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i just did [Laughter] um so hi i just wanted to interject kathy i'm so sorry but you're muted and we can't hear you well that's really embarrassing but thank you so much for telling me it was really good information though well you couldn't read my sign language basically all right i wish i could start the live button over but i can't so i'll start it now okay so welcome everyone this is our second event in the autism acceptance week the amherst regional public schools celebration of all things autism and um yesterday we had an event where we had people from colleges come and talk about how to access services at the college level today we have people from adult services so many there are many different services out there and they all but they all kind of um complement each other and have and you can access access more than one of them and i really want you everyone to hear about what those services are and how they work so we've got a great group okay we've got people from dds and community action and mrc and autism connections pathlight thank you so much crystal cartwright our transition specialist for getting that for getting all these people here i'm really impressed that you all took your time to be here today it's really meaningful um so what will happen is um each one of these people will take a few minutes five six seven minutes to talk about who they are and what their services are and then there'll be a period for question and answer so um any of you watching this please feel free to put a question or comment in the chat that's totally fine and we'll get to it um after crystal is monitoring that so that she won't miss anything and will help push forward questions and may come forward herself to ask or to answer anything that has to do with process in terms of how it works at the high school level in terms of our piece we very much work together so um and that also i will at the end put a link to the flyer that has in information about what else is happening this week and what's happening on thursday which is tomorrow is the main event of the autism week which is a panel like this but everybody on the panel is autistic um or has autism and um we'll talk about their own experience so it's former students who have already graduated alumni who want to come back and talk about it and then or also some current students in our schools and um that's a really exciting event my favorite this is great right now but you know to actually have the students here is so wonderful and after that they'll be kind of an after party google link where there'll be different breakouts to do different things like one of the students will be live streaming herself doing art it's gonna be great so anyway back to today's event um so on the order i have on my screen which i think everybody does i have arlene and then jennifer and it kind of goes down like that so if you all don't mind arlene if you don't mind being first if you would jump in and say a little bit about yourself and your services thank you sure um thank you uh my name is arlene lochenwich and i'm the children and transition coordinator that covers for m amherst and pelham regional school district and my role is really to assist the student um to transition from school services into adult services and that's via the the 688 referral process that that the school initiates for a lot of individuals who are graduating i don't always i'm not always involved for a long period of time so because the adult services are are coordinated by an adult service coordinator jennifer durant wing is here with us today and she's an adult service coordinator that works with individuals who are autism only so i'm going to let jennifer speak a little bit more about about those services so really just depending on what the student's vision is um and what their their hopes are um you know we help them transition into an array of services whether it be community-based day services if they need to continue to work on their um pre-vocational and vocational skills to to job employment type services we also offer individualized services so there's an array of supports that are available it really just um you know it's as individual as the individual so it really comes down to what their hopes and dreams are and what their vision is for themselves moving forward after school services and i i try to support that along with you know help from other agencies as well like mass rehab commission we also have katie here representing pathlight so you know pathlight is a uh is an agency that we refer a lot to uh when it comes to adult services so i'm sure katie will be able to elaborate a little bit more specifically around the services that they provide so that's that's what i think i have for today thank you very much i appreciate it you're welcome really gives a good picture of uh the structure of things thank you jennifer did you want to add on to that hi everyone my name is jennifer durant wing i am on the autism service coordinator out of the franklin hampshire dds area office and what that means is that the individuals who are on my caseload have a diagnosis of autism but do not have an intellectual disability prior to 2014 and that eligibility did not exist the department only served individuals who had an intellectual disability but in there was legislation the omnibus bill um that said that um individuals who had autism without an intellectual disability um needed to receive services and it was decided that the department of developmental services was the best agency to in fact do that so i think the first thing that i want to stress is that um all of the services and all of the documentation and all of the forms and everything that existed um prior to 2014 he was keeping in mind um individuals who have an intellectual disability and so we tried to fit all of that to individuals who were asd only um and that has had extremely mixed results um and i would like to say that um by 2021 that there have been significant changes and there have not been certainly we have made some strides um but we do not have an entire separate set of services that i would say um can entirely meet the needs for individuals who are asd only um we have some pockets and we have some agencies that i think have a certain amount of expertise in that area um what can also be a little bit complicated is having clinical supports um that are associated with those agencies or even in the community that have an understanding of autism and the best way to support those individuals so that is my my preemptive speech so when i came to the department in 2017 i had about 65 people on my caseload and 15 of those were individuals who had an intellectual disability i now have a hundred people on my caseload and those are all autism only no intellectual disability um so clearly there has been a significant increase in the number of people who are applying for the asd only eligibility and a lot of that i think is coming through the school systems and the 688 process um that is an extremely important process because as of three years ago um there is now funding that's attached to those referrals so there always was or um you might hear it referred to as turning 22 um money or referral um but i think it you know as you know the the individuals who are asd only are graduating at 17 18 19 um the people who had an intellectual disability um there was funding attached to going from their school entitlement to their adult services in dds there was not for um people who were asd only and um there was very limited um increases to the autism budget although you heard the numbers that i was talking about as far as the increase in people that we're serving but as of three years ago if there is a 688 referral to the department of developmental services um there is now funding that becomes available to develop adult services um so that that is an important distinction um a lot of times what we're seeing is that school systems are um maybe we'll choose mrc as the adult service agency because someone expresses an interest in employment or because someone expresses an interest in maybe going to college and would like some um assistance with that and um i think that that mrc is a very important piece of the puzzle um but an individual can access both so i would certainly encourage um school systems and families and students to push for that dds designation um knowing that you can also access mrc that it's not one or the other but the funding um the the funding will um really only come for the adult services with the dds designation um so what are some of the services that are available um so you know like arlene said um there are there is something called cbds and that stands for community-based day supports so typically there's a um social um and community-based component of that as well as a pre-vocational component to that um that is probably one of the biggest holes that we have right now as far as um places for individuals who are asd only to go most of the cbds programs um again were developed and serve individuals with intellectual disabilities and sometimes um the programming may not be um what would best serve the individual who is asd only um we do have something that's called individualized supports and community habilitation and that is a one-on-one support that is very flexible um we look at that as being skill based and would like it to focus on whatever is going to help an individual to be able to be safely and successfully independent in the community so that can focus on social goals um financial goals getting a driver's license um you know dealing with correspondence how are you returning emails are you opening your mail um how do you respond when you um when you get mail um filling out applications for things like mass health getting on housing lists um it really is um it really is quite flexible um because you have that one-on-one support so i think you can move through goals with that there's also a service that's called autism coaching um right now aane provides that service um they do approximately four hours a week is the most that they would do um it is extremely goal-based um and i feel like they work to kind of teach an overarching skill set that the individual um then implements on their own to a certain degree we also have employment supports um some individuals participate in group supported employment meaning that they have a coach and may have three or four people on a work crew other people are being placed in a community-based employment um with supports with preparing for a job finding a job interviewing um and then on the job training and then check-ins as appropriate um what we do not have is we do not fund residential placements for individuals who are eligible under the asd only eligibility um so that question comes a lot we have a lot of young people who are living at home who have some decent skills but there are some concerns about them living completely independently so oftentimes you know what we would look to do then is to put in some individualized supports so that um the agency then kind of takes the place of the parental figure um or the school figures to help um with things that they may have done previously um that's a long answer to i'm not even sure what the question was but um that's what i got i think it was a wide open question and there's a lot to fill in and thank you there's so much there um i loved how you started it in terms of the framework of the funding and then when it and how important it is um to get that 688 going you know to get that funding through that and our school definitely has been doing both has been the 688 to dds and then also referring to mrc and that's been a really a great pairing so thank you for reinforcing that idea um and everything else it's really exciting um are you ready you know annie okay go for it sure this is exciting we're going row by row i thought we would go clockwise so here i am uh hi folks my name is noemi los salandra um i work with community action pioneer valley which is a pretty uh substantial social services organization anti-poverty agency um that serves franklin hampshire counties and um today i'm here to talk about our wioa program our technically our wioa title 1 youth program because you may hear we always get kicked around in some other conversations um and uh thank you to the other folks that have gone ahead of me um so wioa is a program um federally funded job training program and slightly different from my four colleagues who are presenting plus kathy um today this is not an autism-specific asd specific uh program but um folks with an autism diagnosis uh are able to get support in our program um we have some experience doing that um and and seeing people through our programming successfully and it also happens to make a lot of the eligibility stuff easier for you all um which is which is always a nice thing so it's good to keep in mind as i'm talking that my work and and my agency and my program is really detached from a lot of this other um networked stuff around dds and your 688 referrals that you'll be wrapping up with um with amherst high here so um just keep that in mind as i'm talking so uh wioa is a as i said federally funded legislated a job development program um we provide employment readiness services to folks usually who are in that kind of um transition age youth 17 to 24 we often work with people kind of the earliest we would work with people would be kind of beginning of their last year of high school and then then we work with folks who are out of school for any number of reasons because they have graduated high school uh and and you know are just kind of trying to get into the employment game maybe they left high school without a credential um that's that's acceptable too in terms of our eligibility or maybe folks went to college gave it a try and decided no or uh are currently in their first year um some kind of collegiate programming so it's pretty broad uh the kind of paths you can come from to get to us but once you are working with wiela our goals are to help people uh with some individualized goal setting as jennifer was talking about some overlaps there um learning employment readiness skills so we work on um both kind of hard skill and soft skill development right so there's a lot of job search coaching how do you find job lists how do you fill out applications how do you write a resume cover letter uh we do interviewing skills um and there's also a lot of just frank and peer supported discussion um we do a lot of group employment trainings um where folks can get all together with their peers in the wioa program and talk about stuff like how i make a budget or how um to resolve conflicts at work or you know um all the how to talk to your employer who is a was a big scary person um in your life and uh that you know participants in our program get a lot of opportunities to um do kind of that that skill building work both one-on-one and in some kind of a semi-classroom semi-peer cohort style um environments so uh we think that's cool and our goal there is really to get people from a position of for example um i'm done with school i don't want to go back to school i'm not really sure though what else i'm going to do i've never really worked before or i have worked but it was like crummy and i didn't like it or maybe you know i am working and i'm doing retail or burger king or you know service jobs that are really stressful and intimidating to me and not good for my well-being and mental health we get we get that a lot from from our participants when they enter and our goal is to take folks kind of from that place and empower them to kind of chart their path to kind of maybe like first second and maybe third kind of career steps so i can say um in terms of what our funding prescribes that we do it we are obligated to provide individualized case management to folks so everybody works with a knowledge with a one-on-one with a caseworker uh we usually meet for about an hour a week it could be less it could be more depending on the circumstances and that case management individualized support that lasts for usually somewhere between one and three years for people in our programs and our goals are to you know research career paths explore extra schooling if that feels like an option um explore occupational training programs so you know we've put folks through certifications to get either you know certifications or licensures to do things like bookkeeping or manufacturing or business classes or just like general office skills maybe doing it or security stuff working in healthcare or even kind of doing some trade stuff i know we've done some kind of plumbing and hauling and hoisting and driving stuff before as well if that's you know uh things that are kind of interesting to to you all um so yeah that's our goal we kind of are hoping to get people from a place of little confidence in their career trajectory little work experience kind of through to the other end where they exit our program with a license or a credential that enables them to get an entry job kind of that's career oriented and career focused and not just kind of making minimum wage doing whatever you can you you can do which um you know it's great for the folks that are doing it but also it could it could be better for most of us too so uh that's our overall goal um like i said if if uh you or the person that you're supporting has an asd diagnosis um or frankly even just an iep or a 504 without a diagnosis again because we're not um autism specific then eligibility for wioa winds up being pretty straightforward uh you have to live in franklin or hampshire county and um if you're still in school you have to be 17 to 21 and if you're no longer in school so you know if if it's april and you're kind of making that transition out this june um then you can be up to 24 in our program um and uh that's kind of it um some categories of folks do have to be low income for our programs however people with who are designated as having a disability um are considered a legal household of one so only the participant's income is counted um and so as long as the young person themselves are making less than 200 the federal poverty limit on their own which tends to be everybody we see uh then you're all set there um income wise and then the last thing is because these are federal training dollars folks do have to have work authorization either you know through their u.s citizenship or through um whatever stage they're at in kind of immigration naturalization type type things um let me take a peek at my notes here and see what else i've got although i can also kind of just wrap up um oh i also like to talk about a little bit about um money because that's always a good thing to hear about um there's kind of three ways that folks get financial support once they're in our program um the first is through what we call supportive services so we try to retain between 200 and 300 per participant per year um in order to purchase goods for that person that helps them overcome employment or education obstacles so these are small things like job uniforms work boots schools school supplies they're more complicated messy things like helping people get um employment documents so you know if you don't have a state id if you don't have a license if you don't have your social security card anymore we both help facilitate that process as well as pay the fees um and then also other other stuff you know um if you if if you're parenting and you need help with child care like we help you find child care get you signed up for some vouchers that kind of thing um we then also retain about fifteen hundred dollars a year per participant um to enroll them in those occupational training programs i was speaking to so if you know you're someone who wants to take who you know is like on the college path but six weeks learning about internet security sounds like a cool thing um you know we'll help you research your options do you you know especially right now right do you want to do independent self-paced learning online do you want to do um in-person learning do you want to do online learning that's taught by a teacher live like you know we research those options with you and then uh we we pay for your enrollment and registration and all that kind of thing um so that you know that that's one of the biggest sells if you're looking to get a credential that puts you into a kind of a particular bracket for your career goals um we pay for that and uh then the last thing money-wise that's nice to know is that we tend to hire all of our participants on our payroll um and every training that you come to to you know you come to a two-hour training to learn about budgeting that's two hours at minimum wage in your bank account you come to a uh you know an informational um session about a particular career sector uh that lasts for three hours you earn three hours in wages and then finally one of our capstones that we like to do with folks is actually get them a career oriented internship um and we pay you wages for any hours that you work usually those internships are about 150 um hours sometimes a little bit more a little less they can be you know if someone's ready and eager they could do it over the summer in a couple of weeks working 30 hours a week or we could do you know three four hours a week just to kind of dip your toes in the water and get used to things it's very um customizable that way which is nice and we work with the participant to find like what type of job do you want can you interview with the employer see kind of how like that jives and we support you slightly in that work experience it is important to know um just full disclosure and to be transparent that our program is not set up to provide um some of the supports that jennifer was talking about in terms of cohort based employment or job coaching that stuff is much more mrc uh and and their lane and alley and the work they do um but if you're somebody who is able to work a little bit more independently but still wants you know a weekly check-in a light kind of introductory work experience a lot of guidance a trusting adult to talk to who's not your employer um that's more kind of the the feeling in the sense that we're going for um so yeah i mean i think that's the whirlwind tour uh the way to get started with us i'll be uh frank and oblivious here i'm not really sure if kathy or crystal are planning to uh disseminate information um do you happen to know if that's in the poem i was just thinking of that how would i how am i going to do that i was thinking i could put my email in the chat and then send it out crystal might have a thought or if you want to plot something in the chat a link or something too yeah well yeah absolutely i'm happy to just say out loud you know our website is www.communityaction.us wioa and we'll try to get you like something in writing so you don't have to remember that but there's a self-referral form you fill it out and ask for a little bit of info name phone number email where do you live what's your likes kind of uh status or station in school right now and um and then we kind of do an intake review your eligibility and get you started with a case worker um so uh you know that's how you can get in touch with us and um and begin that we can begin that process um thank you and i think that's kind of it for me so thank you kathy for letting me speak and go on about thank you no it's there's so many um i love all the specifics all the detailed kind of concrete ways it can play out your support that just makes it so real i appreciate that um you know different things you were talking about you know plumbing there's so many different things just help make it real like jennifer when you were talking about how do i what do i do with my mail like all that stuff is is really helpful to explain what we mean um so i appreciate that thank you oh i'm just like yes let's sign everybody up okay um katie would you like to pick up from there sure thank you um and before i get started i just wanted to say i'm really um happy to to you see that you're doing this um this week of resources because i used to go to your autism resource night and really enjoyed it so it's great to hear that you have your panel going on tomorrow with with students and alums because that was one of my favorite parts but thank you yeah i would just say it was such a shame to cancel it last year because it happened right you know when things blew up and the share you know we know how to use the internet now so could make it right we've all adapted to the internet whether we want to or not um so our my program um is pathlight which both arlene and jennifer did a lot of the heavy lifting for me on some of the services i'm going to talk about but i'll get into a little bit more detail i'm pathwight is a human services organization that serves western massachusetts and we also have a program called autism connections that's a part of that that is our autism resource center so um all the other services i'm going to talk about today require direct referrals from dds the autism resource center of western massachusetts anybody can call if they have a general question regarding information or resources or referral um they can call or email us or go to our facebook page and send a message and we have an information and referral specialist who gets a lot of contacts um but who is really good at reaching out and getting back to people and if and also maybe connecting members of our team who might have a little bit more information about what the person is looking for and that's open to anyone of any age and anyone in the community so that's a little different than post high school services but i wanted to mention that because a lot of times if people have a question and they're not sure where to start that is a resource the other thing that it does is offer um trainings and um support groups and networking groups and all of that information you can find at our website and i'll put that in the chat a little bit later but you can sign up for our mailing list and you'll get a monthly newsletter that basically lists all the the resources we're offering but also the resources that we're aware of in the broader community a lot of them are um since we since last april or march um we pivoted to making that newsletter um it was weekly for a while we've gone back to monthly but we make it a little bit more specific just to resources related to needs regarding covid and the pandemic there is a broad range of resources in that newsletter but sometimes there's general if you need to know about where to get a vaccine or what your eligibility is types of resources there as well so i just recommend that to the broader community that if you're not sure where to start and you need to figure out what you need to ask for sometimes or you need to know that dds exists because maybe you're not sure yet or that mrc or wioa exists like it's a good place to kind of just start and get that general information um flowing so the um other services we provide uh do support both people with um an intellectual disability and perhaps autism as well or with an autism-only disability so i'm sorry no autism only diagnosis so it's a little bit um so we provide services to a wide range of people uh and we do have services that support people under the the age of 18 and 22 but our adults programs obviously focus on that those post-high school years um regardless of um whether or not the person has um autism and intellectual disability or just autism or just an intellectual disability so it the services do look different like jennifer was saying based on um how your referral comes through and we provide those direct services in addition to other area agencies um by referral uh from dds from arlene or from jennifer um or and and their uh area office so um as jennifer was saying a lot of times when people leave school at 22 there's a bit if they have an autism-only diagnosis and they're graduating or choosing not to stay until they're 22 um there's a bit of a gap because there's been a really natural structure that's been in place um from you know from start of school till then and then it's a now what kind of moment um so we find that you know like jennifer was saying there's not like a day service structure that exists um in a lot of cases that you know is very naturally structured for for people with autism to just fall into easily there are community-based day programs um for people with intellectual disabilities but it's hard to find one that might provide um that natural structure for someone with autism however it's not something that necessarily the person might need and what our goal is is to help support that person to start to build their own structure and to make that transition from a school setting where your day is kind of planned out for you and maybe you have some after school jobs or programs as well and to building your own plan for the future and exploring what you want to do and that's often overwhelming for anyone when they leave school but when you have a you know when you're dealing with managing some you know executive functioning decision making and things like that it can become a little bit more overwhelming so our job is to kind of take that and break it down into smaller pieces and help focus on kind of those skill based next step resources so we have people who might say i really want to get my driver's license but i only feel comfortable driving on a closed track until um for now which is you know we might have to start with okay well a closed track is a little bit hard um but here's what some steps that we can take to um help you feel more comfortable before you get behind the wheel or what some other resources we might be able to find that might help you to get more more comfortable um or maybe somebody is exploring taking college classes um we work a lot with other agencies who um are a little bit more specialized in maybe supporting someone um to attend a college class but we might help them with that you know looking with that kind of organizing their thoughts and their day and pla and making sure that they understand all the little bits and pieces of of their day that maybe when the um disability office at the college or the person who's assigned to help them complete their assignments maybe they're working on something very specific and we can kind of help them with the bigger picture let's put it all together and create a structure piece um sometimes we have people who really want to work on cooking or other life skills opening their mail which does become a really big deal when you don't open your mail you learn some things really hard way um so we do some of those day-to-day skill-based things that can be more community-based um or home based and there's a couple different types of models that are structured by dds and part of the referral process is figuring out what the right type of model might be um and sometimes it's a little bit of a learning curve as jennifer was saying um the the supports for the for people with autism only are rel relatively new um they're what seven years old now so you know we have a seven-year-old in terms of supports and what we've learned and seven years of experience and getting things um pushed through to you know as we learn oh goodness there's a real gap here in terms of what we need to be able to provide both as an agency or as a service that's funded through the state and so we often end up working together collaboratively to try to figure out those gaps and there's other programs like mrc or agencies like mrc that come in as well like we're all really accustomed to working as a team and figuring out what the needs are um i know i just talked a lot about the autism only crowd we do also provides those same types of supports to people with an intellectual disability or co-incurring intellectual disability and autism we often find that our area of focus and the issues we're facing are different and the preferences of the people we serve are very different um so we you know adjust accordingly um this past year obviously like everybody else we've made a lot of adjustments to how we provide services temporarily well until it's safe to do some of what we used to do in person more we had some groups going for a while that were in person that really helped with this socialization aspect because leaving school can also be isolating especially when you um lose your your you know core group of socialization um one of the nice things we've been able to do is bring some of that um online and we found that especially for the autism only crowd that's actually shown us some strengths and some progress that i don't think for the people that we serve that i don't think we would have seen as naturally if we hadn't tried this so we have some groups for people that we provide direct service to where you know we've gotten to know you know we've gotten to know um susan and we've gotten to know barry and we know that oh like susan and barry are never going to meet but um now we know both of them and we know that we have they have a common interest but if we had tried to introduce them in person they might have said yes they might have said no they might have said yes but then the idea of getting out of the house and going to meet them was too overwhelming but connecting online and doing something way less way more low risk for a first meeting has been really some positive benefits and of course many of the people we serve are comfortable online and well ready to show off their skills and so we found that there are some things that i think we learned that we can continue into the future that might benefit services overall for helping people to feel more comfortable whether it's reaching out to you know new social opportunities or whether it's you know connecting in with a new type of service that might have been really hard to schedule the initial meeting for um so we're all kind of learning as we go along um i trying to think if there's anything i didn't cover um but definitely those services do come through referral from from dds um and that that note jennifer made about you know checking the box for both dds and mrc and your 688 um applications are really is really important and it's great that amherst does that because it does make it harder if that doesn't happen um and definitely if you have further questions going to the website about more of our wraparound services that are open to anyone from the center is is great and we also have a conference um we have our 30th annual autism conference that we've brought online that i'm i'm obligated to mention but it is um address a lot of the topics and do a deeper dive that we're talking about right now we have a panel also from dds um that's focused on employment and some of the employment agencies that are out there um and some people who are currently receiving employment services as well as our autism regional directors are having a a panel from dds um and there's a wide variety of topics that address both post high school and um pre-high school so or pre-graduation so um that might be worth checking out if anyone is interested as well in learning a little bit more about any one of these particular topics that we're um that we're learning about today and there are limited scholarships available for people with financial hardship thank you so much yes your conferences are amazing i'm so glad you're able to do it this year and um and i've got some links here crystal's put and there's a private chat that i can copy and paste into the public chat pathlight.org again communityaction.us i've got those ready to go so i'll pop those in um i loved your analogy of the seven year old you know in terms of that that makes a lot of sense we're growing the services are growing yeah and well the way they grow too is so much with feedback from other from people and you know they get shaped by the people accessing them so i hope yeah wow all right amelda would you like to wrap us up yeah i mean there's some advantages of some anxiety uh waiting to go last but i'm glad to have met all of you and what i'm seeing here as a team um so let me introduce myself to those who are listening i'm imelda henderson i'm a voc rehab counselor with mrc nmrc stands for the massachusetts rehabilitation commission and uh voc rehab helps people with physical cognitive intellectual or mental health conditions managed in the modern workplace and that's the little blurb on our website so what the important thing is that i'm hearing today is how uh the referrals are actually made and um thank you naomi and um katie um and i already know the uh process for dds with jennifer and arlene and um we do all work as a team and the benefit of this panel today is that i've learned so much more about community action and and about pathlight and i think i envision us all um working as a team um pretty much we do already you know dds and mrc were state agencies the difference might be with mrc is that we're partial we're actually predominantly federally funded and a small amount uh state but we're a state agency and our referrals come from the school and from the community and the one difference that i can say is that we don't have a maximum age uh we serve persons with disabilities you know up until any age i've worked with consumers who are over 70 and up um we start uh in high school at 14 for the potentially eligible um and once the student the services that we offer offer at the high school for potentially eligible students through vendors like buyability and stavros once the student gets to junior year they can apply for vr services i sort of lean towards the end of junior year 17 18 years old because then we i can kind of get a head start with the student on college planning um so we go in two different directions mass rehab vocationally the path that i explain to consumers is they can go down the employment path or the training path a decision has to be made like if they're going to leave high school and go into college we can help with a state college with tuition and waiver and we go down the education path towards a career or it's straight up employment and i think um katie as far as like the um employment supports i mean there's a lot of crossover in what like dds might do and what community action might do and a lot of the different agencies but we somehow figure it out um but mrc is devoted to to vocational rehabilitation and to that end however we get there whether it's training vocational training job corps or however we all have like a specialties that we can add to this this this picture um and as as jennifer mentioned a a and e we also um depending on the family's income unfortunately we don't consider the income like community action does with the the uh the individual's income we have to look at the family family's income um unless the person's on social security and if they receive social security benefits then that's you know the exception there um but the aaa is something i know that sometimes uh different agencies have funding for it and and don't right now we have funding for for the aaa services for the students um and like i said the adult services you know like um we can come in at 18 we don't have to wait till 22 when when the student graduates the high school like we're there uh as soon as the iep ends um mass rehab's ipe kicks in and if the student is going to college we that can be sent over to the college for a 504 uh plan to be written and um basically we are partner with that client until the client is successful with job placement or finishing their education or just decides that they would rather go in a different direction so um i i see mass rehab as a compliment you know and the strength you know within this you know just this small uh agencies represented today we've got quite a few agencies in the pioneer valley that um work with us so uh in a nutshell that's who mrc is thank you i appreciate what you said about a team and and they're being crossover but that being a good thing because i've definitely known students former students who have tried one and then switched to the other and you know it's all about sometimes just a personal match often so it's really good to have options where the office is located all those pieces can make or break it so that's really good it's like katie said though with virtual everything being virtual right now you know we're all we're all in the same same place well and i appreciate what somebody was saying about um i think was katie saying that that we you we've learned a lot of of actually excellent things at this time that we can bring forward i'm actually of course excited for the pandemic to end for the pandemic to end but then also bringing forth some of the tools and boundaries that we've broken down through because we had to yeah so i'm going to add crystal to the stream here and crystal if you have any questions from the audience you can ask or maybe you could ask something or speak on something related to this and while you do that i will put some of the links in the chat that people have been great thank you i just want to thank all of you for coming today and everything you said was you i couldn't have asked you to do a better job so thank you all so much um folks who are listening in feel free to add any questions in the comments in the chat and i'd be happy to field those questions and ask our guests today um like kathy said she's gonna put some of the links to their websites there she can also add my email for those of you who don't know who i am i'm sorry i'm crystal cartwright i'm the transition specialist for amherst regional public schools um you can kind of think of me as the liaison with all of these agencies and working with these folks on the screen i'm happy to help families do referrals or work with the teachers in the schools in the etls um so i'm kind of like your middle person if you want to call it that um but i'm always here to help answer questions to help guide you to the right place to the right person all of these folks are also part of our interagency transition team that we have at the high school which has kind of been on hold this year but we'll be coming back next year um so we all work very closely together so i know the word team has been mentioned a few times but that is the truth we are all a team and we all just want to help the families and students get the best supports that they can i'm not seeing any questions in the comments at this time um so chris crystal i just wanted to um just add a little bit more in regards to what katie was talking about in regards to the the support centers she had mentioned the autism support center which does a fabulous job working with families who have children and young adults on the autism spectrum but we also have our family support centers that also support individuals uh or families who have kids and young adults who have id or may have an autism diagnosis as well so we do offer family support services that again can look as individualized as the individual some as the individual individual family so some families may be looking for respite some families may be looking for recreational opportunities maybe looking for educational support so there's an array of services that can be provided through our family support guidelines and um i just wanted to mention that so within family support there are also a few different programs such as our ifs program which is an intensive family support program our extended ifs our dese all those are uh closed referrals um so um they would have to you know come from from dds um uh close we we work really closely with our provider agencies to identify those families that may need those services as well so i just wanted to put a plug in for family support because they do we have providers that do an awesome job go above and beyond especially in this last year and um just wanted to make sure that people were aware of that so um so you don't have to be and those are are open to families um that are dds eligible that are three and older if you have individuals that are younger than three we do consult services with early intervention as well thank you so much for mentioning that and i know um family empowerment is one of the family support agencies and we work really closely with them as well and for anyone who's like not sure where to start you just heard from all of these agencies and all these amazing services but you're like i don't even know where to start with this or what might be the best um normally i would direct folks to call family empowerment and just say hey here's who i am here's my needs and then they're great at saying all right this would be the best way for you to go so that's yeah and you don't have to be dds eligible in order to get to receive services from family empowerment you can just walk in the door and say listen you know this is our family and um you know what kind of supports and services would would you recommend and if um if they did think that they would benefit from dds specific services they could help the individual or the family fill out the application for dds services thanks and i just want to add that they're both programs of pathlight so also all the family support centers of the area and autism and autism resource center always work well together but being in family empowerment and autism connections being in the same agency um if you start with either place and it seems like you'd be better off supported with the other support center we will send you there um and make sure you get to where you need to go so thanks katie appreciate that you guys are all so amazing oh so inspiring and hopeful and everything thank you um so in the chat i have popped in a bunch of different websites that have been mentioned um email addresses for crystal and i and the last one is the google site that we've made at the high school here in middle school and elementary school amherst that is to um celebrate autism acceptance month and on there you'll see the link to the panel that's happening tomorrow night and you'll see tons of artwork from our students music that our students have created um writing books that have been published i mean just really amazing stuff um and really proud of it so check it out and thanks for being here and have a lovely day is this is this gonna be posted anywhere it sure is it's recorded and um so i mean it's like accessible on youtube um i don't know if you like you know if you just can google it to find it but um we were thinking of um making an email to everybody with the links to this one yesterday's um and and some of these other resources that we would send out to everybody who couldn't be here because it's 12 30 and a work day so great at 1 30 with one of my individuals in um is pretty important thank you so much for including me thank you yes very much thank you bye-bye bye-bye everyone
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evening uh welcome to the uh the board of education policy uh subcommittee uh it is april 7th and it is well around 6 30 p.m um uh miss uh kaczynski uh call the roll please sure mr crippo here miss howland here mr white here mr chairman you have a quorum fantastic um i'll rise for the pledge please if the i don't know if there's a flag jeff you have a flag well yeah of course we do fantastic there it is okay i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god uh indivisible with liberty and justice for all wow i spaced for a second holy smokes thanks catherine for carrying that through i completely spaced holy cow we've only said that you know ten thousand times we've all we've all been there and i'll never forget when i was an assistant principal in ansonia once the um i was just about to give the pledge and the in the ceiling came in behind me from water off the the roof and it just like drenched this printer like it it like deluged water came in it was the hardest pledge i ever did like what did i say like how did the pledge start you know it was it was like chaos that is paralyzing when you i pledge allegiance okay once you get started you're good um okay so um looking at the oh uh uh dr solon is there any public comment for the policy meeting there is not okay excellent um so we'll go into the uh the first policy here um i thought when i looked at it it felt very familiar and i saw that we looked at it almost one year ago actually it seemed like um so if you'd like to i don't know it's hauntingly familiar the issue is that um we've always had to provide special education services for uh individuals with more substantial needs to the age of 21.
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era um i think we have just a straightforward agenda uh for this evening i hope it goes pretty quickly um so we have a break before the seven o'clock although i don't think i'm gonna make the seven o'clock um anyway um we did table the first policy um at our last march meeting um and kevin if you'd like to take it away from here okay and talk about that all right give me one second please [Music] okay good evening everyone so we have one we have five policies for consideration tonight as rachel had alluded to earlier we had one policy 9273 a conflict of interest and at the time of our last meeting we had decided to table this one um and we agreed to come back and include this one in the next meeting um and so of these five we have five policies here um and then um i think this team would be happy to hear on that this actually concludes the updates and recommendations for the 9000 series of bylaws and so the next one is methods of operation um as rachel had mentioned earlier the next few policies are very straight to the point and so i'll just get started i think the medias one is 9273 conflict of interest and so um rachel and i actually had an opportunity to review this just a couple of days ago and i think we agree that part of the uh frustration of the group was there were two different things we were looking at the way cave had recommended them to us it was version one and version two and i think as a as a team i think the committee was struggling with quite frankly liking or or appreciating um both recommendations but after revisiting this um part one is conflict adventure civility code i'll just i'll go through this slowly and then i'll come back what you will notice is we we just felt like this language itself was almost aspirational like this is what we would want and hope for every board member as they participate in meetings and workshops um and then the second one which which they had recommended as version two we felt like this was more protocol than kind of norms for all of our meetings and and so the recommendation after rachel and i had had met was we actually keep both the first part is will serve as a code for the board and then the second part would serve as meeting protocol or norms for all of the meetings and so i'll i'll stay on this page first and give you an opportunity to kind of what i'm calling the norms or meeting protocol this is a quick read so i'll leave this up here first and to add to that while you're reading i you know generally i think less is more when it comes to policy but i think you know our bylaws are kind of our our board part of our professional development in a way um so i think you know it doesn't hurt to have more in you know especially when it comes to um ethics a question just a general one and there's nothing here that's bad everything here that everything here is fine and it is all aspirational here's the question we can't make anybody do any of this none of it's a rule we can't add a criteria for participation on the board that's not in state statute for board member election so we can pass this but are we not deceiving people by thinking it's actually enforceable because quite clearly it's not right i mean joe if we approve the dean like maybe someone would have to be referred to the dean's office i could be could be i by the way i'd give my id for in-school detention right now so get me out of my office and this none of this is bad and we can pass it but i mean are we i don't know why i i think sometimes we just you know and maybe i'm wrong rachel but i understand that sometimes we do these things just sort of set a tone and a an atmosphere for how the board operates which alone could just be the justification for doing it i mean true true and bylaw is really our only guidelines right anyway [Music] okay and then i'll i will take this time then scroll back up to the top because this is part of the original language before we leave that kevin can i ask what number eight means everyone will contribute there will be no observers what does that mean um so i i think the expectation is everyone will be participants i get everyone will contribute i get the words but i understand the word do we like do we like this better everyone everyone may contribute you contribute could contribute that's a good one everyone there will be no observers it sounds like police it almost sounds a little jargony jargonish i inventing words this evening yeah like everyone should contribute yeah i like that better okay thank you is the group okay with me just taking this out and not having to strike through there yeah i am yeah yes so if we like this idea i'll i will also take this out and then this is how um cave had recommended the code um and originally they had a version one in version two uh if we're accepting the bottom and modifying that as our norms and at the top would be something that would kind of guide the expectations of board members are there any other questions or discussion on this policy no okay i'll ask for a um a motion to bring this to the full board so moved well second moved by joe da silva seconded by kate thank you all those in favor all right bye okay the next policy for consideration um is 9300 it's an optional bylaw but um i i think you could also make a case again and i think this is not just about the board members who are here uh but the board members that might be joining later um and you know begin to think about the kind of transition what that looks like and trying as part of the onboarding process walking new board members through what the expectations are is it me or does this not seem to be like cabes signal issue this is a hundred percent of what they did at the orientation or or eighty-five percent of what they did at the orientation is this really an issue this level of what not not an issue joe um i can tell you um we did there was a census in here that we had modified um and felt like it was more appropriate and so board shall rely on the superintendent of schools to recommend policies for adoption and to administer policies enacted by the board such policies shall be brought enough to indicate a line of action to be taken by the superintendent meeting another problems and jobs i'm sorry maybe but rachel this was not the one that we had it was the second sentence there the policies and policy amendments may be initiated here it is right because initially it was only the superintendent um but the reality is sometimes you get recommendations from the board which has happened in my short time here uh recommendations from community you know the superintendent is the superintendent on the border under no obligation to um adopt recommendations from the community but it doesn't mean we could not consider them yeah i i don't have a problem with it it just seems that this is one of cave's hobby horses which doesn't seem to be an issue here that you know i mean i've only been on the board for a year it just doesn't seem like anybody here is trying to micromanage anything i mean i'm just wondering if this is a solution searching for a problem that said there's nothing wrong with the policy okay i like it i i think it um it explains what our job is i certainly don't object to it i just think you know it's stated in several other places so i just you know if they want to make it more explicit i have no objection for instance kate how would you make it more explicit no no i wouldn't make it i'm saying if they if they want to state this in this kind of explicit fashion i'm totally okay with that i just think it's sort of implied by you know other bylaws that govern the board already it's just extra yeah i think it but i think it's very succinct and it does um yes yeah it doesn't hurt i mean it it says what it says and it's it's not hard to understand there you go you dumbed it down just a little bit for people okay rachel do you want a motion sure i'll take a motion so moved did i go to the board by joe seconded by kathy all those in favor i passed next one after our last meeting i feel like this team is a little disappointed i'm not bringing back some tough ones for you guys all in good time yes i know that's right that is for sure you two are way too excited about the next meeting i can tell already um so so this one this one's a real easy one um but perhaps maybe the board may want the committee might want to consider it and this is about workshop sessions the board may sketch schedule special meetings for the purpose of conduct conducting workshop sessions to provide its members with the opportunities for planning and thoughtful discussion topics for discussion and study will be announced publicly order that workshop sessions will be conducted in accordance with the state law on public meetings is there anything significant about the nomenclature change from work sessions to workshop sessions so their their language was workshop sessions i'm glad you asked that question joe we put in workshop because that's what we it's the language that we use here and then we just kept sessions because we didn't think workshop was appropriate to just leave bernstein's workshop just curious yes outside of that again because we struggled with the same very question just raised any other thoughts comments discussion okay um may i have a motion to bring this to the full board as presented motion second moved by catherine seconded by kate how's that all those in favor all right thank you okay policy 9313 administrative regulations formulation adoption and amendment let's get here this one is also short straight to the point but just a reminder about the boards roll with regulations um also make it very clear if they want to request to see them there's an opportunity for that so i'll just give you an opportunity so can i just ask a clarifying question here sure um where it reads at the top there um the board does not adopt administrative regulations unless specifically required to do so by law or unless requested to do so by the superintendent does that necessitate that we adopt administrative regulations if requested or is that you know optional based on the language underneath which which says that if it's inconsistent with the policies adopted by the board already that we don't we don't have to approve it as is yeah thanks for the question i honestly i'm not really sure what this means and so i i can see if if we rece if we have a policy in front of us that's you know almost just by the nature of the policy the regulations are almost built in and so or or there may be a law that i mean you know a law that requires us to pass a policy but we also requires board involvement and how it's operationalized um i don't understand the part though unless requested to do so by the superintendent query the board has voted on some regulations in the past i i i mean as some one of them very near and dear to my heart was the ais sibling preference right so that is not a policy but it was a regulation and i don't you know i'm not privy to uh the conversations that the chair and the superintendent had at the time but um that came to a vote several times be a perfect example absolutely two questions number one should we make this consistent with the the change we made to the earlier one where uh a policy can be suggested by the board the superintendent of the board the public to community whatever that language is as opposed to this which seems to bring us back to cave's original language from the other other uh policy proposal where it was basically only the superintendent i mean i'm not sure that they shouldn't probably be consistent number one um i don't know if they have to be it just seems to me that this is inconsistent with what we just amended the other one to do well that was policy and this is regulations that follow the policy yeah is there is there a distinction that there is there there's a distinct a critical distinction there okay yeah okay um and i don't think joe unless you're saying you would like which i think would really change the policy itself but if you wanted to say if we want to go back to the other one and say you'd like for the public to have an opportunity to also make recommendations about policy and regulations and that's a dif you know what i mean if that's i don't i don't care i was just checking to see if consistency was important here if there's enough of a substantive difference between policy and regulation i'm fine with it um and i think to jump in on kate's question i don't think we can adopt a policy that requires us to adopt the superintendent's proposed regulation because i don't think we can legally bind a future board to an action league things that are required by law are required by law by legislatures higher than us i don't know that we can bind ourselves in the future so i think this language is fine but i just don't think i don't think it's binding on us we have to do something the superintendent says because i don't think we can take that discretion away from a future board by operation of establishing a policy i understand and so and so rachel with that example about um with that example for the for the magnet school um i'm assuming what was that action was that board action where you guys actually voted on it yes we did vote on it and it was because the superintendent came with his recommendation and we didn't agree with it basically we were divided as to um that piece of it and rachel can attest to uh the many many hours spent on that particular subject looking forward to just regular days to be frustrated about school stuff again someday we'll be back to normal whatever normal is right i have forgotten um i'm not sure what to do about you know that first part joe where you know unless specifically required to do so by law i think we can leave it as it is i i that's just more of an observation i i don't i don't think it could be interpreted in the future to require us to pass a regulation recommended by the superintendent unless it was also required by some other law just because i don't think we can find a future board that was more observational than i think we have to modify the language okay i don't think a board 10 years ago could require us to do something now let's put it that way there any other um thoughts questions discussion no um so are we ready to move this to the full board or i mean we don't have to adopt adopt this either was this an optional one it was it was it was optional to consider or we can share with the full board and get some feedback that's true we can discuss it with the full board so i'll ask i guess i'll ask for a motion to present it as is to the full so board by joe is there a second i'll second bye kate all those in favor hi hi hi thank you okay policy 9326 taping and recording of board meetings um again i think we are all set here again if you wanted to have this in your board packet for the future board members it might not be a bad thing to have in there and so this is just saying that our board meetings will be memorialized tapes picked and record recorded retained for at least one year et cetera question and this may be mo functionally moot because the joys of youtube preserve everything on the interwebs forever um the recording shall be retained for one year does that comply with foia i'd want to check that before before we had got that of course we would still have diminished though joe well i understand i understand but a public record is a public record we now have two public records we have the video of the here of the meeting or the recording of the meeting and we have minutes i'm not suggesting that that we can't do it i just want to check and make sure that we run that by kim or somebody or whatever yeah because joe it does say you're you're making a good point here under you know um number four under the under another version to consider it says any recording of board of education meetings shall be made available to the public under the freedom of information act um so you know it it seems kind of contradictory to have but what about number three at the top the recordings are not to be considered part of the minute and the minutes are the ones that are fbi correct well you know all public records are foiable making them part of the minutes requires them to be available in a certain period of time and have they have the video be approved by us which is why you don't want it part of the minutes because otherwise we'd have to approve the video yes but are you yes that's true but um are you are you are you questioning the one year i'm questioning whether we can ever destroy a public document we may be able to we may be able to establish a policy that allows for us to purge a public record after a period of time and that may be okay under foia i just want to make sure before we adopt the policy that we're not adopting something that is going to get us in dutch later right so do we have to table this one oh yeah let's let's um do we need a motion to table make a mistake emotionally postpone this to the next meeting thank you joe seconded by kate all those in favor aye aye aye and we'll um we'll we'll uh reach out to kim and see if she can weigh in on that for us that was quick yes so bylaws are concluded now finally and uh figure out where we left off yes circling back to the 1000 series which was community relations um i will confirm with cabe the last time we were in front of these policies we were under the impression that we were done with the recommended policies but i will share an update um with this team um prior to our next meeting and um and then have a new slate of policies for us to consider thank you so much you're very welcome thanks everyone for being here um motion to adjourn so moved moved by second second bye catherine all those in favor hi hi we are adjourned at 6 26.
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it's his birthday today happy birthday tommy 85 and working hard like that that's amazing jeff akins will retire at the end of next year jeff is is going to be taking care of his mother she's moving in and he's taking care of his mother and he will need to pay attention and attention to her and so he's going to be completing his this will be his last contract for the upcoming school year of course he'll be sorely missed and larry garrison will be leaving us and i can't remember how many years off the top my head lauren could you speak to the tenure of mr garrison approximately i believe it's 15 17 years something like that here with the district okay thank you lauren similar to what uh brian crane's tenure has been brian is going to retire after next year and uh he of course has been lauren's right-hand person and uh those are big shoes to fill he's he's made a number of contributions over his about 17 years with blue ridge stephanie connigani i believe has been here about as long as i have about seven years she's an outstanding teacher and she will be retiring after the next school year and then dawn dawn works in our maintenance department and i'm unsure how long he's been with us but my guess is about 12 years and so these are um you know it's we're happy for him but we'll fill the will fill some of those voids we'll work really hard to do our best and each of those folks have have done an outstanding job and we extend our gratitude to each thank you dr wright so we need motion to accept the the retirements for these individuals listed in the agenda check uh motion from chuck have a second from diana all in favor accept these retirements gene animus thank you okay item two seven these were individuals who were going to retire and chose not to retire yes they were going to i think both folks were going to move and decided not to move and so we're we're glad that they're both stay they're classroom teachers and they've individually done a great job angela desmond is a kindergarten teacher she will remain in that capacity next year and at least with the board's blessing she will and jeffrey robinson wears a number of academic hats and will uh will continue supporting the high school are there any questions i i could have uh ryan or lauren answer more specific questions if there are any from the board looks like not so we have a recommendation to to accept these uh withdrawals of intent to resign from these two individuals have a motion from margaret have a second from diana all in favor be good can i ask a question really fast i'm sorry i didn't realize that 2.11 was actually in the consent agenda i think that if we're okay to review it maybe we don't approve it until next time because of some questions which is the school calendar year we're uh if i might just add we i i'm open for suggestions on it where it it's sort of a it's really not a school board function to prove it but we want to seek school board feedback so it's somewhere in between if there are some areas and if you want to pull it off i'm happy to do that and meet with you and discuss those items and bring them back for to may yes and then put it on that time if that that works for you i'm hoping if you want to withdraw that item from the agenda this time mr president that would work for us what any any other comment questions about the calendar the big concern is the lack of a fall break because it does not align with i know it aligns with mpc but it does not align with the tr what we have been there is a fall break it's we we have a two day fall break no it's 10.
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there was a federal suit a couple years ago that finally got litigated out and the interpretation was is through 21 which means until you're 22. we've been following the law but need to change our policy as a result so i'm going to present that that policy on the screen so we can see it together so the highlighted portions are the areas that are changing in this policy and as i indicated you can see um it's basically the parts where we talk about changing from 21 to 22 years of age so many of our identified students receive their high school diploma um typically around 18 years old and those students are no longer eligible for special education services there are some students however who need more intensive and continued support that carries beyond 8 18 19 sometimes we'll have high students in high school 19 20 depending on their needs and then they they might move to a transition program of which we have a few um you're probably familiar with the couple we have at quinnipiac one for more life skills and and job coaching stuff another one is a more uh transitional program we've actually had a student leave that program at quinnipiac and be accepted into quinnipiac so i mean that's a really incredible accomplishment and then we have another program more locally that is other life skills and job coaching so we have a few different programs just use this opportunity to kind of educate the community on the various services that we offer so that first slide you'll see i don't think that there's even another change it's really just that emphasis on changing from 21 to 22 there is not another changed reference in here so it is that that one are there any questions on that um so i'm guessing that the reason we didn't change it last year is that the legislation wasn't final yeah it's been resolved and now it's officially to 22.
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thank you thank you he was motivated today 20 minute meeting who to believe
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it's so excuse me it if it 10 calendar days but it's thanksgiving break no correct no that's not correct there's a fall break that aligns with the npc calendar and there's thanksgiving right for which year jennifer just in october yes historically we have a very robust community that's in the hunting realm and that's one of the reasons why october break works so just shifting from having a long november break versus an october break we do have an october break correct we have an october break first through the 12th is october break and then there's an independent of that there's a november break you might be looking at it on this calendar yeah i'm looking at the calendar it might we might it shows parent-teacher conferences on the 8th and the 9th and then it shows i don't have that in front of me mary can you go help her with that or give her yours as an adult at this time so i could be missing well we do have a break in october if that's the hang up we definitely have that and it's a period of 10 count 12 calendar days was it uh in the one that was sent to us it might have been the wrong one sent you oh well i wasn't given that one in my pocket yeah it's a little different in the packet i'm sorry we gave you the wrong calendar i was looking at that looks really good the calendar has but if i might mr president may i shed some light on that yes this the significant changes are we are taking the the break from two weeks to one week and a day and then when the teachers come back after the fall break there's a planning day a prep a preparation period and a pd period for that day so they're not inundated with kids it has time for collaboration between departments and preparation individually the same is true with the january break it is followed by the with it with another pd the uh excuse me that's not true the winter break doesn't have it the spring and the fall breaks both have a planning day and a professional development following the break so the teachers have an additional day to regroup and and to coordinate okay teachers will be coming in a day early from the students for this professional development yes they'll be the teachers will come report a day earlier than the students will report and then there are also two four day weekends that what we did is used a three day and made it a four to create some a little different uh some mini breaks for the teachers understanding uh you know they need those breaks and and then of course we're out a lot earlier than we have been the last couple of years yes and so we have a longer summer so those are the looking at a wrong calendar that makes all the difference in the world i'm sorry about that right calendar looks like it makes a big difference um that's in our notebooks is not the correct on the calendar that was sent to us mary is the correct one so yes perfect okay sorry about that my fault i don't need to make any changes so we're okay with that thank you so do we need to remove that any okay so we're good to go all right next item on the agenda would be item 3.1 recommendation to review a review and approve the gifted education scope and sequence document for the 2021-22 school year any questions about that document that was provided to us dr wright do you want to explain that absolutely absolutely gifted is is a part of the special education program frankly you have to take care of the needs of all students on all ends of the spectrum these are programs that are left to the district to decide what is appropriate to make sure that the students that are excelling academically continue to be challenged and that's the scope and sequence is how we intend to do that this program must be approved by the board annually so we're asking for your approval of our gifted program so we may continue to move forward in the upcoming school year any questions regarding that this is the same as last year right yes it is all right we have if there's no further discussion can we have a motion to accept item 3.1 a motion from chuck second from margaret all in favor that would be unanimous item 3.2 recommendation to review and approve the addendum to the talon intergovernmental agreement the iga for 2001 2002.
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okay uh are there any questions or comments no okay um great so um uh can i get a motion then to uh move that to a first reading sure tim you want to do it i don't care i'll do it if jeff would put it back up please absolutely sorry um i move that okay [Laughter] um i move that the policy committee um i don't know approve the moving the policy 6159 a uh instruction individualized education program special education program to the full board for a first reading is that correct that sounds right yes is there a second tim white seconds uh is there any discussion no seeing none uh all in favor it is unanimous fantastic so the next um you know slew of but of uh policies will definitely be familiar from last month they are the really just the nuanced changes in language to reflect you know contemporary positions and um so it wasn't there wasn't substantive change if you recall from reviewing these last week and these are also highlighted for ease of of reading but again it's changing from director of management personnel the chief chief offer operating officer vin won't even like that i had the freudian cheap operating officer in there but uh that's the first one am i okay moving on to the next one yeah go ahead again you know we changed audited vouchers which isn't a protocol that we use anymore to requisitions for purchase orders and this just um identifies the approval protocol so anything in excess of five thousand dollars is approved by me after it's reviewed by ben and then any you know uh contracts or purchases shall bear the approval of the chief operating officer um and then you know ultimately we just again changed that last component to reflect purchase orders because we don't have audited vouchers anymore are there questions on that policy from anyone ahead tim uh yeah i just wanted uh i i know i mentioned something last month i don't know if it was on this particular one but it's the same concept the five thousand dollar limit you're comfortable with that do you want it changed yeah yeah we discussed that last time uh frankly you know i'm i appreciate uh being made aware of anything 5000 it's still a sizable amount of money and i think anything north of that it's it's appropriate to have both vin and i have our eyes on it okay well yeah thanks for asking though i appreciate that i know the the intention was to not burden us but that yeah that's uh i think that's appropriate just one just quick conceptually same thing applies for anything else we go through just if anything's there and you are thinking you'd like it changed please just mention that yeah thank you i appreciate that that offer um this one is three three two six um again changing the title language to be contemporary bin's title changed before i became superintendent so it's at least five years um that this has been the case and then you know the invoices being processed processed should be reviewed periodically by the chief operating officer he he literally reviews every item through the through the queue so any questions on that one no okay the payroll so we both sign off on this and we both review um no is this the one i i just reviewed this one sorry this is um school district operations accident reporting um and we just updated this to uh you know make sure that department managers were also because you know like for outside grounds for example where you're not necessarily working for a building principal but that we have a department manager uh for maintenance it would need to get reported to that individual for example so we're just being a little bit more inclusive in that as we reviewed this and then you know again changing language to chief operating officer it's only the one page any questions on that update actually jeff you know i think that one's a regulation i don't think we need to even bring that one forward for a second oh yes you're right i'm sorry yeah that was just on there from last month okay yeah so we could just update that one i'm sorry special transportation again just changing the language any questions on that policy looks good okay in that case we're left with other an adjournment it wasn't the meatiest of um agendas this evening but we you know we do have to update these things and i appreciate you reviewing them um okay catherine go ahead no i just said do we so we have to do another motion two motion now second reading correct i'm gonna let tim do that one yeah that's that's a good idea he hadn't done one yeah he hasn't i i don't know what you want me to say the whole i'll say the whole bullet point number if you want um i'd rather just say all right you know i'll do it then i'll that's i'll uh that way if when we have to do the third reading next month you'll know what to say okay when people are watching yeah right we're gonna have a million viewers yeah right um move that the cheshire uh board of education policy subcommittee moved to the for a second reading policy number three one seven zero budget implementation uh policy number three three zero zero uh expenditures expending authority uh purchasing guides policy number three three two six paying for goods and services and policy number three five four one dot four student transportation insurance is there a second catherine seconds second um okay is there any discussion none all right seeing none all in favor all right it is unanimous fantastic so uh you know so under other you know i guess i'll bring up this one thing jeff i didn't discuss this with you but it came up during the the budget meeting last night and that was about the uh the audit of the student activity accounts um and i know that part of the premise of the the uh what is this the uh of the audit bid was to be able to revise our uh um accounting policies i think if i recall i i reviewed i guess we have a policy that that dictates how our internal controls i think and it hadn't been updated since like 1996 or 1997.
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this also is the same as last year right this has regard to payment for teachers i want your payment yeah i want to i want to double check that um lauren is this the element that we have uh agreed to at talon or in principle said we'll take it to our board for approval we'll incur a charge this year that we haven't incurred in the past that correct that is correct okay and so the net difference for the district there are a lot more opportunities for our students but the next difference is we used to get in lack of a better term a rebate and those dollars amount to about ten thousand dollars annually annually we're not going to get that any longer that accurately reflect it does i remember it yes okay thank you so that means basically we are providing the same we're going to provide actually pay for it without any reimbursement an expanded program an expanded menu and expanded seats for talon we're no longer going to get a rebate for that we're going to have to absorb that ten thousand dollars which we can do and we still believe it's a good value is there anything you want to add to that mr webb in the past we're also paying for the equipment rental in the talon room and so mpc is covering the charges on the the equipment rental so we're not having to cover that and so there is a trade-off on what the district is picking up and what nbc is covering so it's definitely beneficial having the programs and the opportunities for our kids like dr wright says we did expand it we have more sections offered that are dual enrollment now any questions about that there's no questions can we have a uh motion for item 3.2 have a motion from diana a second from jennifer all in favor aye unanimous thank you all right pins okay item 3.3 recommendation to review we have two early graduates as everybody had an opportunity to review those two individual students any questions or comments that we would like brought to dr reiter lauren if uh mr webb would take a chance to introduce mr ruble caba that would be a good good thing to do all right we've got frank here who's requesting to graduate early and i'm going to go ahead and hand the microphone over to frank and he can tell you a little bit of where he's at right now and why he's looking forward to have this early graduation request approved um so i finished all my requirements to graduate early and i'm trying to graduate early because i applied at pinetop fire and i got a call not too long ago and i'm going to get an interview the 12th of this month and that's why i'm trying to graduate early congratulations the beginnings of a great job yeah so he's looking to be able to get onto the fuels crew with pine top fire and it's one of those where if the position is open now he can take it if he waits until after may graduation that position might not be there so that's a big motivator of why he's here chuck are you a member of the navit fire science program yes i was for first semester good deal so there's no further discussion we have a motion to accept these early retirement early retirements i mean we're not retiring you from education these early graduation requests have a motion from jennifer a second from chuck all in favor that's unanimous also yes congratulations item 3.4 recommendation to review and approve the junior leadership academy after school program this is what the schimmel's run isn't it it is mike and beth schimmel support this program it'll run april 19th through the 30th of this year and it's fully funded by the jla the junior leadership academy it's a great program for youth and so we're very supportive of it but we still need the board support to move forward i think it's great anything any any questions or discussions about this if not we have a motion great program did that serve as a motion also all right we have a second segment for margaret all in favor okay that was unanimous for item 3.4 uh now our next item on the agenda is just a superintendent's report there's a long list of dates are you going to go through those or yes yes sir if i may i'll take off my mask but it's not so muffled and there's a lot of important information would you like me to review those now yeah okay beginning with april 7th and april 8th tomorrow and the next day we'll have interviews begin for the principalship at blue ridge elementary school there are five well-qualified candidates each of these candidates will will be reviewed by a panel that consists first of teachers ptso members and parents uh there's about 12 people in total on that group the second round of interviews will be with the admin team roughly 12 people and then on the 13th of april with the board's permission we'll notice a potential quorum we're inviting the community and board members that are interested to come to a meet and greet that will be held from four o'clock to 7 00 p.m on the 13th that time coincides with the elementary pre-registration so parents can do all shopping at one area they could pre-register their children if they have high school and elementary kids or various bands they can enroll them or rather pre-register them all at once and then go over and meet ask questions of the candidates we're going to limit it to two or three of the finalists that are selected after the the first two rounds of interviews and that'll be an opportunity for the community all stakeholders parents kids anybody who wants to come and we'll have that in the high school east gym over here and so there's plenty room they'll be spaced out we'll have the doors open be well ventilated and that's a chance for people to just that is the reason we have this meeting tonight instead of our normal yes that would have been our normal board meeting so that's why we moved it to this night yes sir correct on the we have just explained the meet and greet before i go there are any questions on the process with respect to the selection of the the principal so i will take feedback and i'll let the committees know that i'm not going to ask them to vote but i am interested in their feedback and i will weigh that in to my decision that i'll make to submit to the board for its consideration for approval we'll also allow community members to provide feedback on a piece of paper and then file that give that to mary and i'll review whatever comments are made as well and take that into consideration i think it's it's a it's a pretty arduous process it's it's thoroughly um i would say a lack of a better term vetting the candidates and giving them a chance to meet important stakeholders and for parents and teachers and kids to meet these folks too and talk with them so that's the process that we're using and are there any questions with that before i go on to the next item all right on the the 13th through the 15th we're going to have a pre-registration event and so we have mailed postcards out around 5000 of them to local members of the community anybody that's been in school community members we've even mailed them to the area of wagon wheel and towards show low and so for students that have an interest in attending our school they can come and pre-register if they're if they are an open enrollment student they'll be placed on the list they'll be pre-registered and placed on the list for open enrollment consideration same rules apply and then we will work to try to we're not going to try we're actually going to have a much more streamlined process where we'll have about 24 data input specialists we'll call them that the parents will just share their information and these folks that are trained to input it will put it in it's about a third of the time and the tenth of the frustration where we're trying to be more intentional with our use of language registration and pre-registration means we're just gathering your information a student is not formally enrolled until they are accepted and issued a schedule and so that has caused terminology that we've been using interchangeably has been causing us some miscommunication parents were having to go and do things two and three times next year we're going to make sure that we have documents like shots memorialized so once they provide them we don't have to ask them every year to keep providing us the same people piece of paper and i i must give the principals including ryan credit for coming up with this process um josh and the principals and others for training these people and i think it's going to feel far more convenient and i think the parents will appreciate the support that they're going to get so we're working really hard to make it as easy as we can for our in-district students and students that want to be considered under open enrollment from wherever they hail the uh the next thing is that we'll have our follow-up for the covet shots i believe the facility we're going to use is what the old gym or the new gym because we're also we have these desks and stuff out here by the way i told facilities the board would not want our facilities to have to clean this all out and put it right back up tomorrow this is substance over form we're testing in here daily and so that explains the chairs everywhere this room will be used for arizona merit testing and we have also pre-registration and all the other things that are going on so we but we did not want to put off the shots of covid so that will be on the 13th we'll have another my assumption is a couple hundred up to four to five hundred student students community members and some of which may be students get their shots 18 years old and older will be able to access access the johnson and and the pfizer shots on the 20th the elementary school will have our first open house of the year we're also trying to streamline these functions and well we'll have transportation available there for them and questions and teachers will be there to answer questions we want to try to make this as painless as we can for the parents and yet as informative as possible that's why we're having these on different nights some of the feedback that we have had over the years is please don't have your open house in the same night i have kids at different grade bands i can't get around to all of them it creates a fire drill for me so we've made that adjustment this year actually we made it last year but really couldn't take advantage of it because the code would excuse me we probably ought to make a notification of possible quorum so the boards can attend those thank you so let's uh on the 13th and then on the 20th thank you mr marrow the element excuse me that junior the high school on the 26th will have its open house have the same functions and then the junior high will have theirs on the 27th are there any questions on the open house functions i've got all of our representatives here to field them if you do all right may 14th is the last day of school the on that day we're going to be able to hold our final lap for the eighth graders which is a blue ridge uh tradition i believe i have it from 12 30 to 1.
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and so i wasn't sure um uh if we need to initiate a review of that policy to then uh bring it forward for to to approve the audit to do the audit because again last night because we're still not even sure who gets to pay for the audit because i think it comes from the town so i don't know if david barry has to do it or if we ask where the hang up was i think what happened we got a quote uh and i think it was probably beyond what people expected it was twelve thousand dollars yeah at that point the board and the council didn't necessarily move on it at the time i remember uh and i'm sure you do too that the night that we were kind of discussing a lot of this uh stuff up it uh sorry up at uh hummuston in that finance meeting was the same night that we learned tomorrow we're going to have a half day because of covid and don't worry we'll come back in a couple of weeks a couple weeks it'll be fine you know here we are 60 weeks later or whatever it is going when's covet going to be over so um there really wasn't motion on it what i i will do tomorrow is talk to vin about the policy you just referenced in terms of our and i will um ask him to review that policy in light of you know the question you just asked about the student activity account but then you know i'll reach back out to you but excuse me also you know it might not hurt for you to talk to david once um i follow up with you on on the policy piece because i know i i talked to tim about this you know since 96 there's been a bunch of changes to gasby uh which might affect our internal controls that you know and i'm sure that are enacted currently but aren't you know uh yeah and that's like that's a lot of the stuff that we've done lately this year is that you know in terms of policy we follow law obviously regardless of what our policy says law supersedes all so we follow those things and now we're just kind of updating some of these outdated policies and the one you just hit on maybe one of them i'll go back and look at it ask vinnie to look at it and then i'll give you a call okay that sounds good sure all right uh is there any other business to be uh tim yeah the finger is up i don't know okay so i i don't know if this would fall under policy or what but i'll just ask right now which is um how do we uh so i'm thinking about the ciac but in general uh we have we participate are we on an advisory board for the ciac are we part of a governing board are we part of a governing board of any bodies right so this the ciac is the governing board for interscholastic athletics they're the you know the the entity that um really almost all school systems i'm not aware of any that don't fall under that ciac umbrella for interscholastic athletics within that organization each sport also has a committee comprised of athletic directors administrators coaches people from around the state they also have other committees that they they have i know they have the the health and wellness committee that received a lot of attention as they were working through you know whether or not sports should be participating or not but um so those micro committees if you will underneath ciac for each sport dictate a lot of a lot of practice within the sport you know the rules and any changes and how long the season's going to be and all these other things dictated through them um i don't know if that answers your question or like so i guess one question is you said the ciac is basically the governing body i'm wondering are they codified in law or is this by default like like for years the grammys were the premier they were the music industry and then came the american music awards because there there was no real control if it's not in law i'm just wondering if it's by law that they're the governing body i don't know that they are okay you know in law okay so what's the answer to that okay so we're not but as far as you know we're not part of the governing body of the ciac we are of the subcommittees per se or the micro committees but not of the yeah i mean it's it's also coupled with connecticut association of schools so they're they're like sister organizations under one umbrella you have the connecticut association of schools which does a lot of professional development advocacy legisl they work with legislation they do awards and they have oversee kind of student activities things that aren't athletics but are big enough to warrant you know a broader oversight like best buddies um might i mean best buddies is their own organization but i know like cas ciac does a lot with unified sports um probably under the ciac umbrella side of things so it's a relatively large organization that does a lot to support connecticut public schools okay okay again i think that's it for right now sure okay i can try and find out more about the organization itself but i would just be looking on the website so if you have special you know information that you're looking for specifically you that is casciac.org yeah no i mean this this goes back like six months i was asking for the financial statements because from my perspective they're basically funded by government so to me it seems like they should have their financial status public but they weren't they wouldn't they were not forthcoming and that's what concerns me but if we are part of the governing body then it seems to me that it should be able to make that happen anyway that's that's all i i'll go to the website and poke brown and see if i can find it i know most of i've seen most of what you were talking about but i wasn't sure on uh elections to a governing body and no they don't elect they hire okay uh okay uh is there any other um issues to be brought up to this subcommittee i don't think so all right uh seeing none um but entertain a motion to adjourn i so move that all right catherine moves uh 10 seconds fantastic uh then uh oh uh all in favor all right we are adjourned we are thank you everyone thanks guys
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is that right principal hopmeier all right and that'll be in front of the junior high school and uh will the last lap be at around the school or where does that take place courtney we'll start we'll have the kids start at the front of the school they walk around the perimeter of the junior high and they come back it's a very slow walk and the parents will line up out front and we'll ask them to space out and have masks on so we'll be as covet friendly as we can be thanks yeah and it's all outside and i'm and i'm fine with that we are going to have our kindergarten graduation at 9 a.m at the bres gym there are only about 90 kids this year that that we could definitely face space people out keep the doors open allow that to move forward on a traditional kindergarten graduation commencement ceremony it's always the highlight for parents and kids and frankly teachers too the kindergarten team wishes to thank the board and administration for moving forward with that they're very excited about kindergarten graduation it's adorable if you haven't seen it so would you in fact i'll give a list of anything where i think board members might come i'll just notice a potential quorum the board is obviously welcome to come to all these will have it appropriately noticed in the event there's more than two the uh the baccalaureate we're going to have the same program that we've had in the last couple years past where we've had a the senior video is shown this is going to take place on monday may 17th the kids run the event the kids invite the speakers and it's a nice function we've seen the popularity and participation increase significantly last couple years we'll also notice that function that was my phone sorry diana that's okay it's okay it is it sounds almost like uh pomp and circumstance we're talking about graduation that's perfect on may 17 june 3rd brez will have their summer school program begin as will the other great bands all summer school will begin on may 17th the elementary school will have a three-week program monday through thursday 8 32 1 the junior high in high school will have the same time frame but excuse me same times starting and stopping but their program will last for four weeks as opposed to three so i'm really thankful that the principals got in front of this i'm grateful for the teachers willingness to support we want to address learning loss and get after that immediately and this is a good start forward to that end grades one through eleven any questions about that i have uh the graduation is a traditional ceremony going to be conducted at paul morrill stadium at 7 00 p.m now there will be some changes we will not have the the the the kids lining up and parents and everybody coming out to take pictures like we do and we have most years we'll have the stadium set up where we're going to utilize both the home and visitors side the orientation of the stage will be adjusted so both sides can participate equally we'll name the the student and then we'll name the next student we're going to move them through a little quicker the program though is going to be more extensive and it will have the accolades for example dylan bach is going to go to columbia it will say in the program dylan baca is going to colombia by the way that's not just that's true don't block is going to colombia and so uh we'll make sure that the kids get the notoriety we'll still have the speakers the valid vic valedictorian or valedictorians and salutatorians will will address the audience um we'll have some brief remarks by administration and we will uh we'll invite families back and so what we're going to we're going to set up if a kid has a large family they'll be able to bring in their entire family we'll have it set up where we're going to utilize the track if necessary we'll make sure that the folks that need special access that might have a disability are provided that support and it will be it'll be a beautiful event we'll have it set up right it'll be bob london's last graduation and jeremy hathcock's first and he's going to pass the torch to jeremy so he has a he has big shoes to fill on the graduation side too hopefully he can whistle like bob the next is i'm really excited about our graduation lock-in we're moving forward with it we have parents that are are stepping up and helping out we still need some more volunteers we'll find that we are accepting donations as well at that event hatch toyota will give away a brand new car to one of the seniors that qualify correct mr webb do you want to add anything else about the lock-in uh event um just that like dr right said we still need some volunteers to make it happen there's emails that have been sent out with the link on where parents can go to sign up or ask more information and then donations are accepted here in the district office or can be paid to ptso so we have a fun night it's it's usually from 11 00 p.m until six in the morning we want to hold off at the giving away the new car at the end of the event as like one of the top things that we're doing kids that have a 3.5 or better gpa will be able to be eligible to receive put their name in for the drawing and there's a couple other stipulations in there but pretty cool prizes and we're grateful that hatch toyota stepped up to donate the car for our students here at blue ridge mr webb how many kids would fall would meet that criteria at your of the seniors it's over 50.
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okay it's a good number of kids yeah graduating class of 150 so yeah very well have a 3.5 or better thank you uh dr laura brown and the bratch family and others have just been a mainstay for this program uh we we have done an exceptional job our community has done his exceptional job our school administration particularly the principals have done an outstanding job of working with community members to provide a safe environment for our kids that's fun and so now more than ever we need to get arms around these kids and make sure that they have a fun safe environment it's going to be it'll be a nice function so thank you mr webb for your efforts are there any questions about either graduation commencement exercises or the lock-in okay put the word out we're accepting donations and we need volunteers um you know especially those that can stay awake after nine or ten i'm usually up by three i'll come and do the second shift the uh we we're going to put the correct calendars jennifer on the website the correct calendars will be on the website uh tomorrow and then i will post those the only other district update i will say is that arizona merit testing arizona merit2 testing is underway mr grace and dr eyerstone i want to commend them for getting 95 percent of their students to participate which is amazing in this environment it's amazing doesn't happen without planning and preparation so thank you as kids get older we know they become a little less compliant and more independent we're struggling a little more at the junior high high school but the administration and our teachers are doing their job i also want to give a shout out to technology and facilities for putting this place up and back and forth several times during the week creating an appropriate learning space and testing environment for our students i want to make the board aware of the efforts that administration facilities and and i.t are making weekly and daily and so none of this stuff of course happens by itself and we're very appreciative of their efforts i i do not have any other district updates i will you have these and we'll be posting these on the website as well are there any questions mr president from the board that i might address or elaborate on if not that would conclude my report thank you dr appreciate the information a lot to happen in the last part of the year next item on the agenda is 3.6 it is the board's performance evaluation with dr wright this is an executive session item closed to the public to move into executive session we need a motion to move into executive session motion from margaret a second by chuck all in favor that'd be unanimous so at this time we will excuse ourselves to this room for discussion and we will return when that discussion is through so you're welcome to stay you're welcome to leave whatever you would like to do thank you
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good afternoon and thank you for joining us for the committee on education wednesday april 7th 3 o'clock agenda in room 229. with me is vice chair senator donna mercado kim here in the room with me and virtually i have senator drew kanuha thank you for joining me this meeting including the audio and video of remote participants is being streamed live on youtube you will find links to viewing options for all senate meetings on the live and on demand video page of the legislature's website this zoom meeting and youtube live stream event will include the three o'clock pm agenda for the committee on education in the unlikely event that we have to abruptly end this hearing due to major technical difficulties the committee will be reconvening to discuss any outstanding business of friday april 9th at 3 o'clock p.m and a public notice will be posted on the legislature's website i'd like to take this time to remind our testifiers that due to time restrictions on our hearings we will be limiting testimony to one minute per testifier per bill for the people participating remotely all testifier audio will be muted and video disabled until shortly before it is your turn to testify when i call your name staff will unmute you and your time will begin after your minute is completed staff will mute you so that we can move this hearing along in an orderly and efficient manner we have nine items on the agenda today and we will start these all all governor's messages and appointments to various boards and we will start with gm 788 submitting for consideration and confirmation to the hawaii teachers standard board gubernatorial nominee davilan hahn for a term to expire 6 30 2025.
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good evening we're going to go ahead and call this meeting to order dr foley roll call president reese members of the board please let the record show that all members are present thank you we are going to have a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all and we are going to go ahead and move on to our agenda i move that we approve our agenda as it's presented second any questions or comments regarding the agenda all in favor aye motion carries 5-0 we're going to go on to the superintendent's report dr foley president reese members of the board we're going to begin tonight with our very favorite part of our meeting which is where we get a chance to highlight honor and acknowledge our points of pride so tonight we're going to start alphabetically we have middle school in the house and we're going to have cooley middle school come up and we're going to honor our amazing students we're going to honor amazing employees and our community members who make middle schools awesome in higley so we're going to start with mr varner miss devono and ms schwartz if you'll come up and help us highlight our cooly awesome points of pride good evening president reece members of the board dr foley cabinet it is my pleasure tonight to be here to introduce some amazing individuals that are a part of coulee middle school and make cooley the amazing family that we are first of all we have our points of pride volunteer our volunteer is sonya hernandez here did she make it sonya hernandez come on up sorry sonia i didn't see you there earlier sonia is our point of contact with desert springs church which uses our facility on sundays on more than one occasion she has provided a gift for our teachers or multiple gifts for that matter in appreciation for desert springs using our campus this has taken a lot of time and effort on her part which we greatly appreciate sonia thank you for all that you do for the cms community we definitely appreciate you picture right all right thank you again sonya our teacher points to pride sean reynolds come on up i saw him earlier although this is officially mr reynolds first year as a teacher he has been a part of the the cooley family for several previous years as a substitute teacher and on two different stints is a long-term substitute teacher he's embraced his role as an educator and is open to growing and learning professionally his lessons are structured and organized and more importantly he takes time to build and maintain relationships with his students we just had this conversation the other day in my office didn't we mr reynolds mr reynolds can also be seen in the hallway between classes monitoring students and directing traffic each and every day mr reynolds thank you for all that you do [Applause] we had a succulent for mr reynolds not that he doesn't like flowers but [Applause] our classified points of pride wendy maxwell i saw you earlier come on up miss maxwell has been an integral part of the cooley special education program for several years as a paraprofessional and she has made such a positive impact at cooley middle school she takes the time to build and maintain positive and supportive relationships with her students and it is apparent that she absolutely loves what she does this of course is seen by our students thus helping to create an overall healthy positive and supportive classroom environment is they absolutely feed off of her smile thank you for all that you do for cooley miss maxwell [Applause] and last but most certainly not least our student points point of pride omar kareem come on up we recognize omar kareem as our coulee cougar point to pride recipient because he is extremely hard-working always focusing on his work and how he can improve omar has had to overcome many obstacles and no matter how difficult to task he is always up to do it and he accomplishes everything with such a positive attitude he treats his teachers his peers and the staff with the utmost respect always treating others with kind kindness as well lastly omar is a leader by his actions he shows others around him what it's like to have what it's like to have to overcome obstacles and he does everything with great integrity we are so lucky to have a student like omar as a part of the cougar family congratulations omar we had a card and a gift card for omar we didn't we didn't know if he would uh want the flowers or a succulent so very i hope you enjoy that omar thank you very much these are amazing individuals at cooley thank you [Applause] thank you now i have the pleasure of inviting mr dolan up so that we can honor our saseman points of pride thank you dr foley uh governing board thank you for this opportunity i i i think it's really awesome that our district gives us the chance to recognize not just teachers but all staff and and people that work in our schools it's just uh something that i think as a community we all should see some of the great things and the things that people are doing on our campuses so i'm going to go through the two people first who unfortunately are not here one i know just had an emergency i don't know why my classified person is not here i will share um my two colleagues are actually working um mr potts is doing a re-entry plan for a student and with his parents and mr keeling is we had some online kids do our science testing so he's still there working with them hoping they finish their tests so first she's not here but our volunteer is ac trump ac works with our ptso and what i would share with you about her is as we get along from elementary to middle to high i think middle school high school they start leaning more on clubs than they do on parent groups yet at my school we just have the most amazing parents that are willing to help when it comes to that this year even in the end of last year our ptso uh you know certainly with ac the things that they did for our teachers and staff was unbelievable shirts hats food all things just to make them feel um as special as they really are so for ac we at saseman we truly appreciate her [Applause] second is alicia riggers alicia is our she's not our nurse but that's what i call her all the time she's a superwoman as our health aide prior to covid i would tell you she is very knowledgeable and she's very caring she puts the kids first after colbert i would tell you she's knowledgeable she's caring and she puts the kids first nothing's changed for her she has more on her plate but she does the exact same things that she did prior just an unbelievable person i'm not going to say willing to have but she has to have sometimes those tough conversations with parents or teachers about hey whether you should be here or not here we'd be lost without her so alicia riggers uh a student allison ewing come on up here [Applause] so allison i remember when you came as a seventh grader this little girl got a little giggly and i remember because i knew your mom and we were talking and she asked me about the principal's leadership and i said yeah i'm still gonna have that i think that would be something that you know allie would really like and i remember when we did it last year as a seventh grader you put forth that effort of hey i have some ideas i have some leadership and i don't know if you remember this is the book we read read the book called eat that frog and in the book the first time i said to you guys i want you to pick a chapter we're going to talk about it and i might be wrong but i think you talked about organization procrastination and from there as we keep going into this year i just have seen such a person grow you're an amazing young lady um this year we talked about what can we do if you remember there's two things right one thing is um for some girls in the bathroom and the other is the again the bathroom but some pictures and we will get those things done and none of that stuff would have come up if it wasn't for you so i cannot wait to see what happens for you going on forward into high school thank you [Applause] i cheated your mom said you like m ms [Applause] last would be my teacher hayley rohner come on up here i'll see if i can embarrass you so maybe five years ago uh you were student teacher she went from student teacher then she started to teach science on our campus and from the minute she started to now you know kids first that's just the way haley approaches her classroom and anything she does she took on an additional role over the last two or three years as a student council sponsor and i think this year has probably been very very difficult i don't know how many times we've had a conversation hey what do you think about this yeah we can't do that what do you think about this i'll check but i don't think we can do that but through it all the you've just been flexible um and again making these kids still accountable doing things with the kids um you know making student council still something that's meaningful on our campus so because of what you do in our classroom because of who you are because of all the things you've been flexible with i appreciate you so much [Applause] thank you just dylan thank you so thank you to our points of pride recipients our family and their friends who came tonight we always let you know at this point in the meeting you are so welcome to stay but we also know you've got to get ready for school so if you need to leave we also say feel free to do so at this time as well and thank you for coming to join us tonight okay okay i will continue with our superintendence report president reese members of the board you can see that we have a list of upcoming events and and normally this time of year we say oh and here come the 90 days of may and i'll tell you what we embrace the 90 days of may a little bit differently this year than we did we have a new appreciation for it because last year we couldn't do these things and so as our as our calendars begin to fill we have a new value for the ability to get together honor and accelerate uh celebrate although our calendars are beginning to fill so upcoming events obviously this weekend we have a governing board retreat here for our governing board and cabinet where we'll be talking about strategic upcoming strategic planning and all kinds of initiatives and and those kinds of things so that is the saturday for the month of april we have another meeting scheduled regular board meeting scheduled you'll see in may we begin with honoring and celebrating we'll begin with our teacher of the year breakfast which will be us it'll be different than we've celebrated but we're excited to be celebrating a very elegant event to celebrate our teachers of the year in the higley school district because we are so fortunate to have such amazing teachers we also are ready originally scheduled we on our regular calendar we had a meeting on may 12th this is going to be kind of a modified meeting it's going to start earlier on that day it's going to be a we have to officially do a public hearing for our budget and we have to do it before the 15th so we're going to have a quick meeting because on that night we also have awards nights and other things in addition though we needed to add a meeting a board meeting as we dive deep tonight we start beginning of a bond study and we're going to be learning some more information and gathering more information and this gives time uh from our april meetings to our ninth meeting or our may meetings to have additional information so may 19th will be our governing board meeting where we continue our deep dive into bond conversations so these are some big upcoming events meetings and and the beginning of a busy busy month and of course this this does not encompass all of the events and other things that are coming on our calendars which we'll talk more about at our retreat this weekend and that concludes the superintendent's report thank you all right we will go on to board comments any board comments okay we're going to request to speak this is reach any requests moving right along we will now go to our consent agenda and i move that we approve our consent agenda as it's presented second any questions or comments regarding our consent all right all those in favor aye aye motion carries 5-0 president reese members of the board i just wanted to take a second to just do a couple acknowledgements with the consent agenda tonight we recognize the talents of a few of our amazing employees who were who just confirmed appointments so we want to congratulate curtis carabin who is been placed into the role of the multimedia specialist i want to acknowledge mr tyler moore who has just been named as the cfo for the next school year and kristen nash who's currently been named as our assistant director of special education in addition we want to highlight that for this next year you have confirmed the interim associate superintendent position to be miss sherry richards and our interim executive director for elementary ed will be dr sue borzich so we are excited about the uh highlighting of our skills and abilities of our internal people in in some new roles and potential and positions for us in the district next year so thank you thank you we're excited to see the progress continue to move forward and thank you all right with that we'll go on to our information items for our fiscal year 21 monthly governing board finance report for our m o for february does anyone have any questions oh well all right thank you then we will go on to 7.2 which is our 2022 legislative report mr gatt thank you madam president members of the board this report that you find in your packet highlights those pieces of legislation they're selected that i thought were significant enough to present this evening yeah and they're up on the screen now so it's good the first one is school facilities board is moving under the department of administration that is a significant change for them will be a significant change for them i'm sure and i don't know i don't know how to predict whether that will be good or bad for school districts but we'll find out the reason that this legislation was proposed last year and this year i think is probably going to make it is that they didn't feel that the school facilities board was as efficient and allocating the funds you know that kind of stuff and so we're going to let the governor's office basically deal with that so we'll see how that comes out this one 11 39 is significant it's been signed by the governor it takes all three sections of proposition 301 you may remember there's a a base pay a performance pay in a menu now combines all of them together into one fund which will make it a heck of a lot easier for us to administer and give you more flexibility as to how you allocate those funds you won't be in those defined uh any longer there are some stipulations in that legislation especially relative to performance pay so we'll be furnishing you additional information as as we get the that bill back from the governor's office it basically says in general that you have to spend the money on teacher comp and student support services very broad much much broader than it was before and much less defined and just into individual boxes in terms of what your limit is so i think you'll enjoy a lot more flexibility with that uh senate bill 1165.
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hello good evening everybody and thank you for joining us tonight so my name is tom sadiq i'm principal up with the high school another folks introduce themselves my name is sam camera and i'm interim assistant principal nice to meet you hi everyone i'm nikki gromacki also an assistant principal at the high school and i am ella stocker i am the librarian at the high school and i will be helping out with the tech for this presentation tonight all right so i'm going to give a quick overview of what you can expect this evening so our plan is to well first i want to say that and this is a big transition you're all about to embark on and we want to we're hoping that the things that you hear tonight are really going to help you feel really excited about next year there's still a lot of unknowns and things may change between now and then but right now we're gonna let you know about what our plan is for the fall of 2021.
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all right all right hello everybody and welcome to the main event the autism acceptance panel 2021 i'm so excited that we're doing this it was so heartbreaking that we didn't have our panel last year it's the thing that i looked forward to all school year um so i'm so glad we could come together virtually and for those of you watching that don't know i'm kathy olson and i am a special education teacher at amherst regional public high school and um what i who i have here are a bunch of fantastic people some people who have already graduated or out there in the world doing amazing things which they'll talk about and some people who are current students at the high school um and they are here to to talk about their experiences and that's what is the most important thing right we need to hear from people who are autistic identify as having autism and have them describe what their experiences are and what we all need to know so thank you very much everybody who's here for giving your time and putting yourself out there like this it's incredibly valuable so um what we're gonna do is we will go around to each person on the screen and i want you to just introduce yourself basically your name pronoun what grade you oh i gotta add somebody new to this thing hold on two more people to add maybe next year we can only have the panel discover that earlier it happens it's okay i had a browser issue i had to download my browser so yeah that sucks we're good we're good i was just introducing what's happening tonight and how amazing this is that that you all are here and we get to hear from you right what autism is and um what we should know about it okay so we're gonna go around and if it's okay with all of you we'll just go in the order that's on the screen so starting with leilani and then going around and like it'll be you know ethan ellie jesse shane the other jessie and then stanley and um just quickly because we only have an hour total so just a couple of minutes if you could just introduce yourself who are you what grade did you are you in now in high school or what year did you graduate um and then if you want to say a little bit about what you're doing now or if there are any achievements that you are proud of right now um and or just a fun fact about yourself and then we'll get into some questions that i've prepared for you all so on that note leilani so hi everyone it's a pleasure to be speaking to you tonight thank you so much for taking a bit of your time for this but uh it's uh wonderful to be talking i apologize if i'm a bit awkward this is so much easier in front of a board live studio audience so i'm leilani i graduated 2015 i mean she her pronouns i am a professional or full-time digital artist which in my particular flavor means people pay me money to draw animals or dragons etc which was uh kathy for instance can tell you is that my obsession and then absolutely since i first met her way back when i was 12 or 13 in so i'm really proud to have made what's been sort of a focal point of my interest used into a living for myself that's helped me get married recently helped me now have my own apartment with my husband and gosh that's all wonderful wonderful things to say now it's still sync again we're still not done unpacking so yeah that's about it it is ethan and i can go first if you want um all right maybe i should go first because on the screen oh all right then the technical technical difficulty hello people that i can't see um glad that that is very cool my name is ellie i use they them pronouns and uh i graduated from amherst regional high school in 2019.
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able to make the meeting we gonna move on um kate will you do the royal car certainly uh joe britton is absent rachel celeski is absent kate canetta here gladys cooper here lauren daly here okay joe da silva here catherine hodgson here rich gianelli kathy molinero here al russo i do not see him on here at amy's spooling now okay okay so we have three apps [Music] okay oh next we're gonna have the recognitions mr watson yes you just needed to unmute miss cooper sorry about that oh sugar so this evening uh miss cooper i have the pleasure of introducing miss kim dioria um she is one of our teachers at danbury high school and recently was is a recipient she recently she received the harvey milk and sylvia rivera award for challenging discrimination related to gender identity and sexual orientation um excuse me one second sorry for the noise in the background and so we are um excited uh to have kim here this evening um kim dan donovan is not able to be with us this evening and quite frankly i can't tell you how um excited i am to introduce you to the board and to the public and so one ms cooper you might recall a couple of years ago we adopted um a board of ed policy diversity equity and diversity policy the last line of that policy um it's embracing our diversity through inclusion creates an environment that leverages diversity and creates schools where students families community members and employees feel valued welcomed and supported so that students and staff can perform at their very best i think everything that you're going to hear about um miss the aurier this evening demonstrates that she's an absolute embodiment of our equity and diversity policy and so i'm just looking forward to um welcome um reviewing with everyone while kim has received this prestigious award so kim is honored and humbled to be nominated by a jamboree high school colleague and she and she and she stated i want to thank my dhs colleagues who have listened to me talk about my vision for a safe lgbtq student body and school environment in her ongoing mission kim has provided resources for gsa and diversity club members teachers and administrators to advocate for lgbtq issues gsa members have always spread the positive message to embrace inclusiveness diversity and culture kim has created a safe space to discuss barriers and to celebrate achievements kim is currently a board member at glsen connecticut held the position at a palace as a policy coordinator over the years kim has attended numerous workshops training and conferences to keep her work current and spends a tremendous amount of time following bills policies and language regarding the lgbtq student community kim's room i hope she's okay with our sharing this room 22 d 277 is always open to students who seek comforting guidance of a true professional please um when you get a chance to see kim and we are um so glad to have her on the call this evening please join us and congratulate and congratulate her on this well-deserved award and mysterio can would you take a moment to um talk to us about this award and some of the work you've been doing at the high school okay so i kind of wrote a little tiny speech all right so here i go hope will never be silent all young people regardless of sexual orientation or identity deserves a safe supportive environment until which we achieve their full potential harvey milk we can no longer stay invisible we should not be ashamed who we are or show the world who we are silvia riviera good evening board members and compute community participants um i am hold the position as a family consumer science humanistic multicultural educator at danbury high school for the last past eight years i am honored and humbled that i received the cea harvey milk and silvi riviera human and civil rights award for challenging discrimination to gender identity and sexual orientation over the years our gsa club members who presented in front of noble peace prize laureates created workshops to educate teachers and administrators how to create safe school environments at the suny system for two years in a row and being the keys one of my students being a key speaker at the state capitol to denounce discrimination based on sexual orientation i have provided the queer youth community skills and resources to advocate for themselves you have a voice use it and the world needs to listen for my colleagues and admins when you are needed an explanation or resource or to navigate parents or students needs i am always available as i have this platform this is what i request from you to be visible create a safe space in all danbury public schools respond to anti-lgbtq language and behavior when it comes occurring teachers take actions for those teachable moments stay current on language and issues regarding policy at state and federal level educate the lgbtq visible curriculum and inform other educators and school leaders to do the same including inclusive history sex education and athletics starting in pre-k through secondary education advocate provide opportunities for students to improve our school community climate and listen when the students respect to respect students when they ask for the preferred names and pronouns and i am blessed i was given this opportunity over the years to attend professional development which led me to work on the board with glsen and being the policy coordinator i want to thank my colleagues at dhs for the support and respect for our lgbtq community be present mindful and brave peace thank you mr aria thank you so much and thank you miss cooper mrs cooper may i make me make a comment please yes um i just kim i just want to thank you personally for um doing this work in the in the school community and in the larger community by doing that work in the school community um this education is really important uh there was an incident uh over the weekend at a coffee shop in bethel um where the run by a woman who's part of the lgbtq community i know it's a safe space you know and um some folks went and took a flag a pride flag down from there and took it away and burned it and then brought the remnants and left them on the steps of the coffee house so even in our communities which are are largely very inclusive and working hard to create greater inclusivity we're still running into this kind of behavior and this kind of action against people for just reasons of misunderstanding i would hope but i really appreciate the work that you're doing to try to bridge those gaps in our community and to help everybody learn how to embrace differences and work together thank you thank you thank you on behalf of the board i would like to say uh thank you for being a part of our danbury community and within our school system and thank you for everything that you're seeing with our students we are lucky to have you within our system thank you so very much thank you thank you bye bye bye now we're going to move down for the public participation kate would you read the statement please the board welcomes public participation and asks that comments be limited to three minutes the public may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them the board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the danbury public school system due to the unique nature of the covid19 crisis and the limitations of technology members of the public who are danbury residents are invited to send brief comments and questions via email in advance to dps underscore public comment underscore b-o-e at danbury.k12.ct.us thank you kate uh cara do we have any uh comments what tonight yes we do we have uh six comments i will read okay okay first comment is from oswaldo chin dear elected school officials my name is oswaldo chin and i write in support of the school budget and to thank you for all the hard work all you do you all do i also share the frustration of many parents who wish the schools would fully open but i am also aware of the great job our teachers are doing despite the lack of resources from our city and state thank you for a great job i support our teachers and our school board officials the second uh comment is from a maria matos hello my name is maria matos i am the program manager for lead latinos for educational advocacy and diversity first i would like to thank the board for all of the hard work you are doing especially during these trying times as you might know lead has been one of the coalition of groups working to bring another high quality education option to our city but today my testimony will not be about that i am writing today again to reaffirm leeds commitment to work together with our elected officials in order to bring more equity and representation for all as we have mentioned before latinos now make up the majority of the students in most of our schools and our ability to recruit and develop latino teachers and administrators must now become one of the top priorities of the board we need our students to have people in the classrooms that not only look like them but can also serve as role models leed is willing to help in any way we can as we work together on this goal leed would also like to continue to remind the board as it seeks a new superintendent that the latino community in danbury is severely underrepresented that recruiting and well-qualified latino education leaders would be a great advancement for true equity and representation for our city finally i will also finally i also want the board to know that most of our job will be to bring educational opportunities and activities to our community we invite board members to join us in our efforts to bring more people to the table and work for the common good of our community we have partnered with the health department to bring access to vaccines and education to our hard to reach populations we have an earth day activity on april 24th to teach our youth the importance of civic engagement if you are interested in learning more about our organization and ways which we can partner please contact us again thank you for your continued service and we look forward to cooperating with you the next comment is from kathy snow i am writing tonight as i understand there is a good chance students at the high school will not be back in school full days in the fall my understanding is this is due to cafeteria capacity at lunches this is absolutely unacceptable and in my mind a cop-out on the part of the administration and the cabinet the cafeteria space issue has been known for a very long time and not having a solution in place is deplorable and a failure to our children we have all heard over and over how the high school is the biggest in the state doesn't that also mean it has a lot of space there is a huge cafeteria outdoor courtyard auditorium black box theater stadium and multiple gyms i cannot believe there is not a plan in place have additional lunch waves been added what about lunch in lieu of the flex period until we get through this what about a lunch way for students who are fully vaccinated what are the capacity numbers if the tables are moved these are young adults and i believe can handle eating without a tabletop if necessary have you thought about the effects on students of only attending school for half days yet again students would be denied the ability to participate in after school activities or sports as they must leave school grounds at lunchtime and would need to use their own transportation or be driven back to the school how is that fair and equitable many students rely on activities and sports to assist in getting them into college as well as to obtain scholarships not to mention the positive mental physical benefits of after-school activities which i think we can agree on are at a critically low level how can you be okay with students not getting the chance to participate in these activities the administration and cabinet need to make a full day high school a priority come up with a solution so that the high school students can go back to school full days in the fall as you have done for every other grade in the district do not give up on these students as it appears you are they are worth your effort a concrete plan has to be worked out now the next comment is from a christina sweeney dear dr sale mr wilson dps administrative team and esteemed members of the danbury board of education during what has been a most challenging year for everyone and particularly educators i would like to express my gratitude for the building administrators faculty and staff at rogers park middle school although distance and hybrid learning has been difficult the administration led by dr zelita has been communicative and responsive throughout the entire year every school day dr zelita posts a thoughtful and beautifully edited i may add morning video that clearly outlines expectations as well as upcoming events and announcements for the students for the students similarly the teachers have been wonderful despite the enormous challenges they face teaching to two groups of students online and in person simultaneously not an easy feat the teachers at rogers park are hands down an incredibly talented and committed group of educators they have done their best to build connections with their students and help them learn under very difficult circumstances rogers park middle school is a diverse and vibrant community of learners and aside from the restrictions required due to the pandemic i could not be happier with the educational ex experience my son has received over the past two years and i would like to give a huge shout out to the incredible musical theater program that's the school offers unfortunately i am extremely disappointed to learn that the city council has decided not to fully fund the board of education's approved budget this shortfall this shortfall only continues the tradition of the city council not funding the needs of the schools for the past 10 years resulting in a school system at its breaking point with everything that happened this year it has become exceedingly clear how critical our schools are to our families and the value they bring to our community thank you for your time and for working so hard on behalf of our children and the last comment is from another comment from elswaldo chin my name is elswaldo chin yesterday i wrote an email to the board of education thanking them for such a good for such good job you are doing and supporting the proposed school budget that was before i had watched the city council monthly meeting where mayor cavo re presented the budget proposal today i write to make my support even stronger for the board of education and for our teachers but i would also like to question how mayor cavo not only insulted our children and our teachers but deceived the citizens of danbury by saying that he was giving an increase of 9.8 million to the board of education when in reality the actual increase was 1.25 million i was disappointed but not surprised the act the question is why should we do something different when he knows the same strategy worked and allowed for over 20 years after seeing the actions of the mayor and former of the former and current mayor is clear that they do not care about our children and the only thing they really care about is giving tax breaks to real estate developers for so long we have asked and requested the mayor and city council to properly fund our public schools we must call them for what they are if they do not listen to us we must work to beat them on the ballot because they are people who will not do anything different in closing i would like to encourage the board of education to spread the word to the whole city to inform uh and make sure that when november comes we remember that at the ballot box sincerely as waldo chin so that was the last email that came in and refreshing now and that is it thank you so very much carol we're gonna move on down the agenda uh the consent calendar cake would you do the consent calendar i'll make a motion that the board of education approves the items on the consent calendar exhibits 21-52-21-53 and the no the donation as recommended second madam chair it's joe god bless america gladys you're on mute right now mrs cooper i'm not sure if you can hear me but you're on mute you're on mute okay thank you okay okay just stop me i'm sorry uh motion made by kate segment by joe uh is there any question concerning the consent calendar i do mrs cooper yes mr ginelli yes the point i'd like to make sure that we write a letter acknowledging the donation uh from the colonial subaru it was very generous yeah thank you yes thank you mr ginelli oh i and no other comments or questions uh kate can you do the roll call please certainly kate canetta i gladys cooper hi lauren dooley uh joe da silva aye catherine hodgson aye rich genelli aye cathy molinero aye amy spellino [Music] thank you motion soul care now we'll move on down to uh yes i have gotten through the test the issues i have at the meeting and i will also vote hi okay thank you okay oh sorry about that didn't i see you bye okay sorry okay so we'll move on down the agenda to the education staff representative uh erin is she on dr leader good evening miss cooper good evening how are you i'm doing fine i have your uh yes all right perfect [Music] uh um [Music] hello everyone today i'm going to show you how to make um i'm now shake so first you need some straw ready and milk and one of these and so first we're going to put strawberries by the way they're clean first you need to clean them so you cannot be sick put them in so now when you're done putting the straw you put the milk inside the strawberry there we go and my mom is going to blend it i hope you enjoyed that um i was pretty impressed by that last little girl she just made me smile i had to watch it over and over again this is what our students are doing um on the day-to-day our teachers are working hard to make them have the most interactive and effective education so thank you for your continued support thank you for always being here with us to share those wonderful things that are going on in the different schools thank you again did we have any our students wraps in good evening members cabinet and community members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the alternative center for excellence if students participated in the 53rd annual danbury cultural commission poetry contest students from grade 9 through 12 submitted 30 of their original works the ace graduation ceremony will take place on thursday june 10th at the broadview auditorium at 3 pm a special thanks to eddie thomas and the hospitality of the worldview team for allowing us to use their auditorium to be able to provide a graduation experience for our students families and staff planning for the ace renaissance fair is underway this day of student engagement is being led by english teacher danielle daniela esposito social studies teacher kyle chicola and our art teacher savannah hastie english teacher melissa lasky and social studies teacher rob malillo successfully completed a humanities collaborative project to address oppression of marginalized groups in our society with the english 3 and u.s history students ace will be hosting a spring career day with virtual guest speakers to present careers that serve the community this special day is being organized by diana dinardo dj jimenez and laura blake ace would like to announce our march student of the month award winners larissa medeiros and tyler sharer ace would also like to publicly acknowledge and congratulate our most recent students of the week ramir rivera larissa medeiros keep up the good work uh thank you all for allowing me to share the great things happening with our ace family this spring stay safe everyone and remaining strong thank you chris do we have jake or rebecca okay we'll move on down to the superintendent's report mr washington oh sorry miss coop i'm having a hard time unmuting tonight i'm not sure why um okay give me one second good evening everyone um miss cooper if it's okay with you i would like to move around um the order a little bit and ask if dr martin's on behalf of principal donovan in the high school speak to our plans for high school graduation um let's hope to just briefly interject and say we had a great meeting on monday night at citywide pto when we've certainly been getting requests from family members throughout you know over these last several weeks community members have been families have been asking for some number one some questions questions about the high school graduation and trying to get an idea of what type of graduation festivities we're going to have in fact there was even a request on monday night asking the families asking if they can play a role in a decision or inform the decision in some way and so i just thought i would just open with that as dr martin's going to share some news tonight good evening and thanks very much for letting me um cut the proverbial superintendent report line so i appreciate it um so uh we have i will say that um we really want to make this celebration of graduation an important special event for all of our students um and so we all are wanting to make that happen we also want to make sure that it's a safe event and that we're following cdc recommendations and that we are taking care to take care of our students and their families and so we've identified three plausible options and i should say that we fully intend to survey the students the seniors to to make sure that their voices are part of the decision making process the stadium can hold a little under 3000 people and our senior class at this point is and so just having our students there puts us at almost the capacity that's recommended um maintaining six foot spacing even in an outdoor event and so with a faculty of 240 that also complicates things and so the first option that we've identified that will be put forth before the student body is to have all of the seniors only graduate on the field and we would live stream the event as has been done in other large um buildings certainly there are pros and cons to that um as there will be with all of the options that we've identified because of the situation we're all in um the second option would be to graduate over a series of three nights cutting the student body into thirds and allowing them to bring two guests the last option would be to do something similar to what we did last year but having done that last year we've identified some ways that we could make some improvements and to make it a little bit more exciting for our students we would be able to allow students to choose a time similar to how we have parents sign up for conferences we would use a similar system and students could identify when they wanted to elect for their graduation time slot to be so they could you know go with the buddy or that would also permit us to have cars with guests and we would stage a photo op area in front of the stage as we did last year um and then that would allow us to do that over two days we've identified the 10th and the 11th as possibilities because if we take that option we need to build in two rain dates which would be the 12th and the 14th so the three options would be only the students live streaming for everybody with the link to be able to watch doing it over the course of three nights students would be permitted to have two guests or we would be able to do a kind of souped-up version of what we did last year with a graduation parade so those are the three things that we think we would be able to do safely with our students and still be able to celebrate this monumental academy madam chairman i ask a question yes mr jessup thank you dr martins real quick question in terms of the first option are we discussing the concept of the students on the field yes or in the stands but we would be able to bring them um we would be able to have a little bit of flexibility with that as we discussed it um we would be looking at probably positioning them on the field as we have been and trying to maintain that that um that sense so if we put them on the fields is is it contemplated that there's anybody in the stands no with the first option because of the way that because there's also the entrance and the exit and also the the laboratory use so all of these things had to be sort of taken into consideration um but with the number the capacity that's been established for the stadium being about 28.50 if we do that with the six feet that brings us down to a third is the capacity of the stadium including students on the field so i think that the capacity of the stadium also accounts for students walking in and walking and so that becomes problematic anybody who's seen our um typical graduation it takes several rounds of the song to get everybody onto the field and so maintain this is amazing um challenging yeah it took a couple of rounds of the songs when i did it 33 years ago there were only 600 of us so i can't imagine what it's like with 850 thank oh you i i have a question for you nice to see you by the way um with that first scenario would we would we be allowed to be there in our capacity on the field yes yes it would be a normal thing just with no parents and no get okay correct got it thank you are there any other questions to megan thank you so very much thank you very much thank you megan and so um miss cooper if it's okay i'll go back to the original order that we had and talk about uh the 2122 school planning yes okay thank you so i i know there were some questions this evening and some points raised as part of our um public participation and certainly understand uh those comments and frustrations dr sal and i and and some of the cabinet members and board members quite frankly had an opportunity to um hear firsthand from our parents um at monday's city city citywide pto meeting um and get feedback on their desire to have in person to make sure in person learning is a priority for the 21 22 school year um you know i just want to reiterate if if it has not been clear already that is definitely our position um and doctor sal's intention to make sure k-12 all of our kids are back in school for in-person learning um and so that planning has included um reviewing again and when i say again we have done this several times as a cabinet as an administrative group in district you know at the various phases we were hoping to get kids back in school um but but making sure we have reviewed the availability of every single room we have we have blueprints plans for every single classroom in this district we have worked with our architect to see how we can maximize classroom space throughout all of our schools and throughout all of our classrooms we have narrowed down the classrooms that cannot um occupy more than 18 to 20 students which is the number which has pretty much been our max out with the minimum three foot distancing um and and then for those what we are identifying as kind of problem area classrooms um uh courtney and her department and frankly it's been really hands-on on all of us um have gone back to these schools working with principals working with our data department looking at every single classroom seeing if there's more furniture that we can remove from the classrooms uh seeing if there's any available space in those classrooms before we seek out other um opportunities and i just wanted to speak briefly about some of these other um other areas in the district um and even outside of the district that that the danbury public schools is considering to make sure we have a space for every kid um all of our kids next year when we come back um and so um i know everyone is aware of the fact that we have um federal monies coming to us by way of so2 and s3 funds um those priorities have been clear on how we're supposed to spend those monies um and certainly that that is going to guide our decisions in terms of how we're going to you know address the learning loss and and mitigate you know some of those learning losses throughout this last year but our number one two and three priority is to get kids back in school and so that could mean that we are leasing um venues in our community that are not historically a school setting and so we are once again because we have it's not as if we have not explored these things before um but now it's a very different opportunity now we have different monies to help support our reopening of schools um and so we are investigating what the very different um different purpose and and certainly more resource as part of that investigation and so we have a one we have a commercial um commercial opportunity in town where there are there's enough square footage to um occupy quite frankly you know hundreds or to a thousand students um it would come at a significant cost um it would mean a you know considerable additional staff for danbury public schools and so and then it also it is also requiring a multi-year commitment and so as you might imagine we are also exploring uh commitments that do not require multi-year commitment and so we are continuing to look at we have some schools neighboring school buildings and school facilities that are no longer operating um because of enrollment and so we are exploring those uh we've gotten feedback from them some of them none of these schools can take all of the classes that we need covered but we certainly are finding that we can piecemeal some here and piecemeal some at another site and so just to give the board and the community an idea of just what we're dealing with in k5 because you know we have talked about our reality relative to overcrowding with the three-fit minimum as the guidelines as they stand now the three-foot minimum guidelines we would have approximately 89 classrooms k-5 additional classrooms we would need to find district-wide and so you know we have um and this is and this is spearheaded you know our investigation and you know continuing to trying to find a safe venue for our kids and for our staff and so this we recognize that this means is going to mean increased staffing uh for the district um it's going to mean additional money spent for leasing um but we again we are adamant and do it to make sure we do anything that we can to get our kids back in school next year so i you know i certainly wanted to start with providing that update for the board and for the community um and i also understand i'll just pause because i understand there'll be some questions about that man i'm sure i have a question yes mr december um kevin just curious is it contemplated that distance learning will be offered as an option for students in the fall if families want to avail themselves of it yeah thank you for the question joe wouldn't even be allowed no it's a great question and so one we are moving forward as if um it is not an option uh okay and with it as we understand it um they're going to be monies afforded to our local rest and so for us it's in advance and so there may be a space in which ed advance will be providing services for families who choose uh to be taught remotely uh which would free the districts up but that has not been finalized um but again we're moving forward with you know we're in the expectation is we're going to have all of our kids back in school to in-person learning and we want to make sure we can at the very least have that available for every kid that chooses to do so excellent thank you okay are there any other questions from board members okay mr wass okay thank you ms cooper um so i'm i'm relatively miss cooper pretty calm i'm gonna try to remain calm as i talk about the budget so so we have um as the board and the community might recall originally a 13 million budget ask and that asks if the board and the community might recall that ask was prior to um being aware of the essa funds that were going to be afforded onto our community and you know throughout districts throughout the state in the country that 13 million dollars after reviewing with the board with the finance committee we we had decided that it was appropriate after reviewing the conditions of the grant um itself and kind of what was eligible under the grant that it was eligible to move some of those ask and some of those non-reoccurring costs over to essa 2 and sr3 and so given those realities that 13 million dollar ask was reduced to 9 million and so that was a reduction of 4 million and so our ass to the city um the city of danbury was then 9 million at least as of yesterday my understanding is um we it is a recommended budget um to the council into the city of 1.25 million for our operating budget i mean we certainly uh we certainly understand um the position that the city is in you know kind of given the financial straights and just the realities of this last year that a lot of people still recovering from covid but it doesn't change our position as a district because we continue to have enrollment growth that's part of our danbury reality we continue to you know there's other realities that we still have in play are an annex to ellsworth elementary school that will require additional staffing four to six teachers additional staffing at that building um and then you know i've heard early projections for a new school associated with danbury high school that can cost three to five million dollars um with these but both of these projects um will look to be launched in a 24-25 school year and quite frankly we are concerned um that if we don't can if we don't have an increase in allocation from the city and during the 24-25 school year and and soon in the 26th 25-26 year um these grants would have sunseted we would have needed um increased allocations from alliance which we anticipate and we hope certainly that those increases will be increased by that time period and they will stay with the recommended levels before the governor had suggested that they freeze but if they remain at the levels that they were initially scheduled for um that that that is you know that is promising um if if we continue to get our um updates from other federal revenues you know like title one etc that is also promising but the allocation from the city is going to be necessary in the 25 26 and beyond school years and our concern is and as part of our you know opportunities to try to educate the community about our budget realities um we have historically our city has not made a contribution to the budget where has been a double-digit increase and so if if that is going to continue to be our reality we need an incremental increase in in allocation over these next several years in order to match the enrollment concerns that our democracies democrat demographers have shared with us over these last couple of years um and we've outperformed the demographers recommendations that just as joe continues to mention at most of our meetings um and so we we we're really going to need to partner with the city on this um and you know it's you know part of my fault because i feel like we have got out into the community and try to educate the community but we also need to get you know and meet with the city meet with the council meet with the mayor and have more meetings with them and so that i think that also needs to be a priority for us moving forward so that everyone is on the same page about the danbury public schools reality um but i know courtney has some additional information she'd also like to share with the board and the community and but i just want to make sure i opened up with that because it's we really need to make sure we're all on the same page for danbury youth danbury staff and make sure we can get the best out of all of our students and i'm really concerned right now about um where this positions us for the future um and quite frankly it creates a lot of for future administrations in the mayor's office it creates even more frustrations and concerns for future administrations moving forward so hopefully we can find some middle ground if not this year continue to find some middle ground in the in the subsequent years are there any questions for mr washington i do miss cooper hi kevin does it make any sense since we in all the meetings we've had we've hadn't really made a presentation during any of our workshops or specifically had a workshop finance workshop where the council members were invited does it make sense at this point i know the timing is is tough and it it's late but to give the council as a whole an overview of our presentation uh prior to the other meetings you're going to have with the mayor which is more one-on-one and then with the education committee so that the council as a whole has the opportunity to see all of the information that we've provided to everybody as opposed to it being funneled back just by the education uh committee i asked that only because of the what i call misinformation relative to how the the mayor yesterday presented the allocation to the city where i tend to think that many people will think we're made whole so i just ask do we think that we can get a workshop finance workshop do you think it would be worthwhile and invite specifically the council meeting to attend to see what their input is and to further our education to this body yeah so so mr genelli i'll i'll answer you in this way since we're doing pretty good with time this evening um i recall um joe britton chairing a meeting on behalf of the facilities committee with with with city council members with legislators with the mayor at the table and we had an opportunity to educate right and so cara was excited sal was excited all of us were everyone in that room was excited of course it it required investment it required a commitment but everyone was excited about this new energy that was coming to danbury um with that same excitement i feel like we need to come back to the table again right all once again find an opportunity to educate everyone and match that excitement with investment right because the reason why folks were excited because we were investing in danbury yes it was a great idea but it was about investment but the investment also requires resources um and so if there is an opportunity to educate and continue to inform people um i think it would certainly be a worthwhile evening for us okay because i agree with you i really don't understand how we can go ahead with the huge investment without supporting the infrastructure to support that particular investment so perhaps after this we can collaborate and see if we can contact whoever and amongst ourselves to see whether we can set up a quick workshop to bring this to the front of the council people because i really think the complexity of what we're proposing and the fact that we've got this multi-year forecast which really shows things so vividly um i think that's an important uh an important issue and as i said before the the community the mayor of the council is excited about the academy as they should be however i think we have to make it make them aware that it's hard to do just that and not fund the infrastructure getting up to that and then of course needing a commitment to fund the the new uh the new facility itself which is none of those numbers were ever presented in any of our projections so all right thank you thank you madam chair i have a question yes for mr joseph uh i watch it's a question and a comment the question i think goes first to courtney just can can you confirm sr2 and sr3 monies are not to be used instead of regular allocation am i correct in that regard it's not it's not intended to supplant your existing operations um and i'm going to just kind of walk out a fine line so so um the governor's um uh proposal was to provide in the budget a look at what that at least the ester ii at the time funds were while also freezing alliance funds so that would resuscitate anything that we were going to do in the future you know to have to be afforded with some portion of the esther monies now it has to be grant applicable we have to apply for it we have to draw it down just like any grant you know that's afforded to us so sr2 the allocation has been given to us as an 11.2 million dollar allocation over the next three years it's got to be spent and we're required to submit a plan imminently you know about within a week and a half um for use of those funds in light of you know the situation of you know people living in the pandemic and many many years of you know investment not necessarily keeping pace with our enrollment and needs the board or a portion of the board decided for us to submit a modified request which i'll go through just very briefly in a presentation we talked sort of in depth at a workshop and we provided some some materials to the board that showed specifically what line items so i think in terms of columns and rows you know we offset with those esser funds for things that we hadn't done yet technically they're needed in the operation like uh guidance counselors and social workers and yep esl lt you're not teachers but a psyop coach for example some curricular supports it can be we can still qualify under the esser funds but we also wanted to make people aware her rich's comments of what that impact would be because these are basic needs for our budget in five years when the estimated goes away thank you um i'll i'll leave it with this and and i agree with everything rich said i think educating everybody would be good here's the thing this is two and a half million dollars in the last two years based on 18 million dollars worth of asks no matter how you structure this this is an abdication by the mayor this is an embarrassment of a budget he is falling down on the job the city of danbury should be embarrassed that this this budget was proposed i recognize the financial challenges going on right now and i don't think it's probably we had a reasonable expectation we're going to get the whole 9 million but 1.25 million based on where we are now the challenges we seek and the challenges our students are facing after not being able to be in school for the better part of 12 months this is an embarrassment thank you madam chair madam chair may i respond yes mr russo thank you i unders i understand the distinguished board members sentiment however rev city revenues are down people are struggling to pay rent and and and not everybody can pay their taxes i understand the need for a big ask and need to respond [Music] and you know that thank you courtney i asked a question does the 1.25 cover our contractual increases for next year no no thank you thank you i have nothing further madam sure thank you very much okay okay um courtney i just had a quick question if you could uh clarify something for me um at the the bud at the budget uh presentation last night uh mayor cava referenced a surplus that was going to be applied to our our stream can you give me some insight as to what that was meant by that because i know i know we had some minor cost savings as far as transportation this past year um and we always have like a floating number for health insurance so is is that what he's talking about and was it three and a half three and a half million so yes thank you um so the funds that um were surplus funds from last year unspent funds were due to mainly three things um one was transportation because we got some savings because we weren't using our buses a small amount of fuel the other was um a small amount of energy savings because we weren't in the buildings mainly it was insurance we're self-insured um and so we see fluctuations we work with an actuary to do an assessment about what we need to shore up in our budget to be able to cover any anticipating next year and we do a many year look so um it was unique this year we were we were lower than what we had anticipated before the pandemic and then even lower when people weren't going to the doctor at the end of the year during the lockdown so we um did inform the board but it was brief and it was during a lot going on that um at the time there was a three and a half million dollars surplus that we requested to set aside in reserves it was voted found by the city council for the specific intent of reserves which was for there were four purposes one was for health insurance the capital rate so it's getting us up to the required amount that we have to set aside legally as a self-insured organization to cover those fluctuations as well as additional funding because in the past we floated a little higher than the assessment um just to cover for that um potential and then we would use those surplus funds to pay for other things at the end of the year well this year we said let's rightfully fund it and put aside a reserve that's high so that we can account for the fluctuations but properly budget for things like curriculum um but what um so it's getting up to the corridor which is the legally required quarter and then putting a little more aside because it's prudent to do so and we're allowed to do so um and the council voted on that use which is considered a one-time use because you never want to use reserve for operations you just it's not physically prudent you build yourself a bigger hole it's just not good the second thing that they voted on doing using those funds was for special education reserve similarly as you all know we there's a certain amount of predictability in our special ed um population of needs and there's some unpredictability so what you want to do is budget for the predictability with a cushion and then you set aside reserve for those um one-time things and the council agreed to set up this new reserve for us um the third was um information technology projects we already have a reserve for it this was paying it back because of the one two seven three that the city had given us for the enrollment increase a year ago was actually our own funds from that reserve um and so we were refunding that i.t reserve back up to um more appropriate levels because we do have some one-time projects that are just startup in nature so for example a finance hr system that we're launching this year you know you pay maintenance in the perpetuity but this year there's an investment in you know configuring the system and getting trained in it um so those reserves were not intended to be part of our budget i mean part of our operational budget mission though thanks courtney i just it really helps to understand that those are one-time funds because i think you know part of my concern in watching this unfold for the last few years and you know i certainly appreciate um you know mr russo what you're saying about the situation that we're all in um my concern is is just that we seem to be digging a hole that we're not going to be able to get ourselves out of um and i i don't want to see that happen to our schools because that is the lifeblood of our community um it's it's really important i think that we would be able to support the you know the students and to support the schools in the ways that are going to drive us forward um one thing i i do want to just comment on mr chinelli's earlier comment there and add to that um you know i think i think uh some education on this would go a long way especially as we you know learned at the meeting the other night um you know the career academy and and i just want to give a shout out to dr casemiro because this is a brilliant concept this is a brilliant concept and she is making this come to life for us um and for our community um and she deserves a tremendous amount of recognition for doing that work on her weekends on her evenings in her mornings before she's starting the school day um you know this is the potential to be such a boon for the community um and she mentioned and correct me if i'm wrong please but i think you said it was eight million dollars in tourism uh that that tennessee was seeing right the academies of nashville since they started um there's such interest in it as a national model has generated um over eight million dollars in just giving the tours and hosting other school districts to come to see so there's definitely some opportunity there yeah and i would just point that out because i think that's that's important for our leaders to know they may not be aware of it and that's something that um you know if we were able to uh move this project forward and fund it the way that it should be funded and that includes the building as well as the programming and uh you know the staffing for that building um that's something that could be an economic boom for our city um if we were to become the flagship establishment for the northeast so um i just you know i just want to echo mr jannelli's comment that i think you know bringing this information before the entire city council i think would be very helpful thank you thank you okay and if you have questions yes i'll just briefly share the um the little presentation that we did just to remind people so i just wanted to respond to rich's point that um the council in a normal year we would have provided a book to the city council and we were doing it electronically um they did ask today for a book which we did print out and we were able to provide some of those schedules that we went over in the workshop so they are if they if they look through the book it's section three and they can become familiar with our modified request and and how the esser money drove down the to the nine not the nine further down um and what that means multi-year and i'll just very briefly share my screen um for the budget presentation uh [Music] okay and can you see the uh my screen yes yes okay so what basically um what this says is our original request as kevin mentioned was 13.3 we modified by i'm utilizing about 3.9 of s or one and two funds um i'm sorry i should say esther two and three that's 12 million over the next four years when you look at the multi-year so it's over a third of our s or money that we dedicated to these operational requests when it's really you know it's intended to support the learning loss special emotional needs of our students and and get kids back five days so the mayor's proposal as kevin mentioned at one point two five or nine percent and um um our main priority in the use of the sr funds will be to bring students back to school five days a week so this was our original ask with the detail and our modified ask you know we we paid for the social emotional supports and some portion the curriculum programming and a portion of the esl and the learning lost summer school with the esther money um in our proposal and what that did is if the city just funded us what we showed the budget workshop group on monday night at an increase of 1.72 percent per year which is what they've done on average for the last 10 years and this is just assuming no funds in 22 because when we did the workshop we didn't know what the mayor was going to provide that would leave us a 30 million dollar gap based on the current needs um you know because as you can see here the esser money drops off in fiscal 2026 so it's not something that is a sustainable strategy it's not something that we should count on it's something that if we we gave an example here so dr cell also asked me to show you know if the city were to give us a portion of this need even this year it could be a more modest build towards the future to mitigate some of that drop off in the future for the things that we felt as though we needed to do so this would be more modest where i'm pointing now increases over time and even this is also just showing because they mentioned the alliance the alliance funding of 14 million alliances part of the ecs you know 30 odd million that was going to grow to 54.
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[Music] god [Music] so [Music] wow [Music] no no no no [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] uh test one two three four okay the april 8 2021 meeting of the anaheim union high school board of trustees will be called to order at 3 02 p.m the following members are present anne-marie randall trejo brian o'neal al jabbar katherine h smith and anna l piercy now staff has requested the following amendments to the agenda and you have here exhibit z please just replace page five so it's just correction of one word okay move to approve is amended i have a motion and a second to approve the agenda all in favor aye opposed okay seeing none public comments closed session items is there anyone that wishes to address the board of trustees regarding closed session items only at this time okay seeing none the board of trustees will now hold a closed session to discuss items 4.1 through four point two on the agenda it is now three oh open twelve pardon four point twelve four point one through four point twelve what did i say two two oh pardon me four point i didn't know that oh 4.12 on the agenda okay i stand corrected it's items one through twelve okay it is now 304 pm and we will move to closed session how did they do that
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you say hi now hi kelly hi lee have you already can you guys hear me oh okay that was weird hi we still can't see anything from uh the board room there i think they just haven't turned it on now cool alright you should stand up i can say that joke because you know is nancy going to be with us uh in the boardroom okay i suppose i need an agenda i better pull that up you i'm sorry what yeah we're we're visiting by saying we just got back from playing disc golf so i figured it wouldn't affect my ability to listen it was fun i'm terrible at it but that's okay i knew that i'm not i'm not strong enough i i got a little bit better with the the aerodynamics of it but i'm just not very strong so would be like i'm on nine and everyone else would be like oh that was three it was still fun i don't mind losing i'm sorry i didn't see nancy there she is hi nancy okay go ahead and let's call the meeting to order at 6 03 p.m and i was just trying to open the agenda i'm sorry i had it open and then i closed it and now i'm opening it again one second i believe this is okay yes it is call to order at 603 slight flute if you could stand salute pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god bless individuals with liberty and justice for we actually can't see them it's showing an image of us instead so we were not oh yeah that's that's fine that's good that's going to happen so is scott joining us by zoom as well uh mr holbrook is in the room so we're ready to go when you guys are ready to go okay i just need a motion to adopt the agenda uh item four comments from the audience regarding items on the agenda do we have any comments from the audience we have no audience nope i have not been hearing none we can move on to item five which is board workshop brown act update the board will receive an update and overview of the brown act from legal counsel here we go all yours got mr parker all right good a little evening than the usual setup but a lot of things are different uh recently uh anyway my name is scott holbrook i'm a partner with atkinson anderson lawyer rude romo i've been involved in education law now for 18 years as a school attorney working predominantly with school districts county offices of education and community college districts prior to that i worked for i worked as a counselor and teacher in public and private schools for 12 years so dealing with education for quite some time it's interesting and fun and challenging at the same time so tonight we're going to be going over the brown act i like to be interactive as interactive as possible so if there are any questions that come up during my presentation please feel free to interject and ask and i will try to answer the questions as best as i can so i'm going to move on my clicker i'm out of distance for the clicker so if i can just ask someone to help me with clicking the slides thank you so these are the topics that i'm going to cover we're going to talk about the intent of the brown act what is a meeting subject to the brown act we'll talk about social media use because there's been some recent changes in the in the brown act in the law with regard to the use of social media networks we'll talk about legislative bodies and members that are subject to the brown act i'll talk about public meeting procedures and the rights of the public to participate in the process i'll talk about the covet 19 orders that are currently still in place but that could change in june i'll talk about closed session and then also enforcement of the brown act because there are opportunities for interested persons and members of the public to enforce the brown act to ensure that agencies are complying with its requirements all right so if i could move on to slide two and this is just a placeholder of the section we're going to move into so we're going to talk about the intent of the brown act public participation in government transparency so moving on to slide three so it's really important just to have a general understanding that the brown act really the entire rationale is to ensure that all actions and deliberations of the body of this board of trustees or any or any legislative body that is subject to the brown act that it occurs in the open uh that it occurs at an open public meeting that's i mean that's just the general gist of the brown act the people of the state don't yield their sovereignty to the legislative body that is entrusted with management or oversight by the and so to ensure that the people do not yield their sovereignty they have to be a part of the process and the law requires that so moving on to the next slide number four it's really meant to facilitate public participation in local government and if you always remember that then it'll it can help you as a board member if you're faced with an issue that maybe you're uncertain of you just think in the back of your head the intent of the brown act is to ensure public participation nine times out of ten that will help you come up with an answer that you may not have or may or may have a question uh with regard to what your obligations are in 2004 the california constitution was actually amended by the voters to in essence codify within the california constitution that public meetings of public bodies and all writings of public bodies are open to the public so in addition to the brown act which was authorized by the legislature the people have actually voiced their desire to be a part of the process by voting to i mean the california constitution now the brown act comes up often in litigation and the courts have liberally interpreted its requirements always focusing and entering on the side of public participation public tran transparency the courts very often tend to favor that way so as an attorney and as as counsel for the district we like to avoid litigation because we know where the courts are going to land on these kinds of issues so it's good to have a very informed understanding of the brown act its obligations to help you navigate through its requirements so i'm going to turn to page five in the slides so what's the general rule the general rule is all meetings of the legislative body of a local agency shall be open in public and all persons shall be permitted to attend any meeting of the legislative body of a local agency except as otherwise provided in this chapter so all meetings of the board have to occur in the open with the ability of the public to participate i'll talk a little bit more about specific types of meetings but that's the general rule there are limited exceptions to that gender rule which allow for closed sessions and i'll talk a little bit more in detail about those specific exceptions but again the general rule is everything is open to the public and why is that because that's consistent with the rationale of the brown act and what the voters have said in the california constitution that they want to be a part of the process so to ensure that they're a part of the process it has to occur in the public all right so what is a meeting the meeting is defined in the brown act as any congregation of a majority of the members of the legislative body at the same time and location including teleconferencing a teleconference location to hear discuss deliberate or take action on any item that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body so let's talk about the elements of that statute any congregation of the majority of the members so for this district you have a five member board i work with many districts that have seven member boards so the rules still apply the same way the numbers just work out a little differently but with a with a five member board anytime a majority of that member of those members of the board congregate get together or in the same room and have a conversation discussion about anything that falls within the subject matter jurisdiction of the district that is considered a meeting if if that occurs and it's not properly agendized and noticed it's a unlawful meaning and there are consequences that can occur as a result of that kind of an act now let's talk it through a little bit more if if it's three members or of a five-member board that are talking about maybe marie huggins recipe for root beer cake i don't know if you've had it but if three members of the board are talking about that recipe it's not a meeting it's not subject to the brownie why because it's not a matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board so it's not considerable so it doesn't have to be agendized it doesn't have to be noticed so those are key distinctions to understand as to when the obligations of the brown act trigger because they can be triggered in an informal setting doesn't have to be a formally agendized noticed meeting in order for those obligations and responsibilities to trigger and that's why it's key to understand exactly what a meeting is so that you can navigate those issues now just to talk a little bit more about some of those specific words listed there deliberate what is that well that means that there's some back and forth or some collective acquisition of thoughts or an exchange of information action taken action taken means basically that an act by the majority of the board to either adopt some action or maybe to reach a commitment in a direction that the board is gonna move forward in or to take an actual vote with the body all right moving on to slide eight what does a serum mean i'm sorry let's hold it up for a second uh the screen is frozen so we're not able to see anything they took scott and he's frozen there we go thank you all right so what is a serial need now you probably heard this phrase often the cereal meeting basically is an unlawful meeting of a majority of the members of the board but specifically a serial meeting is defined as a majority of the members of the legislative body shall not outside a meeting authorized by the brown act use a series of communications of any kind directly or through intermediaries to discuss deliberate or take action on any item of business that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body so in essence you may not discuss matters within the jurisdiction of this body outside a cul a called me and i have some examples to illustrate that in just a bit so moving on to number nine for page nine what is not a serial meeting an employee or official of the district may engage in separate conversations or communications outside of a meeting with members of the body in order to answer questions or provide information we call this the one-way communication rule where perhaps a staff member or superintendent provides a board update one-way information where information is provided to all members of the board it's not a called meeting it might be an email it might be some other memo that's issued to members of the board but that is not considered a serial meeting as long as that individual who is providing the information does not share with other members of the board what trustee's position is or comments or thoughts of our thoughts are of an item that's within the districts or the boards of jurisdiction so i have some nice graphics here to help illustrate this so looking at the slide number ten this is a prohibited serial meeting it's not okay in this example you have a seven member board so trustee number one is having direct communications with another individual that individual happens to be trustee number two and they're talking about items that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board let's say maybe there was a news report that one of the sites maybe the high school was broken into while schools are closed and there was a number of electrical electronic equipment that was stolen and it's kind of the talk that's going on right now in the community and this is actually a true story for one of my other clients but um that would not be okay if trustee one spoke to trustee two then trustee three and then the trustee four because now we have a majority of this seven member board that are having these communications it doesn't require that the four member or four members of the seven member board are all sitting in one room or sitting or standing in a group talking to each other about that break-in at the high school that hypothetical break-in at the high school i don't want anybody to think that that was breaking into high school but um for a five-member board if three individuals have that conversation that's a prohibited serial meeting and why is that prohibited well because the public's not there the public doesn't know that these three members of the board we're going to have a conversation about this issue that's in the news that's of public importance of community importance so that's why it's a prohibited meeting to prohibit a cereal meat now again if those three members of the five-member board were having a conversation about marie huggins root beer cake recipe not an issue because it's not something within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board maybe it had something to do with something in the community of interest but not within the jurisdiction of the board maybe there was an issue with the city council that would be okay if they're not happy about who won the super bowl that's okay because it's not within the subject matter jurisdiction the problem that can happen though the problem that can't happen though is if you're having a conversation with the majority of the members of the board about something that's totally fine but conversation or while you're there hey topic comes up that's within the jurisdiction that's where an issue can arise so it's it's important to always be mindful of what's being discussed i think someone wanted to answer ask a question [Music] i know a break-in at the high school is relevant in the district but how does that fall under think that we would have authority over what would i'm just kind of curious how that would relate to our business as a board well let me add another fact if it's the break-in at the high school involves students of the high school or maybe another district high school or another school so potentially in that situation you're going to have a student discipline issue that might come before the board involving an expulsion perhaps so that's how it would potentially fall under the jurisdiction even if even if it didn't involve a student but it involved district property it could be an issue which the board might take some action or give direction to administration uh to follow up on this or to work with law enforcement or so on so it's still an item that could potentially fall within the jurisdiction of the board okay thank you scott that makes sense you're welcome uh moving on to slide 11.
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