the at the night the end of the day i'll always say the end of the day well this is my end of the day okay i've dinner with my family we discussed the best and worst things that happened in the day to to celebrate the the the good and to figure out what was bad every day my son is cries and says homeschooling is the worst part of my day how does that make me feel when when we're talking about bathroom renovations what is that sense come on guys please man uh it's frustrating it's crazy please i'm sorry this is nuts you guys gotta get the kids back in school come up with a plan please thank you for your time thank you very much uh next up is uh adam badav just state your name excuse me state your address for the record and on meet yourself and you have the floor good evening everybody uh my name is adam bedoff 38th street uh my daughter attends school five um we're in the pandemic now guys i know everybody's frustrated all the parents are frustrated that their kids are at home and um they're having going through a boredom and everybody's going through the same stuff everywhere so around the country all around the world so we need to calm down and uh think of how we're gonna approach this and how we're gonna solve this in the district me personally i don't plan on sending my kid to school until september i don't care if the school gets open tomorrow uh till september i don't think it's safe for my kid uh and us because she could go to the school and bring back the virus so we don't know the vaccine even if the teacher gets it the kids aren't getting this still since trial right now for the for the kids so the teacher could be a carrier and the student could get the vac the coveted virus and carry back home and i take it to work and everybody gets it just spreads more and more so it's frustrating but we have to deal with it and one other thing the teachers are amazing we're emailing each other we're more interact with the teachers now than we probably would have been if we had physical school she sends an email at ten o'clock at night and uh we're responding back and forth it's like a 24-hour thing right now with the teachers and the communication going on it is frustrating the kids yes they're going through some mental problems we're trying to keep them busy it's not easy for the parents i understand but we just need to live with it and instead of coming back every month and trying to push it back every month let's just push it to september so everybody knows that it's in september now instead of going back and forth every month and come in and go in and you know not getting everybody on the same page let's just put a date that's out there in the future and uh let's look at september is what i would think would be the best decision instead of doing this every month and one other thing i had emailed dr uh the superintendent when you first joined the district i believe last year once the school zoo opened i would really like every school in the district to have filtered water in the fountains uh i don't know if you remember the email that i had sent you when you first started but every kid in the district is drinking tap water none of you drink that water at your house uh i believe there was a few filters in some fountains everybody drinks bottled water or they have a filter system in their house so we could invest a little more into the schools and uh have every fountain that's tap water filtered that's all i have to say thank you very much thank you mr horn has informed me that there is nobody else left in the uh waiting room see no one else i'd like to close this portion of public meeting by mr casper second by vice president abu drabo [Music] next is [Music] next is uh unfinished business everyone was emailed uh committee reports from me um there may be some uh some adjustment uh but uh everyone should have received their uh their committee re uh assignments via email um just a little while ago so if you please look at that and i believe we have um the new jersey school boards [Music] alternate spot still open is that correct is there any board member who is interested in that um otherwise i have to appoint somebody so if you're me if you're interested please let me know uh no you're doing the the the no mr smith i can't do it because besides being a county i sit on several state committees legislative 34th district i'm on the finance committee i'm on the sub-resolution committee for the state of new jersey and i'm also on the county uh association leadership committee so i do not want to go down on a saturday to the d.a and be the state representative i've done that maybe because i didn't say that i said you're doing the county for us right right so but i don't want to be the alternate no no no i understand i think you're better off getting one of the newer board members so they could start really getting involved and learn learn it the right way okay if there's no one at this time i will reach out and see if we can get someone to fill that otherwise you're gonna send me down there um okay we'll come back to that again um let's move on to uh resolutions so we have uh under education and administration uh we have uh one through three i have a motion motion by miss danny second second by mr casper discussion i have a question on number two is that a grant through the new company that's doing the grant writing um that grant uh while we did go back and forth and they did provide us some assistance that is a grant that's done through the department of educa the new jersey department of education through the e-wag system and only district employees have access to that system so i actually completed that grant on this morning but we did get support what the what the grant writing company did do for us is she um kind of did the coordinating collecting the data from the different supervisors for me and then it was submitted um today because only a district employee could do it but they have been extremely instrumental despite this one grant um they've already shown us so many new grants and applied for a number of uh smaller things that don't require board resolutions that they've applied for and done the entire process for us um so i just wanted to share that positive information as well uh thank you mr president through you to the superintendent uh uh maybe every month we can find out like what they've applied for with the dollar amount that we can expect and see you know that we're getting we're getting a good value for the money that we're spending with this company thank you absolutely yes uh this is last month they they're going to be sending me a monthly report and then i'll be sharing that with the board yeah i think mr president mr smith uh that's what we discussed i think um what you mentioned that we were gonna do um but we can discuss that later all right any other discussion seeing none roll call mr abedrabo yes mr awad miss ford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes miss danny yes mr casper yes and mr smith yes uh next next we have under personnel um we have one through 20.
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i'll make the motion a motion by lisa schumacher second second by tammy hines can you do a roll call police greg meyer yes scott metal camp yes greg o'connor hi lisa schumacher yes karen anderson i'll go yes tammy hines yes john long yes great motion carries uh on to the next time on the agenda discussion items i don't have anything to do okay board president's prerogative i um i just want to say that this is another step forward i think we've been been trying to make incremental steps forward and getting the students back in class and i think we've been doing it cautiously and really looking at ways our best ways to do that we don't want to get to a point that we have to go backwards but i think this is a good next step and not to jinx anything but looking forward to fourth quarter right and we get all in i did see on the news tonight that if the vaccinations continue to roll out as they have nationwide that by august we could be back to semi-normal and so hopefully by fall we should be ready to roll into school if all goes as planned on to item 10 executive session we don't have anything uh necessary we have one next next month but we will have one next month yep uh on to the last anime agenda adjournment i'd entertain a motion to adjourn i'll make that motion motion by john long second bye second second by greg o'connor could you do a roll call vote for me please huh scott milk camp yes greg o'connor all right do you want to go home lisa schumacher yes karen anderson yes tammy hines yes john long greg meyer yes and we are done motion carries we are adjourned and it is 7 38.
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as gravi gets the ball coming up on a minutes here in the third quarter what a ball game we've had so far and i'm glad you guys are able to watch it inside the gabby dean tries to go off the backboard but could not get it to fall but gets your own rebound bachmann gets it as gravie throws it up to sage stall great pass up and good assist from corinne gravy give sage stahl eight points and sage will sadly pick the foul up there with 38.4 seconds remaining gives sage her second team's third sage saw first points here in the second half gives her eight points [Applause] in the corners addison gots her traps and smart play throws off the leg from bachmann it's about the only thing she could do to keep the possession alive for the panthers 27.3 seconds remaining as woodard gets it and gets it to fall great strength there by woodard and sage stahl takes it up and good woodard with 17 points sage stall finally hits double digits with 10 and up and good for ernest gives her nine points and that will end the third quarter after three quarters the olympians lead in your jennings county panthers 47 and we will listen to our columbus east cheerleaders uh [Music] and there we have it our columbus east cheerleaders [Music] coming down to one final quarter for the hhc championship which teams going to be able to close out the ball game one thing the olympians did do very well and that third quarter is keep addison kintz from scoring who hit 12 excuse me four first half threes she was scoreless there in the third quarter the olympians are in the bonus the rest of the fourth quarter so that is playing in favor of them let's see that the panthers can cut into this lead and the olympians can grow it's here so thank you guys for tuning in to the live stream as the three is up and off the mark rebounded by gabby dean we also want to thank our sponsors as you can see on your screen columnist auto group and forced construction bachmann with two points gives her 20 points on the night she's been a busy girl for the olympians and a turnover by the panthers the olympians will get the ball back can get the lead back up to 10 as they did in the second quarter as albany has the ball directing traffic dribbles to her right gives it to sage stahl at the top of the key bachmann down low and off the mark but tipped out by sage stall albany 4-3 hits the left side of the rim and great hustle there by bachmann number 20 picks up the foul gives her two megan vogel checks in for the panthers 7 12 remaining here and they throw it up to gabadeen back to bachmann corrine grabby has to top the key gets the screen set from bachmann and down low to sage stahl fires it up and in and out and rebounded by thompson she's going to dribble it down gets it inside to woodard and blocked by gabby dean and she gets the rebound there great physical play there by the sophomore gabby dean corinne gravy is going to dribble right and draws the foul and she'll be at the line 4-2 one thing the panthers have done well here tonight as the olympians held addison here in the third quarter but the panthers have helped corrine grab you to only nine points in the whole ball game she's looking at her 10th and 11th point as she gets that one to fall as addison kent will check back in can karen gravy gets her second free throw to fall up and good gives her 11 points on the night she comes in averaging 17 points per game back to a 10-point ball game in favor of the olympians free throw jump shot up and good she's been red hot from beyond that spot and gives her 19 points a freshman she's going to have a bright future for the panthers but that shot is up and good for sage stahl gives her 12 points back to a 10-point ball game three olympians are in the double figures here tonight that's something i'm sure coach brown loves to see when he goes to look back at the scoring column and that is blocked by sage stahl and corinne gravy pushes down the courts and inside to bachmann through the hands and off the hands of jennings county east will remain with the basketball here with 5 52 remaining and a timeout taken by jennings county with 5 52 remaining 10 point ball game in favor of the olympians full time out so we will take a break and listen to the cheerleaders once again oh is and there you hear it our columbus cheerleaders and our fans here tonight well parents i should say they are cheering mighty proud and loud for the olympians here tonight as you can see on the right side of your screen the student section that the girls basketball team puts together i'm sure all of us students would love to be here tonight to witness this ball game as olympians are looking to take home the outright hhc championship first time since 2006 taking it outright but the last conference championship was so it's been a long time coming for the olympians and the olympians fans and gets it inside to corinne gravy could not get it to fall and she follows her shots and gets the long rebound and travel violation called by the revolt so jimmy is getting basketball with 5 40 remaining here 10 point ball game let's see if the panthers can get something going here stolen by grivi great to play there she's gonna go up and good [Applause] [Music] gives corinne grabby four points here in the second half thompson's looks at a long three and off the mark and tipped around and will be jenny's county basketball [Music] looks like ernest will check back in for the panthers 5 11 remaining here in the fourth quarter woodard gets the quick shot up and draws the foul she'll be at the line for two biggest lead by the olympians here tonight woodard comes in shooting 73 at the frito line she's looking at her 20th and 21st points as she gets that one gives her 20.
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all those in favor say or raise your hand it is unanimous thank you team the motion passes well we're moving on to correspondence um madam secretary do we have any correspondence we do not have any correspondence mr chair thank you thank you catherine uh we're gonna move on to section six which is the superintendent's report dr sullin the moment you've all been waiting for uh very exciting i'm gonna try and keep this short and sweet we have a few different items to address today of course a quick covet update um they're the teacher and staff vaccination peace in connecticut's received a lot of attention uh we're hopeful to have a clearer plan about how to roll those out in the coming weeks uh and that really when i say we're hoping to have a clear plan that means consultation with the state and clear direction around when uh that'll actually occur so that we can make sure that our staff are addressed in an efficient and effective manner we don't want to see vaccines going to waste uh nor does chesapeake there was a clinic today in at the pool uh for people 75 and older again if there's anybody in town 75 and older they can sign up uh through the vans system if you need help with that you can call tomorrow to chest per cop they can try and help direct you through that but it is a little bit complicated and that's part of the problem so there were 20 surplus vaccinations today we have a wait list of you know people that are older who work in our school system or have significant medically compromising conditions and so we had those folks vaccinated today 20 20 people we'll see what happens tomorrow hopefully that you know we can get the best of both worlds and have a lot of folks that are in that 1b 75 and older vaccinated as well as some some of our staff as well real quick i will show you the state releases every thursday the information around uh how our town's doing in connecticut and what does this look like and we put this into our cdc considerations chart so cases per hundred thousand uh the last two week running average is down uh significantly 10 10 points from 53.49 to 43.6 cases per 100 000.
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uh ocean if i miss uh danny can i hear a second second second by vice president abu drabo discussion seeing none roll call mr abedraba yes with abstain on my name only on p16 [Music] your name right yep correct miss bassford i'm staying on board conferences piece and i'd like just just to uh wish uh theresa evans on uh pete two uh happy retirement you will be sorely missed uh while you were during your tenure in clifton uh you touched a lot of lives and uh to the evans family i know it's been a rough go but um i think of you daily thank you mrs beltran yes mr genova yes mr daley yes miss danny yes mr casper yes and abstaining on my name only for p16 and mr smith yes uh next under uh finance and facilities we have one through ten do i have a motion motion motion by itself second second by vice president abu drabo discussion i have a question about uh p5 these attachments are they able to be seen by the general public um because i have a question about that uh i'm i'm looking uh my mr yes yes it's in public yes it's the content of the resolution i would feel more comfortable if the resolute the actual resolution itself had the dollar amount detached to it i know there's an attachment but usually when you write a resolution that's the who what when where why and how so i i would really i would feel more comfortable if we put the put the dollar amount in before we voted on this in in the second paragraph um it's the first sentence the final eligible cost for the project approved by the commissioner are 161 million 453 117 is it on the resolution itself because i don't see that on the resolution the resolution says approve a special school district elections to be held is it is it on there am i missing it it's in the box at the top where's his bomb proposal question at the bottom yeah but that's not the resolution that's not what i'm saying i'm my my comment is that when you write a resolution it should have the dollar amount because then when people go back to check in they don't check the attachments it just i i i don't feel comfortable supporting that without the amount she means if i may miss bespoke she means where it says recommend actions just basically duplicate that number into the body of the resolution this way just covers everybody is that right mrs password that's 100 correct because we're spending money we're we're authorizing money to be spent when it's an attachment if people can't access the attachment they don't know that we're putting all this money up there so that's why i i'm just i don't like when there's open-ended resolutions i i don't see that it's part of the attachment i see the recommend i see the subject i see the recommended action and it says bond council may require there's a colon and then it has the public content right underneath there so i think isn't that the whole resolution or am i not reading yeah it's yeah the yeah the i'm speaking about the resolution that's on the agenda itself i'm asking for the dollar amount to be on the agenda that's what i i we've always put dollar amounts on just each other i understand the attachment is is that all the whole laid out there's a family member uh the laid out um you know information but the resolution should have the dollar amount i'm just that's just me i mean it's an attachment and um it is on the public comment side so it's it's this whole entire like the tab at the top where it says content that's all public yeah so why did we add an attachment if you it's just i just had it as as both there's a document and then we put the entire document into the resolution okay got you so the attachment was just um repetitive yeah the attachment is the form that danny or i or both have to sign after we pass this yep uh mr smith i think we have to pull okay can we make a motion to pull five f3 and f4 and vote on it separately it's the wednesday thursday okay um miss bassford did you want um no i wanted them out in the resolution because i don't feel comfortable with it being down in the bottom i just wanted to state in that resolution i just don't understand what the golf is all about with this there's a reason i want it in there because when people go to search it they don't go looking for the attachment they look for the actual resolution itself all right mr uh abhidrabo uh you would like to have separate votes on uh three yeah we can't we can't vote at them at the same time i mean it's it's either or oh correct correct yeah there's two two resolutions are we tabling one or tabling both at the moment i i don't think did you say table or you said separate to separate them separately right so we'll just do a separate vote on three and a separate vote on four if we're going to put the resolution amount in five we need to put it in six too so because that was spending money there as well i know the attachment's on there but it doesn't oh it does say it sorry it's in the resolution it's hard to read this okay so we are um removing uh three and four from the group and using those as a separate votes uh so for this group we're doing one two five six seven eight and nine and ten um does my motion in second uh agree to that uh amendment was miss danny and uh mr robert miss danny it was miss basford oh do i have it wrong yes you do have it wrong yes i'm okay with it that's all right okay so on the group roll call mr abbey dropper sorry my cursor got stuck uh yes with cooling f3 and f4 and the rest on mr awad yes on all but i have to stain on the check number two one three three zero that's why i repeat number two one three three three zero that's devastating on that okay i'll find it miss password um uh yes to the group i'm i'm voting no on check number two zero zero nine eight five and two zero one zero eight eight i'll put it in the chat box so you know okay thank you miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes miss danny yes mr casper yes mr smith yes motion carries all right so uh motion on uh number three uh designation of meetings for wednesday nights do i have a motion motion motion by miss bassford do i have a second i'll second it i miss beltron any discussion scene none roll call mr abby drabo no mr awad no miss bassford yes that's the only night i can make it miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes miss danny no mr casper no mr smith no that's that's five to four no the motion does not carry all right next is number four designated meetings for thursdays do i have a motion motion by mr vice president abu drabo second second by mr awad discussion seeing none roll call i apologize who motioned uh it was uh mr abu drabba was the motion and second by mr awad gotcha thank you mr abu drabba yes mr awad yes miss password when people needed to be accommodated two years ago we've changed it i asked for accommodation because to my thursday nights is a late night thank you very much for not heeding to a board member i vote no beltran no mr canova no mr daley yes miss danny yes mr casper yes mr smith yes it has five votes motion carries okay next is uh board member comments um we normally go uh in alphabetical mr awad would you be comfortable going first or would you rather wait um my comments are gonna be very short uh first and foremost i would like to thank everybody that joins this meeting from the board members staff district teachers uh parents and any students watching uh we do live in hard times um like everyone stated there is a light at the tunnel we are getting there you know this has been a crazy year plus and you know there is a bright side to this future and to our staff to our teachers thank you for all the hard work you're doing um hopefully you know in the next few months in the near future we do slowly get back to normal um and uh prayers and our thoughts to you know all our uh essential workers from our doctors our nurses and teachers you know everybody out there doing their part in our community of society uh special uh thank you to uh the clifton health departments john b eagle uh leo uh and the rest of the staff for the hard work you guys are doing you know in tough times our community to stand together and that makes me really proud to be president clifton raised here and uh to a stronger future for our students and our staff to the entire district are you okay thank you mr awad uh miss bassford yes good evening everyone um miss uh thank you for all the speakers that came out tonight um to miss popowicz i couldn't agree with you more that we have to be more mindful when we have a an agenda that has two really specific uh impacting um subjects uh i do agree that we do need public comment on those you'll for the referendum you will have your time i'm sure we a lot of people bounced off for the opening of schools um because it does get late um i hear somebody i have i had kickback i don't know what's going on um i just hope people don't stop making noises again like they used to do um it's it's really upsetting this whole covert thing um i i want to urge the parents that um the chief operating officer of the clifton public school district makes this decision based on all of all of the people in the district and um we have been very sensitive uh i used to be on the uh education special education committee i am not on that no longer so but i don't i do know that while i was on that we were advocating for the special needs students and the gen ed students and their mental well-being as well we were we were really focusing on that uh so i want the parents to know that dr robituzzi has to make decisions that sometimes are based on the majority and not the minority of people so i want you to all understand that we're trying our best um it's not an easy position that we are in we these agendas take a lot of times to go through um the claims list itself uh there was four claims list five claims lists it was really really really annoying so um it just and they were from november and i don't understand why they were held but that's you know that's neither here nor there um mr smith i i want to i i'm getting kicked back and i don't understand what it is i hope you can hear me is there anyone that has their microphone on could you please uh turn it off you know when you have earphones on it hurts your ears when you get that kickback so it's not easy um mr smith i i did have a conversation with you you called me about the board committees and and i told you specifically i didn't want to discuss that information i have i have an issue uh discussing board business on the phone especially when it goes everybody everybody's discussing it so and then i have an issue when we get emails that discuss that so i've asked not to be put on those emails i do not want to violate opma okay i asked i asked not to be on those emails and i will continue i also was very specific in my conversation when i told you that i could not sit with a certain board member because i have a legal letter against me on october 14th i was served a cease and desist letter from a law firm from a board member and i cannot serve with that board member as per my personal attorney if you need a letter from my attorney i will supply that to you and the board for my protection as a human being and a board member i asked you specifically and you put me on that committee and i thought it was really insensitive of you to do that because not only did i get this at 9 56 tonight when i'm trying to concentrate on a meeting when we have a lot of resolutions to go over but then i got to look at this i think that was that was very inappropriate and also very unprofessional to give board members a list i didn't know what i was on i'm sure everybody else knew what they were on earlier in the day but i didn't know any better you don't have to comment you can you guys can say whatever you want after me i know what happened and i know the truth had i know a long time ago what i knew now and what i know things would be different in my world i would have taken different precautions to make sure things were handled correctly i learned that i learned the definition of gaslighting this summer i learned the definition of what real trust is and what real trust isn't and i've learned the true definition of what professionalism is and i'm not seeing it exhibited i have rights to i have a vote like everyone else does on this board long time ago people on this board not all of you tried to hold me down and tried to put me down and what did i do i got busy on another plane i went to the county and i went to the state and i learned things and i got involved i am a very well respected board member in the county in the state level i'm on legislative 34 i'm on the finance committee i'm on sub resolution i'm on the county activities leadership committee and whenever dr feinstein calls my phone and asks me a question he gets an answer right away that's respect and i really really really are very hurt that you made me do this tonight if you want me to read the letter out loud i can i can that's my right to do that and i have permission from my attorney to do so it's in record but i don't appreciate when i ask you specifically not to place me on a committee with that person because i have to protect myself because i feel that i have to go to my own personal lawyer to get information to protect myself as a board member stop with the games i'm not going to play them i told you very specifically what i needed and i thought you were going to respect my needs and i also thought that other people will respect the fact that when a board member makes a request that they need a certain day for a meeting you would respect that but it's coming from me so i understand that that's the way it's gonna roll it's okay i'm a tough girl i've been through a lot more than you guys think you can put me through there's only one way up from the bottom it's up and it's the top at the end of the day do not play games with people because there are other mechanisms to protect them that's all i'm saying thank you thank you who's next uh miss beltron okay um so i just like to start off as um as you guys know i'm obviously for the kids going back into school as soon as possible um i know the risks of covet i've been out here the entire time um unfortunately i lost two employees to it so i understand the risks all too well um and i get there are benefits to doing this school online and mainly that's for the older students i have a real problem with the younger students i grew up having a hard time learning to read and i couldn't imagine having to learn to read online um i had astigmatism and my eyes would jump down to the next line and i'd read backwards and i couldn't imagine if i had to stare at a screen deal with that and then try and learn to read so i really hope that we can hope beyond hope to get the elementary kids back in the high school and the middle school i think obviously they have their own struggles but i think they're better equipped to handle the online learning whereas the younger students aren't also the connection issues we had a couple of teachers call in tonight and they had connection issues and i wonder you know how many kids are having to listen to their classes in slo-mo and gaps and things like that if they're calling into a board meeting we can't understand them how are they able to do the classes from their home if their wi-fi connection is that weak um hopefully we get some federal mandates biden seems to be um on a real push to get us back into schools in a hundred days he said it a couple of times the last couple of days so hopefully he'll um be able to figure something out that he could help us federally and push some more vaccine out to maybe make this happen sooner because i know some people did the math on the timeline but i don't see the timeline getting us back into school before uh the end of the year which you know maybe we're looking at a september start but i think our administration needs to take a look at prom moving up ceremonies graduation now and start working on that if they aren't already to re-envision it and hopefully make it better than it was last year because now we have enough time to prepare for that if we in fact cannot have traditional events maybe we have multiple proms or outdoor proms or something else so that these kids don't lose out the same way that the kids did last year um and that's pretty much it i'd like to thank everyone for staying up late with us and um hope to see everyone in person soon thank you miss beltran mr kanoa all right good evening first of all thank you to all the speakers uh thank you to everyone who had presentations um definitely a lot of information there i know it took a long time to prepare so thank you um so just touching back on on the uh the issue of going back to school you know one thing i'm for is is giving people the choice right before we you did say we did give parents a choice we could say that some chose to stay out some some chose to to go in um so for the parents who called in opposition saying they want to keep their kids home you have that choice and you've had that choice it's not worth mandating everyone to come back and i don't i don't even know if that will happen and i'm sure at some point it will it'll be at a later date what i'm advocating for and what i'm talking about is people who want to come back now i realize that there is a group of people out there which is the teachers that i know in the beginning they were surveyed so they were given the opportunity to say whether or not they were comfortable with coming in now i don't know to the extent that was but if a new survey needs to go out and survey the teachers and see who's comfortable coming in and make a new plan as to you know how that's going to function and that's what we should do we should do what's in the best interest for the kids and the parents and the community and the teachers um if they feel that in in person learning is better and they feel they learn that better that way in that structure then that's what we should give to them right we're at the end of the day we're a service provider just like the one teacher said it all boils down to one thing a teacher and a student and the teachers give the education to the students in any means necessary whatever works for that student um so i think i think us making the decision is wrong i think we should really put the decision decision back in their hands and leave it open um that's what we did before and and again it worked looking at the statistics internal spread was less than external spread so i think we're looking at um looking at stats that they're a little bit skewed but going back to touching on the referendum i know people were tying the referendum saying you know if we don't have a date to go back to school you know we're not we're not going to pass this referendum or we shouldn't be going for the referendum and and i would urge them to to think twice because this is the one time that we're gonna have the ability to buy things at you know we go back to this coupon code at 30 33 discount if not more it could be up to 40 even but this is the one opportunity we have these are things we're going to buy anyway we're going to have to do these things uh it just be it's the same thing as you buying things in your house but instead of buying them over a long period of time you're buying in a short period of time and getting a discount so i i would definitely want to turn this down i know you may be passionate about you know going back to school but don't let that passion get in the way of this huge discount here and i know it seems like a lot you know adding 200 to taxes but in the long run if we don't need to do those projects that means that we could come out at zero every year we don't have to increase it just like we did this year we don't have to increase the tax right that's so that's always an option that we can take so i urge you even though you may be feeling passionate about this one thing don't let it harm the other please um and danny you know at the end of the day no matter what decision you make i'm gonna support it but i have to at least say my piece right because i represent people in this town as well that are calling me and telling me you know why aren't we back in so i think that's the beauty of this board is that we can talk about things we can argue about things but at the end of the day um it's a democracy here right and everybody speaks their mind and at the end of the day things pass or they don't and i appreciate that i appreciate that about not only here but about our nation um and uh that's all i have for tonight thank you mr kenova mr daily uh thank you mr president i know it's been a long night um just a couple of things um first of all about the referendum um and and and the virus um this the virus is a huge challenge and we're all the victims there's nobody that's uh putting an agenda foreign for pandemic virus going around um it's very difficult everybody is suffering um [Music] i don't share what what trials i have to go through and if somebody wants to reveal that that's fine but i know in families and friends all over the place they all have challenges from one degree to another so this virus is touching everybody in one form or another um the thing that's really disturbing me at this particular time the governor announced the other day that he's getting a hundred thousand um vaccinations a week if you do a quick math there's nine million people in the state of new jersey if seventy percent get vaccinated that means it would take about a year and a half to the exit ate everybody with two shots that's 14 million a little over 14 million shots and we're only getting a 100 000 a week so i hope that the federal government is able to open up the spigot on the uh for the product and this can move a lot faster but um you know we're just gonna since the product is not there and and you look at the summer numbers compared to now they're off the charts they they just exploded and um i know a lot of friends and family members who have caught the virus fortunately nobody has passed but it's a trial and everybody's worried about exposure um myself and my wife have gotten tested many times fortunately we've always been negative but you know you got to be extra cautious at this time and um you gotta you know put your head down but move forward so i'm hoping for the best now about the referendum and other things um we would be neglecting our jobs if we just focused on one thing you need to walk and chew many pieces of gum at the same time to run an organization such as this and i know under the superintendent and all the staff here is doing a great job to do that you get yes we would like we would love to set a state's certain but it it is a movable thing this virus it's hiding in the shadows it comes out we don't have a crystal ball and we don't have the product to address it as a as the state at this time so you know there's nothing i mean i think we're all doing the very best but in terms of the referendum as mr canova just said yes we have to do multi things at the same time we don't take our eyes off the virus but we have to keep our eyes on everything else this is an extraordinary opportunity that the district has i've heard a lot of people that willing to support it uh my off the cuff's suggestion that is everybody who is involved in the school system got 10 people to vote for this thing we're winners just go out and find 10 people for those who are running form zoom meetings i'll be happy to participate and provide any information um of course we're we get a little bit more information than everybody else but you're going to have a large information package about the participation if we did not have these presentations both on the covid and the referendum ahead and we voted on this well what are you doing that's what the first thing people would be saying well what are you doing what are you voting on we don't know anything about this you had an extensive briefing and yes your patience yes the day is long the night is long but that's what we're here for we're going to be here for as long as it takes to get things done right i think the presentations were necessary for the public to know something because you're going to ask a more informed form question especially especially asking questions that you don't know anything about so this is the first cut of an information campaign you'll have many more you have many opportunities to respond but tonight they were appropriately placed on the agenda and yes if you want to stay up and listen we're getting more people uh weighing in from public comment than i've ever seen when we were doing in person there'd be two or three people whether it was a budget or anything else show up at a board meeting so people are tuning in and are paying attention from my perspective um [Music] and the last thing i'd like to add at this time i was very happy to see that the superintendent was looking forward to having extra um sessions and classes in the summers or on saturdays um if it's going to happen during the summer and saturdays we can very much talk about that and putting that extra money into the budget or finding the money to put in for that uh he knows that i've talked to him many times about that about because no matter how good our uh virtual features are there's no substitute for in classroom and we know as as a matter of common sense that kids learn better in school than virtual that being said we need to support all our students and i mentioned to them several times that i'd be more than willing to support putting money in the budget that allow would allow our teachers to teach either after school hours when we're in session or during the summer or whenever uh the superintendent decides is the appropriate form to do that again i'd like to thank all the speakers and it was a long meeting but that's what we're here for you got to stay here and stay with it and take care of the entire business of the board of education thank you all and have a great night thank you mr daley uh uh miss danny uh yes i'll i'll keep it um pretty brief um uh so i wanna thank all the speakers um for coming out and um i think you know like what mr canova said it's it's a democracy and you know what that's the great beauty of it all is you know people weighing in and you know sometimes you make decisions and you make them from a place that you know you think is the right place and you know there'll always be people that are happy and then people that aren't um and you know it's that's just the nature of the way things are i mean it would be nice to be able to please everybody but you know that's just somehow sometimes how it is um some people are upset and others aren't um you know and then if you open up schools then um others complain and others are happy and you know hopefully again we can get back to some sort of sense of normalcy because again nothing really beats opening up the classrooms and having the kids be in the classroom as i said um with that being said and you know looking at you know covid and everything i do hope that um everyone you know is taking care of themselves i do feel terrible um for students that you know i think a lot of them are missing the social interaction well i know they are you know um being that i am an educator and i have you know taken time to speak to the students in regards to their social emotional wellness and ask them and you know really what they miss is the social interaction being in a classroom and interacting with their peers and you know little little jokes and little things that they do um so you know it's it's you know again it's it's we just wish we could go to normal and everything could be the way it was um and you know individuals that make decisions we might not agree with them we might not like it um you know maybe we can come up with different alternatives or something will happen and and we'll move in a different direction but you know sometimes the decision is what it is and we just have to find a way to you know find the rainbow um and um in terms of mr daily what you were saying uh about you know that the presentations were long but you know they did need to be um put out there and because again uh you need to have that discussion you need to have a healthy discussion you need to bring those topics out to the forefront because then individuals will say well you know what are you hiding or why wasn't this out sooner so you know it was a long meeting um you know again very long but you know sometimes there needs to be a long meeting things need to be brought out um and that's um all that i have to say and i just one last thing i want to end it is um my daughter's in labor so you know i apologize a bit um i've been kind of uh you know trying to i've been getting text messages from her and everything so it's my first grandchild and i'm super excited and um you know they say that that's so i i'm you know i'm beyond so beyond whatever um so in the midst of all this with covid at least i'm trying to find some like little rainbow and that's all um good night thank you you miss danny mr casper yes um i'm just gonna i would like to say a few thank yous uh before i um finish so i'd first like to thank everyone that put all their time into uh putting our presentations together thank you for everyone coming out this evening and spending your evening with us hopefully hopefully we can find a way to open school safely again i'd like to thank all of our dedicated staff and teachers that we have working on a daily basis i'd like to thank our retirees for your long dedication to our our district and uh at the beginning of the month i didn't get to congratulate our students of the month so um congratulations to our high school students of the month thank you everybody thank you mr casper i'm going to keep my uh my comments brief because we're closing close to uh midnight and uh dr robotozi uh i'd like you to have the uh the floor so um first off i just like to thank um my board members for entrusting me with the position of president um i will always be a professional president i will always be an honest president i will always give you the truth and uh i will always work with each of you um i will continue to send out emails uh they could be at many different times um i'm actually looking right now to figure a way of doing smoke signal instead of email if people are bothered by that so if we can figure that out i'll get that out to all of you but until then um i can't thank you enough for the uh the encouragement that the majority of the board uh put up on me and vice president abu jabra um oh actually you were supposed to go before me i'm sorry um and um my first meeting so i will always give you my best i i may not be perfect all the time i can't tell you how many hours were spent on committees and if any board member doesn't want to sit on a committee very nicely just let me know send an email and i'll remove you off the committee but i reached out to every board member tried to do my very best as president to put members on committees that they were interested in if they told me they were interested in it if not i am not going to cater around to board members who have special requests so if you don't want to serve on a committee you want to put extra burden on on the rest of the board please feel free to let me know and i'll remove you from any and all committees that you wish to be removed from um that's a prerogative you have as a board member but i guess until you've st in this chair you don't know how hard it is to fill these committees and mr abu drabo and i spent many hours putting this together and i thank you for your help with that it was done professionally and um so until uh until the smoke signal comes uh you may get an email from me uh again and i look forward to working with all of you and uh thank you for electing me as your president and mr abhidravo as your vice president and mr abu jabra i'm sorry i went before you but please uh the floor is yours thank you um i'm gonna keep it brief um and my brief is this is it's not really much about my life and my kids but to the young lady who who spoke on the phone you're right i don't know what's going in your house and many people on this screen here laughed when i said the word boredom because they know code word for boredom that my three-year-old son broke a tv a computer or something with a bat in reality my three-year-old kid who was on iep um has a hip therapy because he's going crazy at home in reality my five-year-old girl just like your nine-year-old probably i can't speak for yourself i can't speak for you but um also has a animal therapy because the person who loves school also hates school and from how you're explaining she too is also seeing a therapist um because not that she needs it but because i need to be ahead of the game before she actually really needs it but at the same time with all due respect ma'am and anybody else again you don't know what happens in my house in my real life in my personal life i don't know what happens in your life but i also won't want to talk about it but you want to talk about it more than happy to and i still put people outside this house priority not over my kids but over all well-being i'm taking care of what i need to take care of in this house because these two children are my responsibility and i can take care of it the superintendent all these children in this district are his responsibility when they're when when they're when they're in those classrooms and within the school district buildings so again i still stand behind you danny um other than me thank you have a great night okay dr robertos you can uh bring us home you gotta mute yourself first and thank you mr smith in case there was any confusion um there was a public speaker a couple that said they didn't unders that there was no plan to return to in-person instruction i think i was pretty clear on what the plan is the plan is very simple when we see a clear and lasting decrease in the number of cases school will open god i hope that's march first if the numbers go down as much this month as they went up last month we'll be in school on march first so it's not that there is no plan that's the plan and uh finally mr konova i appreciate what you said so much um about uh you know respecting maybe having a difference of opinion but at the end of the day we support each other and that's how i feel with this board and i and i thank this board for their support even if we might disagree on something because i have to tell you this we all want what's in the best interests of students and staff and community however there are legitimate disagreements in regards to covet and returning to school about what is in the best interest of those people so we can have legitimate disagreements but at the end of the day support each other and be kind to each other and listen i think the future is bright so hang in there i thank you all for your support have a good night thank you dr robitozzi um go to uh new business i have something new business miss basford yes um i see on the i see on the committee list that there's a diversity committee and i i happen to know that they've met twice so my question to you i'm not against the disability uh this diversity committee i'm not even against anything but where are the minutes and how come this board hasn't been apprised of those minutes you can't have a committee of board members go out into a uh some kind of uh committee section and meet in an organized fashion and not report that information back to the board the board is a collective whole of nine people not just three so where are those minutes and how come we haven't been they haven't been given to us that's my question okay uh other than questions is there any new business yeah mr smith i do have one item uh mr casper please go first it's just um we had to decide on the date for the ethics training because uh february 16th we have um the referendum meeting and then the 18th is our board meeting that's exactly what what i was going to to bring up uh mr casper so the 16th um the the dates that kathy hello had available were february 16th and february 18th um do we have a board meeting on the 18th uh we do yes we do the next meeting is february 4th and then we have a meeting on the 18th okay so um i had completely forgotten that the 16th was a referendum citizens committee there's a board meeting um on that thursday night so it's honestly it's up to the board what night is best for them i will make my schedule work but it might be it might just work in everybody's best interest to to do the ethics training an hour before the regular regularly scheduled board meeting just start the meeting early uh doctor in discussion um with ms hello who's going to be uh facilitating it uh these were two specific dates that she was giving us solely for clifton she has other dates that are available we probably have to piggyback on another board so we may be limited on our time um even if it's not on a board night if it's on another night we still would be limited on our time and this being our first ethics training i i really don't want to stifle ourselves uh if we don't have to um so maybe i can reach out to her tomorrow and see if there's other dates available i just don't want to push it out too much further uh one of my goals was to to have that training done as soon as possible and i was glad that we got dates from her right away so let me reach out to her first and then see and then i'll i'll get back to the board any objection from the board i won't discuss that with emails if you're going to give us dates it has to be discussed in public so this way the public can wait in on it i'm not going to talk about board business over the phone or in an email so just count me out uh and if you have it the hour before the meeting any other dude there's anything else i'm still speaking i'm speaking this is new business wonder i am still speaking you're speaking i'm still on the new business yes okay good if you have it before the meeting starts i am having a devil over time to get to the meeting so it's not fair to people that can't make it for seven o'clock you have to be mindful of everybody's schedule i just made those comments prior to this please be polite and professional with me you cut me off three times already feel really discriminated against mr smith is there any other new business on the floor seeing no other new business we will we don't have any executive session isn't that wonderful so i will entertain a motion to close your clothes by mr vice president second by mr casper any objection have a good night everybody thank you very much everybody good night everyone good night
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can she get 21 and she does a great game by woodard here tonight for the panthers coming up on 505 here in the fourth quarter coming down the crunch time and bachmann down low on the left block and blocked by woodard and ernest gets the rebound and woodard has it and gets it to addison [Applause] back to a 10-point ball game thompson inside to earn this and she draws the fallon should be at the line once again for the panthers gabby dean picks up her third 33. lilly is coming in shooting 70 at the line and off the mark she's looking to come becoming double figures here she has nine points on the knights contest 4 45 remaining 10 point ball game and they cut it down to 9.
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the positivity rate over the last 14 days has been 6.4 percent down from 7.4 and our medigree mitigation strategies remain very strong uh when you balance us all out you know basically a lower risk of transmission in our schools that's exactly what we've seen as a matter of fact we've seen really no transmission in our schools uh and that's that's uh across the state as well that um you know just not seeing in school transmission dr matt carter one of the leading epidemiologists in connecticut really nationally and also a cheshire high school graduate said the other day that um really the schools are proving to be one of the safest places to be based on everything that all the data that we have so that's that's positive we want to try and get as many students as we can safely into school every day the high school is the only place where we don't have that full-time option and we are taking steps to move closer to that identifying students with more academic needs and trying to get them in more regularly is the first step in that process and we're doing that already to get those students in four days a week as opposed to the typical two-day week experience for other students i want to remind members of the board who may have signed up that tomorrow morning at 8 00 am there's a cade connecticut association board of education legislative leadership breakfast virtually of course and carol would have sent you the link to that if you signed up if you're still interested and don't have the link just let carol know we'll square it away for 8 a.m tomorrow happens annually where we meet with members of the our local delegation uh with other folks from other school systems other superintendents and board members and just they share with us kind of what the legislative agenda is and how it relates to education so that's tomorrow morning at 8 am and then finally um important here that we have to there's not a formal motion that has to be taken but we do need to notify you that we have to as a school system our leadership team in informs aces of seats available in cheshire to be offered to new haven children throughout the state's open choice program open choice is a program that was instituted to reduce racial and economic isolation for students from urban communities is part of the response to the chef versus omnia lawsuit the benefit for the community is tremendous in providing diverse school enrollment for our community and funds received from the state have helped offset district-wide literacy programs uh costs over the last several years you know i've said repeatedly over my five years as superintendent how it's an incredible resource for us to be able to offer these seats that are available to students from the new haven community it's a tremendous benefit to us to be able to further diversify our student body um and i don't know in my opinion i don't know that we'd ever be able to offer enough seats to really uh meet our goals but when we have seats that are open i think this is a great resource for us and it's a good opportunity for the students unfortunately as a principal i've seen many times it is difficult when you're taking the bus from new haven to get to cheshire high school it's 7 30 in the morning and because your bus ride starts i mean it's ungodly early when you're in treasure but when you're coming from the south end of new haven the cheshire again it's just another thing that i think about if we are considering the the myriad of benefits for pushing school start times back my god i don't have time to think about that today but it's in the back of my head uh just another side benefit for us to be able to better retain uh students from the open choice program as they matriculate up through the high school level because it's really hard on them to get up that early but anyway um so we we will again be doing that this year and we'll provide more information as we review our our enrollment for next year is exactly how many seats we're we're providing so that concludes my always exciting superintendent's report thank you dr sullin uh start with adam adam had a comment and then faith had a question thank you um i uh after seeing that the um i don't know what to call infection report i don't know um i just again i wanted to thank you and marlene and your staff for working so hard to to having these great mitigation protocols to be able to keep our schools open where i think we're one of the few in the state where we have been open from from the beginning until now where we've had well we've had no instances of closure or going having to go remote at least system-wide and um and i that's really testament to to you and your staff and to to working with uh um uh maureen is it more more more right and all of her staff and keeping everyone uh going it's just been really great and i'm and and i'm also happy that the i think the community responded as well by by seeing our our infection rates kind of uh drop uh so that we can continue this great success so yeah thanks adam you know my budget slide highlighted really the the community-wide effort that was necessary for us to be successful and um our parents did a great job keeping kids home and it's still imperative that if your family is symptomatic that your child is home if somebody's being tested i really need to reiterate that this new strain of the virus is um according to dr carter within the next month going to be the more prominent strain in america uh because it's it's that sort of spread which makes these practices these mitigation strategies so critical so mask wearing keeping your kids home when they're sick our kids have been phenomenal social distancing not just at school but at home because that's where we are seeing issues is outside of school and so i really absolutely marlene deserves an incredible amount of credit for the education that our students are receiving while they go through this process but i would be remiss if i didn't acknowledge the czar of ppe that is mr massiana he is just uh he's something when it comes to that don't get him started he's worse than me when it comes to rolling on about school stuff so anyway um thank you adam for that thank you adam uh you had a question um first of all echo adam's um comments that good job you guys and keeping everybody in and also um being ready with a wait list because there's nothing more um disconcerting is the thought of doses going unused so glad they're getting used and getting used within the school so so kudos to all of you just a question with regard to open choice um which is a fabulous program and i'm just wondering do we ever have seats go unfilled i mean you you know how many every year that you can take do we does every seat get filled or do seats go wanting uh it depends yeah i mean i i've seen it over the course of our history whereas go unfilled um and often times it's a function of the drive we are the furthest away from nor new haven um it's the way the state sets up these catchment areas you know waterbury would make more sense right next door um but we are in the aces uh area and then we take students from new haven so it is a a little bit of a track and i from my the families that i've had conversations with that's always the biggest factor right i think they they have a great experience generally speaking but it's the transportation's a killer and just a thought um one well just a follow-up question how has covitt affected current open choice and is there any way going forward that we can um look for ways to use remote learning for some of these kids um going even when we're out of covenant yeah you know what faith that's a tremendous suggestion um and again yeah that's we think about a lot of things and how do we uh take what we've learned from the covet experience to improve upon our school system postcode and we've got a laundry list and that one i have to give you credit is not on the list and it's a tremendous suggestion so you know i'm sure marlene and kevin and i and ben will all be thinking about is there a way for us to better leverage that and support students so that maybe it's it's not so uh tough on the ride you know we could have students participating in first period remotely depending on you know if you're a judge or high school and that's a much different experience when you have to get there at 8 8 15 versus 7 20.
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so coming up on 4 35 can the olympians keep the lead and become conference champs and that is stolen by the panthers up to thompson and up and good this is what happened in the second quarter the olympians had a lead and the panthers found a way to fight back to tie the ball game up but a foul committed by thompson and the panthers so the olympians are in the bonus will put albany spear at the line shooting the one on one as it is up and good she'll get a second one albany's looking at her seventh point here as she has six and gets it to fall [Applause] nine point ball game here down inside to woodard back out to addison fires a quick three up and good her first points here in the second half and like always it is a three-point basket gives her 15 points all three-pointers and stolen by the panthers thompson inside woodard on the right block back out to thompson mowry gets it inside ernst fires up the shot up and good what a shot by lilly ernst gives her 12 points a great shot and a great way to get that one to farm we have ourselves once again a ball game that's only how championship games go back and forth never count the losing team outs as gravity picks her dribble up baseline jump shot up and good said straw 4-2 gives her 14 points on the knights coming up on 315 here in the ball game as woodard baseline jump shot as well off the mark and rebounded by sage she's looking to push the ball down the court and across to grivy and travel violation olympians fan do not like the call two times she's been called for a travel violation down on that side of the court jennings county basketball coming up on three minutes here in the conference championship game ernst dribbles to her right gets to the right block and blocked by gabby dean and rebounded from slave stalbert turned over by the olympians mary has it thompson back to earnsis and gets it to fall lily ernst has done a great job here in the second half gives her 14 points and cuts the lead back down to four it was a 12 point ball game and the panthers cut it the lead down to four time out taken by the olympians thirty second timeout with two thirty three remaining here in the ball game back and forth ball game like we mentioned all broadcasts each team showing some big fights not wanting to quit it's a game of runs and basketball and that's exactly what is shown here tonight the olympians going to run genetics county comes back olympian's going to run jimmy's kenny comes back so we should be in store for the rest of the ballgame with 2 33 remaining olympians basketball after the timeout taken by coach brown the panthers will come out with the press and bachmann takes the ball out on the floor is bachmann spear stall gravy and dean and they're definitely going to try to stop gravy but they do get it in and they're going to fall back to their half court defense coming up on two and a half minutes here in the fourth quarter four-point ball game 65-61 sage stall has it across to albany she dribbles the ball back out and gives it to gravy and stall on the right wing bachmann has it at the top of the key back to gravity coming up on 205 here in the fourth quarter [Applause] and the foul committed will put corinne grivy at the line addison kent picks up her first great sign double bonus for the olympians the remainder of the game and good 83 free throw shooter corrine gravy can she capitalize here on the second and shorts and no good rebounded by woodard kentz has it dribbles to her left and back to her right back to thompson the olympians in their zone look looks like a zone with albany spear face guarding kent not letting her get a shot off and it will be olympian basketball great defense there with 141 remaining here in the fourth quarter bachmann will take the ball out give it in to albany back to gravy and a careless pass in a turnover and jennings county will get the ball back maury has it thompson on the right wing back into woodard thompson 4-3 big shot on its way in good thompson with a big three-point basket in a turnover but off the mark and rebounded by bachmann and she will draw the foul nine points for thompson ernst picks up her second foul will put bachmann at the line 4-2 bachmann with 20 points here in tonight's contest two-point ball game 114 remaining here in the fourth quarter time-out taken by jennings county a full-time timeout so we will take a look at our cheerleaders here in the fourth quarter [Music] here we go [Applause] so welcome back to the live stream here 114 remaining two point ball game leah bachman is at the line for two the olympians are in the double bonus the remainder of the ball game the olympians had the lead up to a 12 point lead and just like in the second quarter jennings county found a way to get the lead cut down to single digits as bachmann is up and good bachmann with 21 points here tonight see if bachmann can get the second to fall and good leah bachmann with two big free throws [Applause] coming up on 105. let's see which team is going to be able to get something to go here late in the fourth quarter thompson dribbles inside and a foul called by the ref and that will be on grivey picks up her second jennings counties one foul away from being in the bonus team fast six for the genius county panthers and ten for the olympians timeout taken by coach brown and the olympians a full time out so we will take another look at our cheerleaders they getting they are getting quite a bit of action here tonight eh orange [Applause] [Music] cheerleaders so after the timeout taken by the olympians will be panther basketball after corinne gravy picked up the foul under a minute here four point ball game water gets it inside up and off the mark blocked by gabby dean olympians fan looking for a travel but kent fires up the three in shorts and rebounded for i stall and she'll be at the line for two free [Applause] throws sage stahl is at the line shooting a 71 percent on the season quite a bit of points scored by each team in high school basketball as that one is up and good gives her 15 looking at her 16th with this free throw here and nothing but net for sage stahl 70 points here for the olympians great job scoring wise coming up on 30 seconds here mary shot is blocked by bachmann and two gravy and she will be heading to the line for two free throws great defensive effort there by the olympians standing ovation by all the fans here in attendance tonight and a timeout taken once again by jennings county 26.1 seconds remaining here and we will have our columbus cheerleaders once again [Applause] me the olympians are 26.1 seconds away from becoming outright conference champions i'm sure that's the last thing they have on their mind right now it's just getting the win green gravy is at the line for two as that is up and good for gravy gives her 15.
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um so it was a great idea so we'll think about that it happens sometimes thank you faith uh tim had a question and ann had a comment so tim you're up yeah jeff thank you for um and marlene and vin for keeping the schools open this year jeff do you happen to know um like adam said we were among the few do you happen to know what the actual numbers are or is it 150 school districts there's differences between elementary and high school but just generally speaking how many have been open all year yeah you know i don't know i know that i can tell you we've had to close for covid four days one day at highland when we learned of and this was very early in the process we learned of a positive employee from the cleaning company who couldn't tell us who she was in contact with because she didn't know anybody it was only like day two um so we were closed that subsequent day and then we closed for three days at cheshire high school when we were working through an issue with our cafeteria staff aside from that we've been open every day and you know anecdotally i can tell you that there are very few that can claim that and uh i want to thank our graduates over 80 of whom have come back to support us and this has garnered a lot of national attention on the apy i got an email from a superintendent in kentucky the other day asking for the letter that we sent out to our graduates it's a national problem we just interviewed the heckinger report yesterday there's another major news outlet looking to do a story on this that i hope to share soon but it's really our graduates who came back and helped bail us out so a lot of credit to them i hope the governor doesn't know what you're doing because he said he's looking for someone who wants to keep the schools open yeah yeah um after our december first press conference what we're doing um with regard to uh um the substitutes you were just talking about are those are most of those uh the recent chs alums are they going back to school around february first yeah someone they just had a great conversation with one today who um is their school's remote in the second semester graduate i talked to today february 6th so uh it it's kind of different um for everybody i do worry as we come toward the spring my hope is that if schools are going back our demand might be lower too so um we'll have to cross that bridge if we get to it the uh the reason the thing that's coming to my mind is that uh um so anecdotally and i think i may have seen this reported a little bit but the second vaccine hits people yeah harder than the first and i'm wondering if you can follow that you know you're paying attention to it you know what let's just have 50 extra subs teed up because we're about to do a hundred people on their second dose right now on february you know 14 14 valentine's day whatever in the middle of february just to have that um have an idea about what's happening there yeah i mean that's something that we are definitely sensitive to and uh when the rollout is available to our staff then i i think i in mass anyway then i i think we we would want to be very careful about let's say we're not gonna give the second vaccination to everybody at chapman on the same day and if if we had to would our plan be for the next day to potentially be remote or something like that you know these are considerations that we've definitely been working through internally with nancy stanton our nursing coordinator who's phenomenal um our team is looking at some of those things okay great um and the last question i don't know if you would mention it i'm just wondering how many open choice seats do we have this year i think it's 30 we currently have 34 open choice students in the district and so that's that's spread out across grades rated toward the elementary so that i'm just guessing that most of them are probably more of them it's probably more weighted toward norton and doolittle than chapman right no not necessarily you know there were points where marlene who is also a very strong proponent of the open choice program where um we would have actually the majority of our students at chapman of our open choice students would be a jedi what we're trying to do is focus on really cater to uh students and try our goal being bring in as many students as we possibly can and then hold on to them through their entire k12 experience and you know whatever the remainder of their whatever through 12 experience is so that they can really be a part of our experience the whole way through and graduate from chs okay thank you thank you tim uh ann harrigan you're up yeah i just wanted to thank you jeff superintendent solon for um bringing up that in on the back of burner is still uh thoughts of moving the school start times for the high school back uh pushing them back and um if there is any optimistic information coming from people about uh covid and remote learning and all of this the people that i've spoken to who have kids in high school if you get past all asking questions all about the remote learning and online learning and screen time and all of that if you just ask the simple question how is their health do they seem more rested the answer and this is all anecdotal it's not i have not been compiling it in any systematic way but i the responses that i'm getting across the board are oh yeah oh she's much happier he's he's doing really well he doesn't have to get up at six o'clock in the morning it's just that the other thing um i wonder if there's a way that we could systematically compile some of this information i would never ask you to put one more thing on your plate but i do think about it still and um i'm ready to work on that project as soon as uh as soon as you all call me in i know you will be there with bells on and marlene and i spent a lot of time talking to parents over the summer a lot of times a lot of parents and that was something that you know a sizable number of people indicated that the the benefit of at least sleeping a little bit later after that march through june experience where we had that hour delay in the morning prep time and just rearranging everything that we do in a school system it was it was really powerful to hear all those parents say what it meant for their high school kids and some of you you know tony your daughter you know just experiencing that it's much different so thank you sure thank you uh i have no comments sometimes reporter again dr stone thank you and again i i i know um we probably don't say it enough and i i know you know we appreciate everything you and team are doing um you know not just someone here tonight but it's a it is a district-wide effort to pull this off and it has been pretty it hasn't been easy it's challenging and it changes by the day by the week and you know as uh this code evolves respond to it it's just a it's a constant state of change uh by no means is it perfect uh but i think we're failing very well and uh i look forward and again i'm not gonna i'm not gonna knock on wood we have another five months of school at least to go through um you know anything can happen but i'm confident that um you know we're staying the course and using actual data and measuring and feedback to help guide you know the direction so thank you for that um i am looking forward to debriefing all this attend the school year lessons learned and you know the ann's point are there things that we learned um that might be worthwhile incorporating uh next school year but um don't get hurt ourselves we're gonna take this one week at a time so but thank you yeah and again i this is i'm one person in this organization and and i know ben and marlene feel the same way we have ias and maintenance technology like the the and of course our incredible teachers and administrators who deserve so much more credit uh for doing this every day really proud of the effort they've all put forth great thank you agree nurses of course yeah they're always in the forefront of them um again so that was in the superintendent's report thank you i have known you uh old business uh do have some new business chairperson's up that actually do have something i'll try to keep it short um so someone mentioned earlier the cabe webinar series i'm pretty sure as board members we're getting these notifications from cave i have been attending them i do every year i attended a couple of finance and uh running meetings etc there's a couple coming up in february that you should have in your inbox um one is on school board leadership through effective policy so really gears toward policy committee members of those that wish to want to serve on policy uh it's appreciated for us but we'll definitely help uh get some tips there and another important one coming up on february 18th uh it's entirely a new year a lot has changed a lot has them what can we do and i think this is the fourth uh session in cabe's uh diversity equity inclusion series i definitely will be attending that one again these are uh we belong to cape so partnership fees cover this they're available to us and you know we're we're all trying to do professional development for ourselves as board members um these have been pretty concise and worthwhile especially since they've been online so please take advantage if you can and uh there will definitely be more um jeff dr sullin mentioned the vaccine uh there has been a lot of chatter on school districts i again i still sit on a weekly board of that chair meeting um a lot of school districts were upset that teachers weren't prioritized higher in phase 1b not necessarily ahead of age 25 plus but they def they wanted to see teachers especially those that are in the front lines or students be prioritized alongside with them i guess there was some discrepancy in the state last week i i think teachers started enrolling for the vaccine and the governor or someone said don't enroll but i don't think again it's quite clear yet the last i've heard uh depending on what gun lamont does and our health department um they may be right behind 75 plus maybe a few weeks after but as dr sullin alluded to it's uh the timing role the vaccines would be very interesting so it's still a bit of but do know a lot of school districts are are having that discussion i know some have sent letters into uh the representatives as well as uh governor lamont on that um i uh had a chance to meet with the members of the cheshire coalition group this past monday and welcome to king day i've been touching base with them periodically just to see how things are going i know they spend some time behind the scenes talking to district staff they attended their curriculums back in late fall they're kind of taking a look at uh how the district is actually working on diversity equity inclusion anti-racism etc we'll probably have more updates on that at the next meeting uh it brings us up only because uh we've always uh wanted to accommodate them at upcoming board meeting but with everything going on it was pretty difficult to do last year i am looking for a date sometime in february probably after we're done with the budget submissions wear some breathing room it will be very worthwhile for us to have some dialogue with them and see what they're all about see their goals and and i know the board members have some questions for them so i'll work on a date you'll probably get some emails from carol on potential dates on that but uh look definitely that february i am going to be attending legislative breakfast tomorrow i think dr seoul might be on that one too curious to see who's going to be there this time in in some of the topics um oh i uh i should have mentioned some last meetings uh because cheshire belongs to the area cooperative oasis with aces um i get to serve on their governing board as chair of our board of ed so there's a monthly meeting of the group and some executive meetings that happen uh similar you know no different than traditional school they're sort of dealing with cova they're dealing with funding issues budgets etc um one notable topic uh as i'm not sure if people know about this but uh they are looking for a new location for thomas edison middle school uh they've been looking at potential sites now for a few months they have a dentist they've identified a site and are actually um discussion at real estate but unfortunately because it is executive session i can't talk about it uh but hopefully in february there'll be some news around that and that's materializes she's super some pretty exciting news so that'd be a pretty big thing for for aces um and lastly i had the privilege um of uh being on a treasure cast last week um corey and trish we shot me some time ago i just got generally from the board you know everyone realizes that uh i think everyone does there's a lot going on on the board in the school district uh so i had an opportunity just to give up the all things that we're working on smc covet et cetera nothing out of the ordinary but i just want to mention that um they were very complimentary of the board all of us um and a lot of thanks was given to the board for our time or dedication in the best of times let alone um in what is not the best of times right now so just want to share that with you all that that cast comes out soon i laugh because i think um i actually was able to say something 22 minutes into the meeting uh into this because they're they're just a fun bunch to be with um it was very very fun uh very uh uh joking so uh very lighthearted but uh i think hopefully it was informational for for us in the community beyond that that's that's all i had thankfully um next up on the agenda is announcement of upcoming meetings and events because they never end um first let's talk about the budget meeting schedule uh january 26th which i believe is tuesday is the next public budget review of the finance committee board as a whole we will be reviewing the administrative review of accounts on january 28th uh there's a public informational meeting board member quarterback member responses to the budget possible adoption of an education budget uh it'll be at seven pm the date's gonna be uh the times will be determined i'm sorry location we need to be virtual or in person uh as tim asked earlier for both these meetings we're gonna figure that out before tuesday and then on february 4th if necessary we may have a special meeting at the board of ed to adopt an education budget and just remind everyone we have until february 15th to present an operating budget to the town so they can start their process outside of budget meetings um tuesday february 2nd at 6 30 p.m is a policy committee meeting it will be virtual monday february 8th at 7pm there's a curriculum committee meeting also virtual and thursday february 18th at 7 30 p.m will be a board education business meeting um not this and again there's other smc meetings sprinkled in there um where those will be published as well the next ssc meeting for those that are very much interested is next wednesday the 27th i believe it's 7 p.m and that agenda and schedule can be found on the tom website one last reminder before we move on to adjournment uh just like um our covered email address for anything related to the board or district on co-related questions smc can also take questions and they do it they're getting emails so if anyone out there does have questions on what we discussed tonight namely what ann and andrew brought to the table on updates and some of the dialogue if you like more detail you know just please send an email to the group i don't have the email address in front of me but you can definitely find it right off the main page of the town website those are read into the record at the meetings uh just like we do here so um they very much will love to hear from the community as well some board members okay that being said um our last time on the agenda is adjournment um is there a motion to adjourn the meeting i moved that we are thank you catherine and adam seconds at uh all those in favor raise your hand it is unanimous uh the meaning is adjourned again i want to thank our board carol our team dr sullin arlene and of course mike for sticking out tonight i know it's been a very long week uh a very long year that's only january and for those of you watching again thank you for hanging in with us and again any questions please email us at the cbs covered address and we'll respond to you or discuss them at the next meeting that being said the meaning is adjourned thank you mike let me know
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is good 72 points as a team scored and that gives gravy 16 points woodard drops steps inside off the mark and rebounded and kept alive thompson fires up a three top of the key off the mark and rebounded by corinne gravy with 10 seconds remaining and it looks like she's going to dribble the clock out fires up the shot with three seconds two one and there you have it folks our conference champs your columbus east olympians first time outright champs since 2006. great job and a great team effort all around by your columbus east olympians so we will hear our columbus east cheerleaders here tonight [Music] so [Music] and there we have it our columbus east cheerleaders and then you can see on your screen our conference champions let's give a big congratulations for your columbus east girls basketball team 2020 hills conference champions undisputed hoosier hills conference champions as you can see the team there on your screen a big congratulations as you heard coach pierce said it jv and varsity both conference champs all undefeated congratulations to the girls and all their hard work paid off 72-64 is our score karen gravy with 16 points sage stahl with 16.
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leah bachmann leads the way with 22 gabadine added six maybe roberts with three and caitlyn crothers added two and four the panthers woodard had 21 led the way for the panthers addison had five threes on the knights contest maori with three thompson with nine mishunov with two and ernst with so the olympians become conference champs and 12-5 on the season 7-0 in conference so we want to thank you guys for all tuning in to tonight's live stream [Applause] as you can see your conference champs right there one final breakdown so once again we want to thank our sponsors columbus auto group and forced construction for sponsoring this live stream and we want to thank you guys for tuning in to tonight's action as well so that's all we have here today for myself malachi parks and kai stenham that's all we have here have a great rest of your evening and a great weekend have a great one
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hello chris cooper here with a brief superintendent update on friday january 22nd 2021 i have some good news and some not so good news we'll start off with the not so good news unfortunately today uh this afternoon we did have to close our preschool for today this afternoon and next week and that is simply because we don't have staff to demand that that room right now as all our staff that's normally there is out on quarantine so preschool will resume on tuesday february 2nd and since i mentioned february 2nd just a reminder that february 1st is a no school day it's a teacher training day so no school on february 1st again to remind you of that many of you may have heard that kansas high school activities association or acacia had made a change to their ruling starting january 29th that would allow up to four spectators instead of just two parents or guardians our abctl league is meeting next wednesday to discuss some of that because we currently have a league restriction of 25 percent capacity that still puts us at two uh spectators per participant but there's a very likely chance that that won't be restricted to just parents and guardians starting on the 29th our activities directors are working on our system as how we can manage that for our winter sports so more to come on that next week and appreciate them doing a nice job of keeping everybody informed just a brief covered numbers update our students are as good as they've been in a long time on that front we only have one student out for positive covert right now and 29 students out for any positive reason any coveted reason whether that's symptoms or being a close contact some of those are close contacts at school most of those are close contacts outside of school in the home our staff's a little different situation we currently have two staff members out for positive one who has been positive and is now still uh not feeling well and then we have a total of 13 staff out and i would say elementary west has currently been hit the hardest with quarantines for being close contact so some struggles to get classes covered appreciate everybody stepping up and and taking care of what needs to be taken care of um as i said very brief update won't try to drag these out that's all i have for this week i'm headed over to watch some basketball looking forward to the time when we can pack the stands again as we did a year ago to watch our teams play in sub state i do believe we'll get back to that uh keeping keep listening to our updates uh as we continue to change particularly on the spectator guidelines wish everybody the best take care be safe out there have a great weekend bye
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