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[Music] like we call them into the order of the pledge of allegiance [Music] well good evening and welcome to the regular meeting the april regular video the greencast school board first item on the agenda tonight is adjustments to the agenda mr gibbons yeah so this item is just a correction um under k where it says first reading 2021 summer programs that's actually an approval request for 2021 uh summer program so that'll be an action item okay can i get a motion to approve the adjustment let's move a second you have a motion of the second all in favor aye all opposed pushing passes next item on the agenda is public comments regarding agenda items are there any public comments this evening okay hearing none next item on the agenda is recognitions mr gibbon yep so mrs johnson couldn't be with us tonight but she's ill so we'll be honoring rid pass an extra red pass student of the month in may so that being said mr mchugh it's my pleasure to introduce you to second grader dalton hughes and his teacher mrs weeks dalton is our student of the month mrs weeks commented that adult makes every day at school fun and he's come such a long way from the time when he first started dear meadow he exemplifies our starch here which is safety matters try your best accept responsibility and respect others dalton cares for adults and students he's a hard worker he's very funny and he's just a friend to all and mrs week's best comment is he makes every day at school a wonderful day so congratulations to our dear meadows student of the month dalton hughes hello so tz is proud to nominate emily weddle for our student of the month emily is a third grader in mr hopper's classroom and mr hopper wrote this emily weddle has shown an impressive amount of growth during this school year during the month of march she displayed great perseverance in class on her schoolwork throughout the year she has shown excellent growth academically as well as socially and emotionally i am very proud to have chosen emily as the student of the month for march for tasonicus good evening greencastle's middle schools student of the month is liz kavanagh and mr shirk shared that she's always honest works well with others self-motivated to do the right thing and always does her best mr hammett says she has a hard worker and has a great work ethic mrs brianna shared that she's very thoughtful and artistic mrs nicklash said she has she's a great leader and very kind and mrs smith said she's very creative a hard worker and friendly with everyone we are very honored to have liz our student of the month the high school would like to recognize brandon hyde our march month was perseverance he was nominated by mrs standards and she said that his perseverance this year has been outstanding he has never really cared about his grades or school too much until this year this year though is different brandon has made up all of his credits and is on track to graduate he is he now wants to get a's and b's in his classes and is not satisfied with lower grades brandon gets his work turned in early and even tells his classmates to work harder he is so much fun to teach i will truly miss him next year after he graduates brandon hyde okay thank you to our students a month it's also a school night you're more than welcome to stay but we understand if you need to get your little ones home okay the next item other engine is the approval of the consent agenda which consists of the meeting minutes of the regular board meeting of march 15 2021 and the special board meeting of april 8 2021.
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there we are it says we are live yay and we promised that we would start at five o'clock so it is now five okay so welcome everyone and thank you for sadie for joining the amherst pelham regional schools in the fort river community today we are having four community forums and you are the first of four so staff and caregivers were given an opportunity to submit questions that they would like you to answer so in addition to the questions that were submitted i also went back to the interview questions and added a couple from there so we have a total of about 14 questions you will have an hour and 30 minutes to answer those 14 questions and if any questions coming through the live or the chat feature then you'll also have an opportunity if we still have time to answer some of those questions too so sadie are you ready yeah i'm so excited and really looking forward to it okay great so as you know we had changed our whole process and how we do our hiring and only the screening committee had an opportunity to review your resume and the screening committee did not know your name because your name was removed from it so this is an opportunity now for everything to come together and people to get to see oh this is that person who you're going to tell us about yourself in a second but they'll get the chance to say oh this is that person who we looked at her resume and said yes let's move it forward to the forum or to the interview and then the interview group now moved you forward to the forums so as usual question number one is going to ask you to please tell us about yourself what roles responsibilities or experiences and licenses you may hold that helped you prepare to be the next principal of fort river elementary great thank you so much so first of all i just want to say how excited i am to have been invited to um continue to get to know the community um so i'm so so excited to have the opportunity to continue in this process and and keep on learning what fort river is looking for in its next leader i um i've really loved fort river ever since i had the opportunity to be an intern with mrs griswold when i was completing my master's degree in elementary education and then that same year i continued working at fort river as a as a sub in the ames program and throughout the building i'm in building blocks and then uh continued the year after i finished my program as a long-term sub teaching spanish and esl so um that when when the opportunity came up to apply to return to fort river it really felt like an opportunity that that i was really excited about returning you're considering returning to this community um in terms of like more formally uh resume uh parts of my resume i've been teaching in northampton at jackson street elementary school for the past eight years um i've taught third grade and fourth grade i've had various formal and informal leadership roles i served as a grade level literacy coach while teaching full-time i was on various committees and really got really interested in how we can work together as a learning community to uh transform school so that it is a place that's affirming and welcoming and that really works for all of our students and all of our families um prior to working at jackson street i spent a year finishing my masters and spent you know probably about that year about half of that year at fort river before that i taught spanish and holyoke to third fourth and fifth grade students for two years and then before that um and this i don't include it in a in an education resume but i worked in the legal field for a couple years so that sort of gave me like a a big picture view um of things and i really decided that i wanted to um to be an educator um and so just a little bit of what i believe um i believe that schools need to be welcoming and affirming inclusive spaces that we need to work together as a team collaboratively to partner with families and make sure that we're responding to their needs and that we're really working together to develop a shared vision for for what we want our school to be like um and then the process of implementing that vision is one that i see as a multi-year plan again working in collaboration um i see the role of the school leader as fostering that collaboration communicating with stakeholders advocating for equity within the school um and i recently read this quote that that made me really think about fort river because you know i've obviously been thinking about it and had a conversation with the interview committee and it said the quote was justice is what love looks like in public and so i was thinking about like what does it mean for me to choose love and for me a big part of what it means to choose love you know love for my students love for my community um is is to advocate for justice and um stand up against racism and and uh not shy away from having conversations that feel uncomfortable uh but are so necessary for um for all of us to grow um i on a personal level i've lived in this area almost my whole life i've had some opportunities to travel outside of the area um but i feel like i have really strong roots um i'm really excited i feel like i'm looking for a learning community to have the rest of my career in um and i at jackson street i had a principal who has retired but who was the principal for 24 years and i saw the impact that that kind of real long-term leadership had on on the learning community and on the ability of the school to kind of carve out its identity it'd be a really safe space for growing and for everyone to grow right for educators to grow for students to grow and that's what i'm really hoping to do if i'm selected at fort river so other than that i'm just really looking forward to hearing what the questions are that came from the community i think it's really an opportunity for me to understand uh what fort river is looking looking for because this process is about like finding a match right for me to find a match and for uh amherst and fort river to find a match and so i i feel like i'm a good fit i feel like my leadership style i feel like my experience as an educator in the valley um i feel like my my philosophy of education is a really really good match and so i hope that after this evening all of you will feel that way as well well thank you for that uh you talked about your leadership style and it leads right into question number two which says how does your leaders how will your leadership style influence teacher instruction so first of all i will say that my leadership style um blends toward it leans toward collaboration i'm not a go it alone kind of leader um i i was the union president in my current district and i feel like that i really gain skill at facilitating um conversations with groups of adults making sure we're moving forward making sure that we're sort of focused on what our goal for gathering our goal for the conversation is um but i never felt like um like direction or decision making was for me to make a loan i really saw that i really saw it as a collective project and i feel the same way about school leadership um and so because i believe in collaboration and because i don't believe in positioning myself as an expert all the time who's gonna you know come in like my way is always the best way i approach relationships with other educators with curiosity and with a really deep belief in the strengths of my colleagues and so i want to see what people are doing that's amazing so that we can share and so that we can all be lifted up um by by things that are going really really well so i think that my approach towards improving instruction is much more of a professional learning community approach much more of an approach where we're all working together i am such a strong believer in peer coaching i think that if somebody has you know something that they want me to give them feedback on i'm glad to give feedback but i think the ways that i've always grown the most as an educator was when i got to go and watch a colleague that i really care about and really respect and watch their practice and learn from their practice and have opportunities to do that really frequently and so i love conversations about teaching practice i love um finding ways to have a an approach that's driven by evidence and data that's not just you know looking at summative data looking at assessment data when the cycle of teaching has ended um and so i you know i i feel like i'm gonna probably say collaboration a lot this evening but it's really really true that that is what i believe in because i believe that together we can all lift each other up and together we can all work towards our goals which is really the goal of having a school that that really works and that responds to every student's needs and that allows every student to be their best okay thank you for that the third question says knowing that we are coming well that there is a pandemic and students and staff are just returning to in-person instruction what is your vision for a fully thriving school committed to equity social justice and the emotional well-being of students and staff um i think i'm just writing that down so that i don't it's okay um so i think that um my vision is that we you know as we as we contemplate returning and more and more students returning in person to the buildings um this spring and i see you know next fall as being part of part of a process of returning and um i think first of all we have to think there's a lot of um sort of deficit thinking happening about what our students have uh lost or what they've missed and so i really hope that we can start our conversations about about what we need to do to respond to the pandemic really focusing on the amazing resilience that our students and that educators have displayed and the ways that people have redesigned redesigned their teaching and really rethought a lot of things to respond to the learning context of the pandemic and it's really my hope that that this return in starting as a new leader in the building will be an opportunity for us to really reflect on you know what what have we done in the past that's really really worked what did we do during the pandemic that really worked what were the things that happened that maybe unexpectedly worked really well for some students and maybe worked really well for some educators that maybe they wouldn't have thought of like an example i started using google classroom and i was sort of a reluctant adopter of that i was like i don't need that and then i started using it and i realized the ways that it actually helped my students and got their feedback on it and they said no we want you to keep doing these things so the ways that we partner with families you know knowing that there has to be this give and take um in communication constantly in a way that was really different when kids were learning at home and so i think that there are a lot of lessons that can come out of some of the shifts that we made during the pandemic but i think um the most important thing that we need to focus on is the community of the school and the ways that every student has a place in the community and every student is honored and valued in our school community whether they're physically in the building or whether they're learning um virtually and that we need to develop we need to develop our school improvement plan you know our annual school improvement plan reflecting on what are the things that that we want to reimagine you know what are things that we want to do differently from from how we've ever done them and what are things that we really feel need to need to be continued and all of that with a focus on um students and educators and community well-being and that sense of belonging that really creates the conditions for learning thank you for that we're now at question number four and this one should seem a bit familiar to you as one asked during the interview and it says at fort river we consider all groups to be critical stakeholders in our school how would you work effectively with a diverse group of families or caregivers who may have values that differ from yours how would you get input from groups that have not felt included in school decisions in the past i love this question i'm so glad that you asked it again um because i think it's a really really important thing for for us to talk about and think about um i think that um one of the things that i love about living and working in this area is that there are so many different kinds of people um and so many different perspectives and so my approach is really always about inviting as many perspectives inviting people who um maybe have a different opinion or people who see things a different way to share their vision and to share where they're coming from so that we can consider them as we plan um i have a lot of experience working with a very very diverse group of families and caregivers similar um you know similar and different from the fort river community part of what i've learned is that you know there there are always going to be people who are excited to share how they feel and what they think and that is wonderful and i welcome that and then there are some people who as you mentioned you know maybe have not felt included in the past and it's really important to me that i'm proactive that we are proactive in reaching out and hearing from people and if that means that you know we have to have conversations with folks who don't feel like we've done the best job from their view even though we were doing our best then we have to be able to have those conversations so for me um i really choose to to approach challenging conversations with empathy um in combat any defensiveness that i might feel um knowing that all of us do our best but knowing that sometimes you know we need to hear from somebody who maybe our best didn't work for and that that's not you know that's nothing personal it's just part of what happens when we have such a diverse community and there has to be space um for um for the the the compliments and questions and as well and concerns as well i was trying to bring up uh mrs griswold has had an awesome phrase and it was like halfway to me but it didn't come that you would end her uh newsletter with um and so just like an example of how i did how i've done that in the past last year um we started before schools before the buildings closed um and sort of continued i i convened a focus group of all different stakeholders it was educators it was caregivers representatives of community groups and we really reviewed the school's communication structures and we did a survey of families that we pushed out in all different ways to try to get lots of different responses to kind of find out like who's getting information from the school who is informed because i really feel like having the information really allows families and caregivers to be involved in their students education so if we have gaps in who we're reaching and we have you know groups of families who can't access communication because it's not being translated to a language that they speak where it's not it's being sent to an email address that doesn't doesn't work um or whatever it was and so we really evaluated the communication structures that we were using in the school and then brought it back to the full team of educators to sort of come up with a plan for how we could communicate more inclusively and the result of that was that we made a decision across the whole school to use some technology to help us translate communications and to have two-way translation between caregiver caregivers and educators and i saw you know my own group of students that i was working with how um i was able to communicate with families that i had felt disconnected from before another one was like we weren't really using text messaging and we heard from caregivers like we really need to be able to communicate with the school through text message that's the way like that's our preferred method and we would much rather send a text and so we um got text capabilities so that we could text with families and that is another thing that made a big difference so i think i really work to be proactive i really work to make sure that i'm reaching everyone and i really make sure that i'm really really open to feedback and that feedback could be positive it could be compliments or it could be somebody saying you know that really didn't work for me and that i can hear both of those things um and learn from both of them okay so you talked about being open to feedback and it kind of leads us into the next question and the next question is good the next question says tell us about a time when you had to make a decision that you knew would be unpopular what steps did you take prior to making this decision and how did you handle the pushback if there was any definitely been in that situation um and i try to um i think when you make a decision like that you kind of know you know okay um you know i understand the reason why i have to make this decision maybe it's a policy constraint maybe it's a legal constraint maybe it's you know i have information that um that i have to keep confidential and i can't share with someone like whatever the reason is there are lots of reasons and um i the way that i have approached it i think pretty much every time that i've encountered that situation is being really open and really transparent if if i'm making a decision and i know somebody is going to be upset or frustrated about it having a conversation with that person and saying you know i i understand that that this is frustrating let's problem solve together let's let's figure out something that works and um and then knowing that after the decision is made that people who are upset are going to need to be heard and that's something that i learned from my mentor gwen agna who was the principal of jackson street is that um we have to be able to listen to people and we have to be able to give people space to talk about the the thing that they're upset about and sometimes the space is just venting and so i approach that as i'll say you know i'm just gonna listen i'm just gonna listen to you um and not try to insert problem solving if the person doesn't want that and i find that just um listening and having empathy and recognizing you know that someone is upset and and i can say i i can tell you're upset about that and i understand um that that can diffuse some of the frustrations i think that a lot of a lot of times that kind of a decision you know a decision that you know you're going to get pushback on there's often history behind the situation and so understanding that history and understanding kind of the roots of the frustration has really helped me be able to be supportive of someone and um and know that sometimes i am sometimes as a leader you are constrained in your ability to respond to one individual's um situation although we can always be supportive right but maybe i'm not going to be able to change the decision but i always am going to be able to make space and have empathy for someone who's upset and explain as much as i can and be as transparent as possible and not in a way that dismisses their feelings or their concerns okay and then i want to add one thing because i'm still thinking about it and then also recognizing that often when there's history and if someone is feeling left out or if someone is feeling frustrated about the outcome that we can that i can figure out a way to invite that person in so say oh you know i know that you really cared about xyz issue will you join a committee that's working on something related or you know find a way for that person or that group of people to have um some productive involvement in the future okay so you can always stop me to add whatever you feel like you need to add because we are 24 minutes in and we're at question number six out of four i'm hoping we're gonna get some live questions also let's hope so if not we're still okay yeah we can talk about education we can do that for a long long time okay so question number six what is your ideal discipline policy and how would you develop such a policy discipline so i um i strongly believe that students behavior is is communication with the adults um i strongly believe that all students are doing the best they can um i believe that about adults also um like really deeply in my heart believe that everybody's doing the best they can and so um when you're asking about discipline i think you're asking about what do we do when a student's behavior doesn't match our expectations or what do we do when a student's behavior doesn't meet sort of the norms of the community and so my first response to that student um is what is that behavior what's the behavior trying to communicate is there a lot is there a support that needs to be put in place do we need to have some proactive planning for that student um do we need to bring our team together so that we can say oh you know we're noticing a pattern do we need to collect some data on it so i'm always trying to learn um from a behavior that a student is is exhibiting and if a student is calm enough and regulated enough involve that student in a conversation to help us understand their behavior because i have found that when i go to a student and say like hey what's going on he seemed really upset that they'll say well this and this and this happened and i really didn't like it and it made me feel upset and then we can plan around that um i believe that we need to have a restorative focus to our discipline i think that that is probably rooted in my my experience being raised by responsive classroom as a student at the at the center school um that consequences need to focus on what's logical what's related to what's going on and they need to be focused on um on repairing any harm um that has been done by behavior um i think that um in terms of like a school level discipline policy like responding to specific behaviors i think obviously am guided by the district's policies and and the code of conduct um that that does spell out the responses to certain kinds of behavior but i think that my approach is always about understanding the behavior protecting that student protecting their peers so that learning continues getting a student we're talking about explosive behavior which i have experience with we're talking about helping a student re-regulate so that they can return um to their classroom into the learning community as soon as it's safe for them um to return and um and then making sure that we're getting our team together and really understanding why are we seeing a behavior so that we can make sure that we're that we're planning um to prevent it in the future for that student and for their peers and for all of the learning community okay so it seems like you have an idea of what i'm going to be asking because you talked about restorative practices and the next question leads right into that it says um question number seven can you give a specific example of action steps you have taken to implement restorative practices in your prior roles yeah um definitely so i i have thought a lot about and reflected a lot and i you know i read all the time and i try to read new research and i try to read read theory about uh you know education and and keep on learning and growing and i did a lot of thinking over the last couple years of my sort of my relationship with my students and my role as a as an authority figure oh i'm sorry i just missed something um um and so i um i've really learned to move away from um dynamic students that are like power struggles or dynamic that are about control and think about you know what are the what are the norms of our community in my class agreements um that we built together and um and i shared in the interview with the committee that when we returned from remote learning my students added a fourth agreement which was the end of the best of this um and so we you know safety and respect trying our best and standing up for justice so um specific examples are um advocating for students um to be able to make repairs make appropriate repairs um when something has happened i had a student who um get really really upset and tear up books and so an appropriate repair that that restored um and tried to to address the harm that had been caused by that was putting the book back together and doing that together um because that allows me to rebuild that rapport with the student um another example when it comes to discipline is thinking um you know thinking more on a structural level so if there is an interaction that's happening um and it's a result of a policy or it's the result of a rule that we have i do think that if people are struggling with that rule or that policy that we need to evaluate it and make sure that it makes sense and that it's not um that it's not something that's that's carried over from the past it isn't currently serving um an educational goal an example of that was our hats rule no pass rule that we had after some interaction for a student of mine that were really challenging for both of us my students decided to use their class opinion writing piece to write a persuasive letter about why kids should be allowed to wear hats if they wanted to and so i took that letter that my students had written and joined the code of conduct task force that was rewriting our district um code of conduct and brought what i learned from them to get a policy that wasn't working for that case um and so i think it's the thinking on an individual level how do we focus on if there is harm done to the community or an individual focusing on how we can support students in repairing it in a way that's appropriate in a way that they're able to but then also looking at sort of a broader community and systems level how do we make sure that the rules and the policies that we have in place are designed also to to support students and are focused on our goals for our community and focused on on supporting learning um and not just about controlling people okay so that was question number seven and i'm going to give you an opportunity if you'd like to get a sip of water or something because i know you've been talking for for about a half an hour i try it's kind of funny i try i i could be like very very long-winded and talk probably for an hour about each of these questions so i try to like temper myself but maybe i'll let myself be be more long-winded yeah okay all right so we are halfway through the questions that are on my document here and we still have an hour question number eight says how ready and equipped are you to address issues of racial justice please provide examples of how you engage with this type of work and while you're answering i'm going to get my water bottle yes yes you get your water um i i really appreciate this question um i think that um being prepared to address issues of racial justice when they come up in schools is really really important um and it's not just important because of the specific time that we're living in right now um it's important all the time because we know that systemic racism exists in all of our institutions we know that we're all you know it's it's the air that we breathe and so we have to be um really conscious and really intentional about addressing it um and and having conversations and building stamina for conversations that that maybe some of us were told were taboo or we some of us were raised you know oh don't talk about that um i've i've never shied away from those conversations i remember and i've always had those conversations with my students and i've always had those conversations with my colleagues um i remember probably one of my first experiences talking with students about race um was in my first teaching job where i was a spanish teacher um and uh you know i used to dye my hair really blonde and so i was like a white woman spanish teacher with really really blonde hair and um i remember a student saying one student said you know are you white and another student like shushed them like you know don't talk don't talk about that that's that's taboo like we don't talk about that and i um decided to create a space for you know we can you can we can name my race um and we can have that conversation and it's okay that it's not racist to talk about race um and so that was sort of my first foray into it and you know now um i i it's a it's an issue that affects me you know as an educator but also affects me personally and so i felt like i needed to to learn and i needed to grow and i needed to seek out um spaces and create spaces where i could have those conversations um and so sometimes it's um when someone says something it's saying what do you mean by that can you explain to me what you mean by that and sort of um problematizing some of the things that we just say or that someone may just say without understanding that it's hurtful um and it is always making sure that we're centering impact um of of actions and of um of conversations and of comments that may be off the cuff but that can be really really hurtful for me um and you know with my with my grade level team um a big part of addressing racism you know in the third grade standards uh we're supposed to teach the history of massachusetts um and and we can't just start with the mayflower we really have to acknowledge and recognize that that we live on the land of the pacumtac and the nipmuck people and we have to make sure that we're including um indigenous history and that we're centering indigenous perspectives as we're talking and teaching students about um the settlement of this area um and teaching our students that uh that yes we are in massachusetts but yes there there were enslaved people um in massachusetts when it was founded so that's just one specific example of how i bring it into um into the classroom with my students but also that means conversations with colleagues um and that means looking really critically you know as a team of educators at our data we say you know yes we have we have an equity focus but what does that look like in our classrooms um and how do we make sure that we're not perpetuating or reinforcing a white supremacy culture in our classrooms as we're teaching our students i think that that that may be the most you know one of the most important um tasks that we have as we consider our pedagogy and especially as we as we seek to be inclusive and as we have such a beautifully diverse community with so many different kinds of people and so many languages and so many backgrounds and so many different stories um of people joining our learning community that we always have to be considering how we need to be intentional about including everyone and how we need to really respond when something happens that that harms a group of people oh you're still muted thank you so question number nine says please speak to the importance of art music physical ed tech and library instruction in our students education and in our school community i really appreciate this question i think you know the the um the special classes for some of our students those are really their opportunities to get really excited um and that can be an entry point for students um just really interested in art and that's the strength that they have and that's an area that we can um get that student really motivated and focused and give every single student opportunity for success the same goal is for for me this is your technology how this one goes through music i think each of those spaces is a vitally important aspect of a well-rounded institution that we offer our students and our special teachers are such an important part of our teams as educators because we each see our students within our own context and so being able to talk with the physical education teacher and hear about a whole different skill set that a student could have um that maybe i wasn't aware of um as a classroom teacher is something that just makes me think even more about how all of our roles are so important all of our roles are so connected um i also think it's really important that we make sure that that we're all collaborating um that we that we connect the themes and our goals of educating all of our students throughout all the content areas and so i think that that's part of why it's so important to have such a great team that's talking to each other and that everybody knows what everybody else is doing because we can make curriculum connections that will help students access content in a way that they hadn't accessed it before um i so i i think i can't really speak i couldn't say enough about how important i think it is to make sure that we protect students access to to the arts to the connections between the arts and science and technology and then we also are making sure that we're giving our students lots of different forums to be successful um and then we're talking about those successes so that we can we can accelerate them as a whole community um so i you know and when i taught spanish i was like a specials teacher i was a rotating teacher and that really gave me um a really profound respect um for teachers that teach lots and lots of kids um and teachers to work with the whole school because the view that they have of all of the students is amazing but also that we need to be really careful that we're protecting the specials teachers time because the the curriculum that they're juggling and the instruction that they're juggling for the whole entire school is a really really different um it's a different kind of load than a teacher who's working with you know one group of students or maybe two groups of students okay question number 10 out of 14 this one should also seem familiar to you it talks about the three district-wide programs at fort river caminantes the dual language program aims the specialized program for students who have high functioning autism spectrum disorder building blocks a specialized therapeutic program for students with emotional disabilities who need specific social emotional and behavioral supports right so those are the three programs that fort river houses it says can you please discuss your experience with each of these populations and your experience working with specialized program students yeah i would love to um share about that i think you know my first experience working with students in a specialized program was at fort river when i had the opportunity to to work in a classroom that had students from the programs and then also to sub within the programs and it gave me a real appreciation for all of the work and all of the planning that goes into making sure that kids have a school day that works for them and making sure that kids have access to their peers making sure that they have access to the curriculum and that they're able to learn um so i i just have such great appreciation for all of the work that happens in programs like aims and building blocks i in the school that i teach at now formerly had equivalent programs to both of those and they were the the model was shifted and so the programs went away and i really really missed that additional support and the proactive planning and the ability to modify a student's day so that they could be successful as much as possible um i really really missed that and i missed the collaboration and the co-teaching opportunities that i had with the teachers and the program and the staff in the programs um i you know my goal as a person who really really deeply believes in inclusion um is that we're supporting students in learning um alongside their peers in the gen ed classroom as much as possible i mean so that's really you know that's the goal that i come at it with um and i think that the support that's provided to students that need you know some modifications to their day or modifications to the content that they're learning work that the programs do is so so important so and then to address the the dual language program which was not at fort river when i was there but when i heard that that had been added at fort river i was so so so excited um i i think it's so important that we um that we cultivate by literacy um as a as a bilingual person and i you know have a daughter that is in a dual language program where i live um i think it's so so important that we make sure that we're supporting kids in you know for the students who spanish is their first language making sure that we're supporting first language literacy which i think is one of the really beautiful things that dual language programs do and then also helping students acquire a second language in a program that really values both languages um and uh is just really really important i do think that they're i think we need to be really really intentional when we have three different programs in the school to make sure that we are working to keep our school community unified um and that we're working to make sure that we are were taking the i was reading something that quoted bell hooks and saying we need to take like a both and approach and so these the programs um aren't like an either or thing they're part of the school um and it's one school and so i think it's really important that we that we keep that in mind as we're talking about the programs and as we're talking about how to move forward um so i think that each of each of the programs that is at fort river serves to enrich the whole community and that it allow the programs allow kids and families and cultures to be included in the in the whole school um in ways that would be a lot more challenging um without the programs thank you um one thing that i um you know just thinking about how i support students who have um you know big behaviors for my um you know the escalation i've always been you know i've always taught lots of different kinds of students um and so i made sure this year to complete my cpi certification i felt like that would be important to have the de-escalation training um to make sure that i that i know how to follow those protocols to make sure that i know you know where the lines are in terms of keeping students safe um and and so that was a another step that i am always trying to add you know add new things and build my skills and that was a way that i felt like i needed to um to continue to build my skills i'm preparing for more of a school-wide role that i need to be able to be one of the people who can respond when a situation is really escalating so camilantes once again is the dual language program at fort river how will you support the mission staff families and curriculum of this program and serve as an ambassador to the larger community and that question should be familiar to you too yeah yeah so um i you know one of the things that made me feel really excited about this opportunity was seeing that um the coming of this program had been started at fort river so um so like as a bilingual person it's really important to maintain and practice um the language and um and if you don't practice it it goes away um or it becomes more difficult i but i think just like the um on a basic level having uh kanye not having the content on this program and saying we have a dual language program in our school um creates automatically a space where families that speak spanish are are affirmed they see their language um in the school um and in not just in informal spaces but really on informal learning spaces as well uh with that being said i do think that it's really important that we make sure that we that we continue to honor and include and affirm all of the other languages that are spoken in such a diverse community um as fort river that's sort of an aside but i think that it's something that's important to continue to think about i think that there are so many advantages of of dual language of being bilingual of helping our students develop the seal of biliteracy um throughout their school career i you know the ways that it has helped me being bilingual the ways that it has helped me um travel and learn and be parts of communities with with people who were different from me and communicate directly in my professional life being able to communicate directly with families and really understand where they were coming from has been really important so i feel like i you know i just kind of like who i am is an ambassador for a dual language program just because i really i believe and i have lived and i have seen how important it is um and how and just how enriching to my life it has been um to be to be bilingual and the fact that kids get to start in kindergarten um learning a second language um is is just such an exciting and an amazing opportunity for our community and for our school there are you know specific needs in terms of you know training including curriculum that that a dual language program staff meet you know different needs that they have and so i think that that is important to keep in the forefront if we want to maintain the program we want the program to grow we have to make sure that we're supporting the students and we have to make sure that we're supporting the educators and so i think just keeping an awareness of what those particular special considerations are for the dual language program but always holding on to that both and approach that it's not it's not an either or we're all the same school we need to make sure that everybody's needs in terms of materials and trainings um are met and that we need to all make sure that we're building our capacity to meet the needs of our all of our students um it's really is really something to hold on to all the time um i also think that the dual language program is a really exciting model for our instruction for language learners um because of the way that it allows kids to continue to develop and grow literacy their first language and so that is a really is an exciting model to be able to offer in our school um to students as they are acquiring like a warrant okay do you need to pause here for a moment okay so you have about three more questions left and i have more things i'm sure that i have more things that i can talk about um when we finish the questions if nobody in the chat has questions we'll get to that so it says um what thoughts or ideas do you have for bringing a sense of joy compassion love and unity into fort river elementary school at the student level the staff level and for the whole school love joy unity and compassion and compassion love all of those words um so um i think the biggest way that that we foster um that we foster our love and our joy um is through the compassion that we that we show each other and through the community um that we foster and that we develop in our school um i think it's really important that we create spaces for talking about um we in this case being educators you know creating spaces where we talk about why we love this work why are we passionate about this work holding on to the things that bring us joy in in our school and in our calling as educators because i think for a lot of us it is really appalling it's really a passion something that we you know that we think about all the time and we came into this field because we wanted to make a difference for students and because we wanted to be change agents and because we wanted to create learning spaces that you know feeling like we had something to add and i know that that's part of why i wanted to become a teacher i felt like i had something to bring to the table um and so i think making sure that that when we're together you know that that we're remembering that we chose this career out of love and we need to make sure that we're really creating joyful spaces of learning for our students um and so that means that the instruction that we provide our students needs to invoke those same feelings in our students but i also think it's really important that we care for each other and that we take care of people's well-being and that we build relationships for me leadership is so relational and teaching is so relational um that we have to know each person the same way a teacher has to know each member of their class and what do they like what do they not like what do they care about and what it you know what makes their eyes light up um we need to do the same thing with the adult community as well um so i did some um some training and some work with chip wood um who is a responsive classroom founder and who um we used a program called leading together from the centers for courage and renewal which is based on our research about relational trust in schools and it was it's very much about like how do we build that supportive adult community because we we build the communities for the kids and and think really hard about you know what are our hopes and dreams for our learning communities with our students and i think that we need to have those same conversations with the adults with the educators what are our hopes and dreams what's our vision with families you know what are what are your hopes and dreams for the school what will tell you that your child your student is successful what you know and i think that those conversations that we have about our values and those opportunities that we have to hear each other and understand each other and understand what what each person really is wanting and then and hold that as the most important thing for that person that that is how we build trust and that is how we continue to cultivate that the learning community that's joyful and that includes and encompasses all of its different stakeholders okay so you mentioned a statement where you talked about choosing the career out of love right and so the next question basically asks you how would you support fort river staff to demonstrate their expertise oh i love this because i i know um in the time that i was at fort river and just the the amazing expertise and professionalism of the educators that work there um and so the specific ways i think i mentioned some things earlier that are ways that i see um to allow educators to to share their expertise which is that you know we're we're we're in a cycle of continuous improvement right so we know that each of us if we have a growth mindset we know that each of us can always try our best and then improve even more um and so i think that the model of of collaborating um around those improvement goals is the way that we can hear from each person about what their vision is um and then and then support each person in continuing to develop um and i think that you know as i mentioned earlier i don't think it's necessarily my role to come in and say to everyone like you have to teach this way i think it's my role to foster professional conversations and collaboration and then support knowing each person as an individual and knowing their hopes and dreams and strengths um collaborating to make sure that each person has the opportunity to shine and also has the opportunity to grow the areas where they where they have identified that they want to develop um i think we have to have opportunities to celebrate each other we have to have opportunities to celebrate our students we have to find ways you know right now it's hard to come together as a whole school but i think we have to find ways to have those bringing the whole school together even if it's a virtual assembly if we can't get all 300 plus students and the educators in the same room but making sure that we're that we're sharing and recognizing all of the awesome things that people are doing um and then something that i have learned from my mentors is is practices of of individual and private recognition and gratitude um which is thinking and recognizing people even if it's just writing someone a card that says you know your your teaching practice as i as i walked through and saw you explaining something to your students was really beautiful um and so i think it's that you know like big big recognition um and then small and tiny recognition the other thing that i'm really interested in is um finding ways to i think one of the ways that we can grow as educators is to be a part of educational research and so whether that's partnering you know partnering with umass to to make sure that we're having the opportunity to really study what we're doing or guiding our own action research processes that those are ways that we can learn from each other and learn from ourselves and learn from our students and families so that we can make sure that we're always improving um but i i just get so excited uh sitting in a room and talking with educators about practice and hearing from people about what are they thinking about what are they working on what are the steps that they're taking um to address the things that they're wondering about um and and how much we learn from each other in that context is is really really exciting for me okay so we started about an hour ago and before this is before i asked the last question or make the last statement but we started an hour ago and we didn't have this many people on the call at that time so if you don't mind going back to that first point and just telling the people who are on now about yourself and why you are the best person for this role as the next leader of fort river elementary please thank you i should have uh written a speech so i could read it verbatim um i always if i write a speech i always feel like a little bit right and i know they can always go back and you know watch this video over again to hear it but just because we have enough time if you don't mind going back and fading yeah i love that so um i i will just reiterate again what i said at the beginning how um how happy and excited i am to have had the opportunity to sit before all of you today i wish i could see the faces of the people who are here um and i hope that i will have the opportunity to see your faces at some point in the future um i um i see this process as a you know i i'm looking for the right match for me and you are looking for the right match for you um and i really believe that my my educational philosophy and my collaborative and open leadership style and my deep connection to this area will make me a really good match for fort river i love have loved the fort river community since i interned with mrs griswold in third grade when i was doing my master's and i spent some time that same year working as a substitute throughout the building and then i finished the year as a long-term sub teaching spanish and esl um and i always felt like you know this was like fort river was a learning community where i would really love to come back and and have um you know be for a long time um because it's just it's that kind of awesome place um i so my my sort of resume details are that for the past eight years i have been teaching either third or fourth grade at jackson street elementary school in northampton i'm working with a very diverse group of students and caregivers serving in formal and informal leadership roles such as a grade level literacy coach i was the union president i have been on lots of committees and i also have really enjoyed mentoring younger teachers newer teachers as they've come into our building and pre-service teachers from the local universities i shared a quote when i first earlier i shared a quote that i read which was justice is what love looks like in public um and i was that really stood out to me as i was thinking about the fort river motto if we choose love because i was thinking about you know how are the ways that i choose love in my practice as an educator and i feel like i choose love by standing up for educational justice and equity for students families and educators um because i know that within a inclusive and supportive and affirming school community each of us can achieve and i really believe that that that goes for students and educators and families i really believe in taking a strength-based approach um to each member of our community before the time i spent at fort river and before my time at jackson street i was a um a spanish teacher for third fourth and fifth grade students in holyoke and before that i worked in the legal field um and so i feel like all of the different experiences that i've had allow me to kind of move from like a small level to a big systems level to respond to all of the different pieces that go into a school running smoothly but also being a really joyful safe um and supporting environment for for everyone involved okay thank you and so the last question i should have said we had 15 questions just like but the last question says what is something you have done that you are especially proud of and it does not have to be work related not work related it does not have to be um i mean on a personal level um i'm really proud of my daughter um and the person that she is uh becoming in this world where she has such an understanding of all different kinds of people um and an understanding of gender and an understanding of race and an understanding of like what it means to include and care for people um that is um it's just really beautiful and i feel so hopeful um about the generation of kids that's being raised now because and i i tell my students all the time you know you're gonna you're gonna grow up and you're gonna you're gonna change the world and so we're helping them as educators we're helping them kind of envision the world that that we hope that they will have my daughter's sick so she has a long way to go she's gonna turn seven um in june and then uh professionally i um i'm really proud of the way that i've created spaces with my students um where they stand up for each other and where they have have hard conversations with me um and where they're brave um and and that is something that i that i'm really really proud of and i think that that's that's the community that we that we have built together um and so when i think about making a change from leading a smaller group of people to leading a larger group of people that's the kind of space that i want us to have together is a space where where each person can be who they are um and can express their truth um and feel safe and feel affirmed and that others will stick up for them um and their peers will stick up for them and i will stick up for them um and that's sort of my hope and my vision for for education you know that we have to we have to create like there's a future that we want and we have to start constructing that future now through the way that we live and through the way that we that we work together and the way that we care for each other um in our schools and so that that means you know maybe transforming some structures that that haven't lent themselves to that um but it's also to me really um something that's really exciting um and promising um and so that's kind of the thing that i feel proud of personally and professionally but it's also the thing that i think um i will bring to fort rivers is how do we continue to develop um as a as a community that's oriented towards inclusion and educational justice um that that seems to me to be the way the way that we have to move forward is there anything else that you'd like the ford river community to know about you i um i mean first first and foremost i just i really hope that we're gonna all have the opportunity to to work together and get to know each other and um and support each other you know we're living through a challenging time but i also think that these challenges are sort of an opportunity to slow down um and make sure that we're caring for each other and caring for for our students and for our kids and so i hope that this you know that this conversation is the beginning um and that again that i'll have a conversation where i can see you know see everybody's faces although it's been lovely um speaking with you to see the whole community so i you know one thing i i just see myself as a person who's always learning and always growing um i started thinking about this transition from a teaching role to to a broader um school-wide leadership role i've been thinking about it for a couple years um and i really started thinking about it when um my my principal when agna retired um because i saw the impact that she had on all of us and the way that she cared for everyone um and so i you know learned a lot from her um about about how to be and how to lean and how to listen to people and how to care for people but i also felt like it was really important to um to do my own learning and build my own network beyond that so i started a tags program in educational leadership which you know that's sort of like uh like jargon it's like between it's like a grad program for people who already have a master's but i felt like it wasn't quite um the right fit and so i'm going to transition to a doctoral program this year and i really hope that that will be an opportunity for me to continue to grow as a researcher and continue to learn and will be sort of a reflective space for me as i as i leave the school or you know facilitate the conversations and facilitate the processes that that will happen within the school um and so i just hope that that that that the way that i have the way that i have sought my own learning and my own professional growth will kind of show everyone that um i see myself as unfinished um and that i see myself as learning from all of the amazing educators and students and caregivers that i have the opportunity to collaborate with every day and so i really hope that that sort of cultivating that that love of learning and the way that we show our students that we're always learning and growing that that's an important part of um of of bringing a growth mindset to our work and bringing sort of a culture of continuous improvement to our work okay well thank you it sounded like you said doreen i've seen you too much now i want to see the rest of the i've been so community to see you and i have really appreciated the ways that that this process has been so thoughtful um and it made me think a lot about you know the communication aspect that we spoke about earlier like how much how much that diffuses any feelings of concern or worry to just sort of know like what's gonna happen at each step and that's i think what we try to do you know within within the school as well like here's what to expect at each at each step and so i've really appreciated that and it's been lovely getting seen so many times i am excited um to be able to to see everyone else and hopefully i will have the opportunity to do that soon because that i'm looking forward to that well thank you for joining us the community and everyone here in amherst schools to just talk about you and your experiences and what would make you the next best leader here in our ford river elementary school so i do want to thank you for that and um enjoy the rest of your day thank you so much do we hang out until 6 30 in case somebody comes on with a question um i think they've had a lot of opportunity we've been on for an hour and 17 minutes so they've had a lot of opportunity to put things in the chat but maybe you know the questions that were asked they were probably saying oh you know what those are some good questions too so let's let's just say goodbye and and um i'll talk to you again take care thanks for watching youtube everyone out there bye bye
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that's so i would say god i'm going to go ahead and get started um my name is kate krista i am the um i'm just going to ask anybody on this wall who's not speaking right now if you guys can just mute yourselves because i want to make sure there's no feedback um and i just want to welcome all the parents um and students guardians out there that are um watching today's presentation um i think this is an exciting opportunity for us to hear a little bit more about transition and getting our special education students ready for what comes after high school so we have a lot of presenters today um we're going to hear a little bit from western connection the academy of western connecticut we have the department of developmental services here with us i'm a representative from the bureau of rehabilitation services we also have ability beyond um our judge from probie court naught valley community college and also kennedy center so we have a filled evening filled with lots of information um very excited to provide us with this opportunity and um also mr kirsten in just a moment is going to be sharing um a link with you that you can use to input any questions that you may have during this presentation um as a reminder you know we'll have each presenter can share first and then at the very end is when we will open it up for questions and answers okay all right kate that you're good okay i'm gonna present to everybody at home my screen um and you'll have a couple different ways that if you have a concern or a question that you'll be able to ask it so first at the bottom of the youtube uh station channel in the description there's two there are two links um i should say there's one link and there's a telephone right number so i'm just going to show you a couple things here so as kate had just said uh kate's the supervisor of our special ed um and we do have sue myself mr collin time miss pavone miss gross mr scott farrell judge you mean and john gorzal is here as well so the way that you guys can ask questions there's a google excuse me form if you take your phone and you put on the uh as if you're gonna take a picture but just don't take a picture hold it up to that qr and the qr will your your phone will read it and then it will tell you it will link you directly into a google form and if i click on that you'll see on my phone it says the dhs virtual transition fair it will have uh your name and then it will also have your question down below we're not going to share your name but we are going to share your question with the group just below that code the qr code right here is the google phone and um miss reference will be manning that as [Music] well okay so just a couple quick things here um our vision statement danbury high school aspires to be an equitable community that supports social emotional and cognitive growth so all learners can achieve their highest potential and part of that is knowing all the services that you guys have the ability to access and that's going to be part of what we're going to do uh with this fine group that uh is here tonight a couple things about our school were about 33 200 that was as of a couple days ago uh the number of languages spoken right here right 43 uh we have 233 courses uh we have 62 inner scholastic teams 52 right clubs and next year we're gonna have about 530 special ed students um and every one of those students has the ability and the right to access uh a lot of the stuff that we're going to speak about our special education staff that is here tonight kate uh again who just spoke to you she is the supervisor of special ed um and then dawn and joe if you guys want to un mute yourselves and just say hello to the group i'm going to escape right here and i'll go back over here quickly so we have two guidance counselors who work with our special ed group um one has been with us for a long long time and joe's uh kind of new so joe if you want to speak first uh sure good evening everyone i am the new guy as mr carson said uh i am thrilled to be here tonight i'm actually really excited to hear a lot of great information from our presenter so hopefully i'll be learning uh not quite as much as everybody else because hopefully i have a little bit of leg up but i'm looking forward to some great information tonight dawn i don't know if dawn is still there she may have stepped away for a quick second um so uh if at any time during the get together uh if that qr code does not work again if you call in um your question you'll be able to ask that directly to joe okay um so uh the first person to present tonight sue if you want to share your screen thank you bill um it's just me there's no screen there's no powerpoint i'm just going to do my speech that i normally do if that's all right um but i do want to thank everybody for coming this evening the program that i work with is called the western connection program and it is a collaboration between danbury public schools and western connecticut state university the program has been on campus since we primarily are on the midtown campus however we do have do take classes and have some work sites over at the west side campus the program is a two-year transition program for special education students not only going to danbury public schools but surrounding districts as well we have three primary focuses in our program the first one is educational so students who are accepted into the western connection program get to audit one class a semester um the nice thing is is it's not just a small set of classes that they get to pick from it can be any 100 level class in any subject area as long as the class is open and available as it would be to any freshman so while the students are auditing that one class they get help from the western connection staff as well as from peer mentors on campus they get assigned two mentors for a total of three hours a week um and the mentors help not only with academic uh subjects and topics but they also help with them socially and to get students familiar with the campus students are expected to do all of the work of the class that the class is asking any papers take tests you do get accommodations as you would at the college level um the important thing to know and to understand is that you are auditing the class um so given the fact that it's in a transition program it's for experience for you to learn how to use those time management skills test taking skills to prepare you to go on to college we also the second component of the program is our vocational component so all students get jobs on campus we have a variety of different types of jobs from food service shipping and receiving mail room we have office jobs there's a job in the accessibility office the admissions office we have library we also have the locksmiths office so there's a wide variety of jobs to pick from and the goal is that every semester you get to explore a different job so by the time you're through the two-year program you have at least four different experiences working in four different areas and then our last main component of our program is our social component the students that are accepted into the western connection program are have the ability to attend any sporting events any theater events anything that's going on campus that any other freshman would be have availability for we also have that availability uh we we try to utilize that utilize those services and go to as many social events that we possibly can the program as a whole as a group um go does two social events a month and the students also are expected to join a club on campus and go to the weekly club meetings so um and there the university does a great job of offering what they call a club's carnival for all of the clubs so the students can go and see which clubs are available um and what days they meet and what times they meet um we also do a social skills group a weekly social skills group as well as a girls group and a guys group i could go on for a lot longer but i don't want to take up too much time i just want to let everybody know that we follow a similar application process as a normal senior going um applying to colleges so if you're a junior right now and you're interested in the program i am going to be sending out flyers for our open house shortly uh but um your september of your senior year is when you would start applying and we go through the process from september through to the end of the school year all right so thank you i'm going to present my screen again for all the parents out there one of the things that you should know is that uh sue's program and mine are uh peop the students are placed there through the ppt uh uh through school through the process of the ppt uh the academy program is a post-secondary community-based uh vocational right program we have students from the age of 18 up to 22.
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the allowance of claims and financial report and personnel reports part one and two which are on the website and on the door central office so we will hear from mrs romer about the allowance of claims and financial report hello everyone okay first in your finance packet you're gonna see the payrolls for the month month of march the first payroll that you're gonna see is dated march 1st 2021 that was a mini payroll we've got had someone that we needed to catch up from a february payroll so we did a little mini payroll on march 1st that total payroll was 316 dollars and 20 cents along with that payroll came the payroll taxes for that employee for a total of sixty one dollars and seventeen cents the first regular pay payroll for the month of march was dated march 12 2021 for a total payroll of four hundred forty eight thousand four hundred and eight dollars and nine cents along with that payroll beca uh came the accounts payable again for payroll taxes and retirement you'll see a total accounts payable for the three 1221 payroll 124 thousand 86.66 second regular payroll in march was dated march 26 2021 total payroll of 427 561 dollars and 58 cents along with that payroll came the accounts payable for payroll taxes and retirement total accounts payable for march 26 2021 payroll 119 425 dollars and 27 cents did anyone have questions about payrolls for march okay we'll go ahead and move on you'll see next in your packet a list of prepays for the month of march dated march 1 through march 31st 2021 nothing unusual on this list and of course the biggest prepay expense was for [Music] health insurance you'll see that there for a total prepay for march 2021 twenty 326 thousand three twenty six eighty did anyone have any questions about the prepays okay we'll go ahead and move on then to our regular claims dated today april 26 2021 i will go ahead and ask if there's any questions from anyone about a particular claim this month nothing highly unusual pretty much just the regular we had a couple of renewals for software and things like that but nothing really unusual okay if there's no there's not any questions we'll go ahead um the total on the claims dated today april 26 2021 the total is 266 257 and 15 cents ready to go ahead and move on to the financial report okay next in your package you're going to find a fund report for ending balances march 31st 2021 ending balance and education fund 101 826 763 69 ending balance and operations fund 300 ending balance 792 829 14.
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and we service petco naugatuck valley city hall shoprite berkshire foods tj maxx st james church cardis we hope so and central office at beaverbrook uh our school day is a regular school day we come in at 7 20. uh we do a uh a group get together every day we cover budgeting checking uh we cover the the ability to interview your strengths what you do well what you need to and improve upon and then at about quarter nine we go out to the sites um there's a job coach out there and then at about one o'clock we come back and we de-brief um with the students and then um it's about every other week sometimes it's back-to-back weeks but every other week we also go out into the comm community so last year a few of the things that we did went to the police department we had a wonderful tour there the fire department the mall jk's diner uh we took a wonderful tour of the heart bus depot we went to the christmas tree shop mall um went to stews and then one of the first things we actually do um in conjunction with the moms and dads is we go to people's bank and if any of our students um want and don't have we actually open up a checking account for our students [Music] last year once a week we also get together at night and we have actually students who come back to us and some of the activities that we do there we we went to watch a um uh same thing went to bounce text this roadhouse we go out to eat we go out to applebee's the mall we bowl and we also uh watched a couple flicks last year so again what's different between between our programs is uh based on recommendations from the staff and moms and dads uh the students will be sent to us and again they're with us from the age of 18 um and they can stay up until the age of 22.
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and ending balance and rainy day the end of march 2021 1 million 8 15 9 22 account balance for all funds at the end of march 2021 you'll see on the last page page five ending balance for all accounts five million four thousand eighty two dollars and thirty five cents lastly in your package you'll you'll see a depository statement and bank balance for the end of march balance in bank two three million 654 555 85 bank six 522 thousand one hundred three dollars 42 cents bank nine balance three hundred thousand one thirty eight thirty six and in bank 10 ending balance march 2021 537 000 236 87 you'll see less outstanding checks bank 10 900 738 59 and bank two outstanding checks of 213.56 total for all banks minus the less outstanding checks you'll see at the very bottom march 2021 fund balance five million four thousand eighty two dollars and thirty five cents if you'd like to match that against the ending balance of the fund report you'll see that those balance to the penny thank you very much you're welcome thank you i'll make a motion to be approved okay motion to approve the consent agenda 12 seconds okay okay i have a motion in a second any questions or comments okay hearing none all in favor finally all opposed potion passes next item on the agenda is reports and first is the assistant superintendent report dr french hi good evening so i have a couple of things that i'd like to update you on and i'm they're very exciting we have some big things happening um so the first thing i wanted to mention was edge21 and i thought mr hunter was going to try to be here tonight but i don't think he could make it um so just to summarize edge21 it's a program developed by linda and vic hunter where they create a community partnership with all the schools in putnam county and so what they do is they identify and train individuals to act as mentors and they pair those mentors with 21st century scholars that are in our middle school in high school and so they work with the counselor and the administrators to be able to do that so these mentors then meet weekly with a small group of these students and really the goal is just to keep them on track and get them to that opportunity where they're actually utilizing that scholarship and going to college and so that's been a really great program that we've been able to take advantage of so if you have any questions about that or i can connect you with vic but that's been a really strong program for for our community and for our county i also wanted to mention our k5 after school program that's coming up this fall i just posted the job position so we're hiring around eight to ten people so if you would help get the word out so we can get the right people hired in those positions and and get some planning going um so we're still still trying to fill those positions something else new for the fall the tiger paw cast so we're going to start producing an in-house podcast and really just to get out like the word to the community of what's going on in the school just another way to to communicate to highlight our different programs because we have so many cool things happening and so that's our first one is set to release um in the end of july right before school starts so we can kind of get to back all the back to school information out changing protocols cool stuff happening and basically market our program so we're excited about that and a shout out to jennifer finnerty who came up with a clever name paul cast and then i would like to uh i'm going to turn it over to our counseling team who is here tonight to fill you in on some details that we're going to implement a second steps curriculum which is a social emotional curriculum i know our counselors have been working on this for the last three years at least to try to get a k through 8 program aligned so we're going to be implementing that this fall so to give you more information about that i'm going to turn it over to these ladies okay great thank you hello so this is a dumb question but can you see they have a handout okay perfect i was trying to figure that part out all right so we're going to talk to you guys a little bit about the second step curriculum so this is just a couple screenshots um if you could go to slide two please so these are some of the benefits of social emotional learning academically students that partake in scl programs have significantly improved social and emotional skills attitudes behavior as well as an 11 percent gain in academic performance so it's not just that emotional piece that you see as a benefit for workforce impact students with higher social competence scores are more likely to earn a high school diploma and more likely to hold a full-time job at age 25.
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okay so uh now we're going to hear from the agencies yes we'll be up first marcus thank you bill um okay i wanna i wanna start with dds eligibility uh to be eligible for department of developmental services you need to be a resident of the state of connecticut have a full iq score of 69 or below and deficits in adaptive behavior you could also have a medical diagnosis of prader-willi syndrome and your disability must originate during the developmental period which means prior to age 18.
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in addition as far as community impact there are some of the known benefits of the intervention studied one of them being the second step program includes reductions in child aggression substance abuse delinquency and violence lower levels of depression and anxiety which is incredibly important i think this year and increased grades attendance and performance in core academic subjects next please so to give you a little background on why we chose second step last spring we took advantage of the time when we were e-learning to research a lot of the different programs that are out there we met with some counselors who are using second step in avon schools crawfordsville and then tess who um used it at her previous district so we kind of got some background information um on the benefits what they saw in their student population um so some of the key factors that we saw in selecting second step was that it meets all the criteria that we need for tier 1 for the mtss and the does social emotional learning competencies the consistent language and the vertical articulation of skills so the lessons built upon each other preschool through eighth grade so we thought that that was really important that way the schools that are feeding into especially with the primary level feeding into tz to where they all come together they have that same language and skills for them the curriculum it's school-wide and it's low to no prep so we know with everybody being incredibly busy we didn't want to add one more thing to teachers plates for them to do so having something that was fully scripted it's research based and evidence-based and it's ready for them to go right off the gate so we're hoping that this will be um something that's proactive to help us you know reach some of those kids that um you know that need that positive impact on their behavior and the mental health needs that we're seeing in our schools next okay so the scope and sequence um is pretty consistent throughout we're gonna buy the program pre-k all the way through eighth grade can you hear me okay so you're going to see a lot of similar skills and there are four units for each grade level curriculum at the beginning in the elementaries you're talking about growth mindset and how to control your feelings because we know that our elementary kids feelings get so big right and when i'm really worried at school i can't focus on my math so i'm thinking about how i can bring that down and there's a lot of neuroscience in the elementary component which i think is really cool and we're getting them excited to learn about their brains we're also talking about problem solving and that's really important at the elementary school level you'll see in your handouts the problem solving steps the step method we're saying the problem we're thinking of solutions we're not blaming anyone but we're exploring consequences and we're picking what's best for us we learn that at the elementary level and then as we transition to the sixth and the seventh and the eighth grade level we're starting to ask if this happens what happens next which is really important for those impulsive pre-teens where we're like oh if i get in a fight today nothing's going to happen well if you get in a fight today you're going to get behind on homework there might be probation involved there's just all sorts of dominoes that could come so it's really exciting to see the common language and how the skills are going to build pre-k to 8.
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our application is found online it is a pdf you complete it by printing it out compiling all the stuff that's indicated on our checklist and then you make a copy of it one you save for yourself and then the other you would forward to dds it is on the website where you mail it to you can also email it and scan it to us the process takes about two to three months from the time you mail out your application you'll get an eligibility letter in the mail if eligibility is denied you have 60 days to appeal that and i would suggest you do it right away because the tax the clock starts ticking immediately um also on our website is the application for those with an iq of 70 or above an autism spectrum disorder that department although we review the eligibility that asd department is under the department of social services um what dds has to offer you okay so you're registered for dds and you're about 18 or anytime after 16 actually we actually have people who visit our respite centers we have four in the west region if you are eligible for dds services you are eligible for respite um some people choose one of our respite centers you are also eligible to receive respite in-home if need be that could be accomplished by applying for a family grant anybody who is eligible for dds services is eligible for family grants up to and ninety nine 4999 per year that doesn't mean you get that every year that means you may submit um a request for a grant for something disability related and you might receive a fraction of what you requested or the whole thing they need to make that funding last all four quarters so it's equitably spread amongst everybody um what you are entitled to um you [Music] you can engage one of our occupational therapists our physical therapists behaviorists or nurses on a consultation basis you can also speak with one of our transition advisors which i am there are three transition advisors in the west region if you are in the danbury school district i am your transition advisor um so really the first that we talk about in transition planning is at 17 and a half we talk about exploring guardianship dds gets involved in a guardianship in that we are notified through a local probate court of an application and dds sends out a team of two to interview your son or daughter uh we may do that at your home we may do that at a school right now everything's done virtually you can also as alternatives to guardianship you can explore conservatorship or power of attorney but dds only gets involved in the guardianship piece so you can start that as early as 17 and a half um and dds will provide an assessment to the court that way at age 18 when your individual reaches the age of majority you will have guardianship in place if it's approved by the court after you have guardianship and you turn after your age 18 we encourage you to apply for ssi supplemental security income we encourage that at 18 because then it is based on your income and not your parents income after you are approved for ssi and sometimes you get denied but please appeal that but after you approve for ssi we recommend that you apply for husky c husky c is the medicaid waiver which dds is going to receive 50 cents on the dollar from the federal government regarding services rendered so absolutely before any individual exit school and is assigned the case manager in order to receive a case manager and to receive any of our grad funding which occurs after the age of 22 you need to apply for without husky c in place you will not be receiving a case manager and you will not be eligible for the grad funding so that is very important uh and i wouldn't i wouldn't delay that past the age of 20 actually you know you want to make sure that husky c is in place we do a lot of collaboration at dds often we collaborate from the with the bureau of rehabilitation services regarding employment most tracks through dds most of our programs have an uh vocational component to them um we understand that not everybody uh can work and it's a family decision and if family tells us you know what we're work isn't part of our son or daughter's future we respect that we move on um once you're assigned a case manager and that will typically happen during your last year in school what we encourage you to do with your case manager is to complete a level of need assessment and that will basically dictate your funding uh for your graduate funding so your annualized funding past age 22 with dds now that level of need assessment can be visited revisited every year and even more often if there's uh an individual has is hospitalized if there's behavioral episodes medical conditions there's a number of things wherein your case manager can revisit it and reassess your level of need um we also have uh some of the some of the programs we work or we have service providers qualified service providers and on our website there is a qualified provider list and it shows you everybody the state of connecticut and dbs contracts with to provide those services and some of those you'll be hearing from today it's the kennedy centers the ability beyond so when you go on that qualified provider list on the dds website you can see all of these organizations and see what types of services they offer you and that's about it um i plan on putting my um phone number my name phone number and email in the chat dialog so um if anybody needs to contact me feel feel free and you can also contact the school they're familiar with me and they have my contact information as well thank you uh okay and next we're gonna move to miss pavone uh as a quick side note we actually work with miss pavone uh our group of 18 students we work with leah each week so leah welcome thank you thank you let me see if i can figure this out how to present now um oh i did it okay um [Music] okay can can everybody see my screen i'm just gonna okay i'm just gonna get into the slideshow here we go okay um so hi my name is leah pavone i work for the state of connecticut bureau of rehabilitation services um brs is an agency that provides vocational services so as mr kersten always says when you think brs think work so that's who we are we provide services to help individuals become employed we have an adult services side of things and through the adult services we help adults with disabilities obtain employment and help with um you know some other a variety of services to help individuals secure permanent employment um just to give you an idea of how we're structured we are the you know we fall under the department of aging and disability services uh brs is one of the many um agencies that fall under the department of aging and disability services or ads we were called um busby which is the board of education services for the blind and just to confuse you because we are the state of connecticut there's another dds but not to be cons confused with the agency that marcus represents this is the disability determination services um and then you know right down below you it also lists another a number of other agencies um that also fall under ads i'm not going to get into them but this is where we fall within the organization of the state of connecticut um so i work for a program called level up um level up was created about six years ago and it was in response to federal legislation though which we call the wiawa the workforce innovation opportunity act um this changes the way that we provide public vr services to students with disabilities so who do we serve we serve students who are between the ages of 16 and now it's 21 um who have an iep or a 504 and are potentially eligible for our adult services program [Music] individuals who come through level up do not have to apply for eligibility if you meet these requirements you're potentially eligible you're a student between the age of 16 and 22 and you have a iep or a 504 all you have to do is fill out a simple form and enroll in our program so what are our services our services um are pre-employment transition services so it's all the services that or a lot of the services that you may need in order to prepare for competitive employment um you know we also provide linkages to the american job centers or the ajc's as they're called um and i will facilitate with you know getting students hooked up with our adult vrs program so why was this program created it was created to help students with career advancement and to also improve some student outcomes the federal government had looked at student outcomes um throughout the country and saw that there was a lot lacking and um we wanted to have a program that addressed the needs of the student population okay so what is level up as a consultant um in planning for the future for their child um you know so that would be considered guidance and counseling that i that i can provide to students and families um i provide self-advocacy instruction job exploration um so through job exploration sometimes i meet with students one-on-one i have access to different vocational assessments um you know that i can administer to the students and just to kind of really get it you know provide that student with some guidance on how to prepare for the future um you know choosing the career um and figuring out where to go from here we also provide a work based learning experience which means it's a it's pretty much like a short-term part-time job um we're approaching right now our our summer which is our big season for work-based experiences so right now we're prepping students for working um you know part-time jobs this summer all of our work experiences are um you know entry-level employment so the idea behind the work based experience is that students are are getting that entry-level experience that first job experience jobs are all entry-level they're you know what their peers are doing so sometimes we get asked well you know could you develop something very specific and sometimes we can but for them for the most part we stick to those entry level experiences um because it's just to give students that that taste of what it feels like to work all of our experiences are paid students get paid a minimum wage and the expectations are of a competitive job so students may work 10 to 15 hours a week they have they may work four-hour shifts um it's it's the employers have the same expectations that they would of any other employee we do provide on-site supports so if you have a student that requires some some extra supports on the job learning that the job tasks we will provide assistance with that and another service we provide is workplace readiness um where i meet with students and we we work on how to prepare uh for you know the expectations of work okay who can participate as i said before uh any student ages 16 to now 22 who has an iep or a 504 um can can um enroll in our program um if a student is interested you should speak to mr kirsten miss curnahan and they can help get you started the best time to connect is two years prior to exit so when we say exit we mean leaving school we don't mean graduation so if if your student is going to stay in school and you know this until 22 the best time to enroll the student is when they enter the transition program however if you have a student who's going to take that diploma and leave the school system after senior year then the you would want to enroll your child um when they're entering junior year okay important to know we do not provide transportation um since we are preparing students for competitive work um transportation will be you know up to them up to the students to get themselves to and from work um you know but we do provide assistance with helping them learn um the public bus route you know by referring students to um you know for travel training through the kennedy center um a lot of times also in the in the transition programs i know mr kirsten does this in his program where he uh works with students in learning the the public bus routes okay so how are service deliver services delivered well we do a lot of things you know in groups so right now i work with mr kirsten's class at the academy in this current hands class at um western connections and i think pretty much the whole class in both of those classes they're they're all on my caseload um so now that we're virtual i meet with the students every single week um i talk about a variety of topics we we talk about um a lot of like the workplace readiness like skills that you need to get a job interview skills um you know how to how to make a good first impression how to um you know present yourself for that interview what are the expectations at work what you know appropriate behaviors at work problem solving on the job um and we all then we talk about self-advocacy we talk about disability disclosure in the workplace why you would want to disclose how you disclose we talk about um disability disclosure in in colleges you know who to talk to how do you disclose what documentation they need um you know a variety of different topics like those you know we talk about um on a weekly basis when things were normal before covid um i usually met with the groups about once miss kerningham's class about once a month and mr kirsten's about once a quarter and when he was talking earlier about going out into the community um they actually came to my office in danbury so and we met in my office we had a big conference room and i met with all the kids um and that was really great because they learned where we are located and we're actually located um our danbury office is in the same building as the department of social services so they got to see where where dss is located and where we're located so when they graduate and they come or they exit the program and they're ready for adult services they already know how to get to our office um and they in some cases they were able to meet the adult counselors and they were able to to ask questions and get to know the adult counselor right there when they were meeting with me um the work yeah i'm gonna interrupt you for just one second i think that your slideshow is not um we're stuck on that very first slide that says work faith ruling experience um so i just want to let you know that that we're not seeing i'm sorry um i'm gonna get out of it then because you know what i don't know how to fix it oh it looks like it just updated so now i see level up activities okay how about that okay there we go there you go i know how our search is delivered so i think great great um okay so so we had thank you for letting me know that um so so i do deliver services during the um the school day but we also deliver services um on vacations um during the summer months you know obviously the work experience is after school um we also have some paid groups i run a lot of groups and that's really important for for you know giving me the opportunity to get to know the students so i can provide appropriate guidance and counseling um my groups tend to be you know just a little unstructured i might just come up with a topic and we're gonna we discuss it for the day but then we also contract out with agencies like ability beyond and they have a more structured curriculum-based um program that they will do with our students so you know ability might come in and do a you know a four-hour um service of workplace readiness or self-advocacy and like i said that's that's more structured than what i do okay so okay and then this is this is just um an overview of some of our different um activities that we have through level up uh we also provide some informational interviews um job shadowing opportunities which means students actually go out into the community they um they might meet an employer have an opportunity to ask questions might you know shadow um at a work site just to see what that job is like because a lot of times kids say well i want to do this but then they really don't really understand what that means so informational interviews and job shadow opportunities are really great in helping kids get that hands-on experience and actually get more information regarding different careers um okay um so just to give you a little bit more information about our work based experience the we give a total number of hours for the work based experience so this summer and you will never hear me say this again ever but this summer we have a lot of money and we want to spend it so but i don't think anyone's ever heard me say that as a state employee but but this summer we can say it um so this summer we're offering students 80 hours of a work experience which means they they can work about 10 hours a week for eight weeks in the past we've done work experiences for 40 hours 60 hours but this summer is the um it's it's really great it's 80 hours um but that varies every single year so next summer it may not be 80 hours we may be back down to 40 but i don't know i i don't know we know these things you know from year to year um so we do prioritize students who have no work experience um right we prioritize students who are exiting next year um but other than that you know this summer we're we're giving a really nice experience um here is my contact information if you if you would like to contact me um we are not in the office right now because of coven i suspect we will be in in a few more months but i i'm not sure but um so please don't call my office because i'm not there and i won't get the message but that cell phone number that is there is my work cell and i do have my work cell with me all the time so please you know feel free to call me on that number or email me of course and that's and that's it okay thank you that was wonderful um our next speaker is going to be from ability which is kathleen gross hi everyone thank you for having us tonight so my name is kathleen gross and i'm from mobility beyond's career development department and i supervise individuals funded with brs dds and private pay contracts so i'm just going to go over some of the other stuff that we do as well our mission at ability beyond is to discuss discover build and celebrate the ability in all people our organization is dedicated to empowering every person no matter their ability to have the opportunity to live work and thrive as an integral part of their community for well over 60 years ability beyond has pioneered the ways to help thousands of people with physical and mental disabilities to discover their abilities and become an important part of their community as of today we actually have helped 3 000 people benefit from our services across new york and connecticut we're always trying to be at the forefront and developing innovative programs and best practices that are being recognized and adopted on a national level through our groundbreaking programs in the community job training and placement supported living and recreational educational enrichment we empower the individuals we serve to live full and rewarding lives we're always trying to go beyond to ensure that the people we serve have bright futures a place to call home enjoy independence through work and have a forever home where they can age with dignity we work with a large variety of funding sources to support post-school services in connecticut to just name a few the abi program your rehab services the board of education and services for the blind dds department of mental health and addiction services the social security's ticket to work program and as i said earlier some private pay contracts ability beyond is an employment first agency excuse me employment first is defined as employment being the first and preferred outcome regardless of the level of disability everyone no matter where they are receiving services whether it be day program transition individualized day we'll be working on an employment focused goal individuals with disabilities should have the right to work in real jobs earning a real wage which is essential if citizens with disabilities are to avoid lives of poverty dependence and isolation have the right if able to work in a job fully integrated within the general workforce working side by side with co-workers without disabilities earning a minimum wage or even higher they should also have the right to access um for assistance to support and ensure job success if they require that support have the right to pursue and the full range of available employment opportunities and to earn a living wage and a job of their choosing based on their talents skills and interests through some of our employment programs we help the individuals we serve by training them for fulfilling work opportunities providing job placement assistance we work very closely with leah and some other level up counselors at brs we also work with the dds funded individuals for um sometimes to find the job but they also provide the long-term supports on the job our dedicated and experienced staff will design individual strategies to help meet each person's employment goal we provide group supported employment career development services work readiness just kind of piggybacking on what leah said some of those uh work-based experiences self-advocacy classes we also have customized employment we pride ourselves on customized employment and always kind of adding more tools to our toolbox assessment services and job shadowing through connecticut and new york as a part of the social security administration ticket to work employment network ability beyond is also able to assist individuals in reaching self-sufficiency through full-time work and going off entitlements that is their goal our employment supports include assistance with career exploration resume building job search networking assistance to find the right opportunities online applications interview preparation assistance with disclosure negotiating reasonable accommodations initial onboarding and intensive job coaching to ensure success ongoing long-term job counseling and coaching assistance with developing natural supports in the workplace and career-driven goals we have a very holistic approach to seamless transition ability beyond transition services empower people with disabilities to build their careers and create brighter tomorrows discovering their unique interests and strengths expanding their networks of support creating opportunities for experiential learning achieving their personal goals career exploration internship opportunities for real work experience and volunteer experiences to build their resumes and networks our team decides once the team decides on the individual is ready that the individual is ready to get a job in the community ability beyond the work to secure funding for the employment specialist from career development to work with that individual to find and secure that employment depending on the individual's specific needs and funding and the person may find a job and work competitively in the community with continued supports vrs's short-term support so they would help the individual fund the individual to get the job support them to get up and running on the job and then if they did qualify for dds services the individual would try to transfer over to dds funding and that is the long-term job support we also find the job and work competitively and to work competitively in the community which job coaching supports transition to our individualized day program so like i said we're employment first agency if individual wants to work and that is their goal but maybe they can't work by themselves maybe there's a safety concern we do and have individual day funding through dds and that's where staff would be with the individual while they're working for that one-to-one support we also like to make sure that each individual also given their goal has a full week so maybe they only want to work three days a week and go to day program the other two days a week to maintain those social skills we can also depending on their needs and their funding also look at that scheduling too daily activities of a day program might include visits to parks and zoos go hiking attend sporting events arts and crafts theaters photography class right now with covid we do a lot of virtual classes but then we do have some individuals on site i believe we're doing half day programs right now and we're looking on expanding more individuals coming back to program in person and extending those days for example they'll meet at nine o'clock at the hub that's our main building over in the corporate park they do a morning sharing and social activities at 10 they participate in recreation or volunteer opportunities 12 o'clock they all have lunch together 1 o'clock they'll go to the park for a group hike and at three o'clock they're usually on their way home with our transition program so that is also like a day program it is essential for the individuals to take the sweetheart bus to transition because in transition our main goal is employment at the end so that gives them that independence to already know how to navigate the sweetheart bus so designed to allow the individual services and the goals to be met they all take place in the community supported one by one staff if it's a day program recreational activities going to the gym with movies volunteer like we said transportation behavior supports enhanced supports when needed and also residential programs all programs due to covet do have a decision tree at this time individuals must meet some criteria like being able to tolerate and wear a mask temperature checks ability to maintain social distancing obviously that's not always easy so at least being able to be prompted to follow the social distancing rules like i said reduce capacity in the buildings the remote option we do have enhanced cleaning of all program space and buildings reduce community outings the day program into transition services we've really been trying to think outside the box to in order to get individuals back i believe they've been back since like september in person um but we've really been trying to think outside the box to get more individuals back and being creative with space a lot of us in um you know like an administrative department or working from home to allow space for individuals to come back and that social piece is very very important um i believe the dds representative marcus went over it but it's all looked at as the level of need the lawn score to be eligible for one of our day programs so one to two is usually ise and that's where i supervise that and the individual supported employment so very career driven wants to work needs some assistance maybe on work for the check-in uh one two to three the transition program or as well i see they really want to work and elon four to five transition program but i see should be at least we like to talk about it a lot um at their team meetings let's talk about work anytime isu's mentioned that's work related and then along six or more is a day program that's all i really have right thank you athlean um for everybody who is at home viewing this remember you will be able to watch the tape version as well um so uh there's lots of great things here stuff uh scott you're gonna be up next vloggertuck valley thank you bill okay so good evening my name is scott farrell i'm assistant director of admissions here at naugatuck valley community college danbury campus i'm just going to take you through a couple of slides give you a good idea of who we are and what we do so this is where we are located on the corner of maine and west street actual entrance is on 7 west street we have twenty thousand square feet twelve classrooms three computer labs a health lab student lounge faculty office and two conference rooms so again we've uh expanded we've been here now 11 years in danbury this facility on maine and west we came to about three and a half years ago and uh it's going real well we were outgrowing it for a while uh kovid slowed us down based on not having classes but it looks like for the fall we're going to be back to having classes on campus a lot more right now we're doing about 10 percent of the classes and we expect a lot more participation by students so some facts we are credited by the new england association of schools and colleges we have over 6 000 students about 1400 at the danbury campus over 100 different degrees and certificate programs we also have learn to earn programs so these are short-term programs to learn a skill anything from cna welding manufacturing bookkeeping pct patient care technician pharmacy tech a bunch of things we are open enrollment so anybody who wants to come can come however if there is a prerequisite for a course you need to meet that prerequisite to be able to take it we're very affordable two thousand two hundred and fifty eight dollars per semester or four thousand five hundred and sixteen dollars a year so why should people attend nagatop well again our professors have office hours so they're there to be able to help you and assist you uh we do have free tutoring through what's called the ace academic center for excellence so again between these two things you're not in this alone we have the tutors are both professional tutors and student tutors so depending on what level of tutoring you require we have about an 18 to one student ratio we do have the free bus pass so again uh students who have learned how to use that heart bus system uh they can take it to get here uh they once they have their pass if they're leaving here and need to go to work they can use the pass to go to work so i think it fits into a lot of the things we talked about here and making sure employability but also again getting them some skills and then credits transfer so if you take credits here we are originally accredited so you can take them to other schools if you complete here and now you want to go to say western get a bachelor's degree you could do that or again if you went to another state you'd be able to take the credits with you also and so we have a very easy admissions process it's an online application you fill it out um need some basic information so there is a copy of your transcript so we have an idea of how you did in classes so we can identify what level of math and english will start you with we also need immunizations measles mumps or bella varicella are required however if a student is at the high school they probably have that already and can get a document from the student the school nurse that shows that so we do have a disability services office terry litella is our counselor there so she's the one who will review the iep 504 any psychological testing that has been done and then be able to use that information to figure out what kind of accommodations might be required and would help the student out again the law from the high school to the college a little different fall under the americans with disability act so there are certain things we can't can do but not everything that you might have had while you're in high school so most important is at naugatuck valley students achieve their goals so again that's i think the most important for us to know about your student is now what is the goal what is the expectation what are we trying to do to help them get there and if you have any questions online please feel free to reach out to me we are on a rotating basis being on campus so calling is probably not the best because i'm not always here right now it looks like monday and thursdays but based on schedules and things that happen but if you email me no matter where i am i always have access to my email so anybody has any questions please write them out send them to people there and i'll be able to answer them or you can reach me individually and i'll be glad to help you out in any way i can thank you so much have a great night scott uh that you can tell them a professional at this he's in and out man love it uh god that you're up next please thank you so much um i'm judge diane yemen i've been the probate judge in the district of danbury for 31 years and i'm really pleased to come back here again to present with all of you i wanted to uh thank bill kirsten for putting all this together and my fellow presenters and also the families who are joining us tonight it's really been a difficult last 18 months or so and so i just wanted to encourage you if you have a lot of issues or concerns or are facing a lot of challenges feel free to reach out to your school system to dds to any of us on the panel uh for referrals and for support we are an amazing community and we're very blessed with so much support so always feel that you're not alone so i don't have any um paperwork to hand out tonight like i usually do but i do want to refer you to the probate website that's the most important thing i'm going to tell you tonight because everything i'm going to tell you is online and you can easily access all this information and the probate website is www.ctprobate.gov gov like government so it's again www.ctprobate.gov all our forums are online there's a wonderful eight-page user guide on guardians of the appointment of guardians all the court directories and phone numbers and the courts are open the probate courts um although the superior court did close for a period of time the probate courts never closed during all this pandemic we've continued to do our business and we've been operating our hearings through web uh cisco webex and people that can't access the webex so they can call in for hearings uh the courts are always available and uh just to remind you the courts consolidated a few years ago there's 54 courts danbury's jurisdiction is purely danbury and if there's any residents of um northern fairville county probate court that's basically the towns of bethel newtown bridgefield and reading and then a housatonic court serves a number of towns near milford bridgewater sherman brookfield and new fairfield but all this information is online i'd like to start really with just reviewing the couple of the definitions so on the probate courts have the authority to appoint limited guardians or plenary guardians of the intellectually disabled we also can appoint standby guardians so in addition to appointing the guardian we can do a standby in the event the guardian becomes ill or incapacitated and then court can upon learning that there has been an issue can court can quickly appoint that standby that's already in place um through the court system's prior hearing um and uh the court also notes that um the definition of intellectually disabled is extremely important um and the intellectual disability uh also requires a iq of 69 or under just like dds has the requirement for their those who are within their jurisdiction um so for 69 and under um and those those are the cases that we can appoint the guardians limited or plenary um if someone has a an intellectual disability of over 69 perhaps in the case of autism again there's other avenues appointing uh having the individual have a health care representative appointed or having a power of attorney done which are not under court supervision they're simply done with through the attorney's office um there's other avenues including having a conservator appointed of person or estate over finances so these are other avenues that are certainly available but all the definitions are in the connecticut general statutes and online and the protected party we refer to the individual with the intellectual disability as a protected person also sometimes called a respondent so the the i also want to remind you there was some additional legislation a couple years ago um previously the guardians had ability to make decisions over health and health decisions housing other services but this included now an expansion to allow the guardian to handle and monitor finances and so that's a new part of the process where they can apply to handle finances especially if the individual is going to be having a job or receiving social security benefits um this allows them to have the authority to diminish that those finances for the individual and that's a new part of the process um so as far as how to apply for a guardian whether it be limited or plenary um just simply and again you go on the probate website and there's the wpc 700 is the application uh to appoint a guardian of a person with intellectual disability you use that form either to ask for a limited or a plenary guardian and it's broken down into different areas and the limited guardians is where we appoint them over maybe just certain areas like medical a plenary guardian would have decision making in all the areas so the pc 700 is the application form also is required is the non-refundable filing fee made payable to treasury state of connecticut um there can also be a fee waiver by the petitioner's fee waiver if the person who's filing usually the parent qualifies um also the call another form called respondency waiver and that response fee waiver is so that the court-appointed attorney will be paid by the state if the person with a disability meets the criteria to have a fee waiver granted and the fee waiver is a pc184a and then there's acceptance forms a pc7705 again all this is online and the acceptance form shows that they're willing to serve um so we we do need applications in place um i told you there is a new statute a few years ago to allow authority over finances so it's a pc7 that's the application for the authority to handle finances but usually you file all these documents at the same time the court will order a assessment by dds and once the assessment is received and we have a court appointed attorney represent the the uh protected party the court will conduct a hearing now it's of course on webex and the attorney will appear the family appears but the protected party the court conducts a hearing simply to review the assessment i'll review the iq hear the report of the court appointed attorney and uh and and hear the family and him what the requests are and at the end of that hearing the court will be able to appoint either a limited guardian or plenary guardian or will be appointing a standby guardian uh and these guardians are under court supervision we have review hearings every few years um and they do need to let us know if they're moving or any any major circumstance changes so there are guardianship reports that are due um and as far as the finances once they're appointed um the court has the ability to waive any accountings we know that often the families are doing accounting for social security um so we don't always have to require accountings and we can waive that um the other requirement if it's over financial authority uh the person's assets have to be under ten thousand dollars and if their assets are over ten thousand dollars they really need to go the route of having an application for a conservator appointed so that's pretty much the gist of it again all the information is online again i'll give you a probate website which is www.ctrprobate.gov [Music] and you'll find all the forms and information online thank you so much great judge thank you and last but certainly not least is the kennedy representative john gordzala yep uh yes it's wordsala it's actually uh wart is in guardian and zala is a river in austria so if you put them together it's wordzala that's how you pronounce it and you did uh so so thank you uh thank you for that i'm gonna uh let's see i'm gonna share this i'm not sure if you could see anything um let's see select here we go um so before we uh before we kick it off i'd like to uh tell you two stories um one is there's success stories of the uh transitional students that we work with in terms of travel training and i'll get into travel training um the nuts and bolts of it in a second and i apologize my camera's not working i think it's burned out from all the zooms that we've done over the past year but again part of kovit has taught us to be agile and adaptive and that's what we've done at the kennedy center so speaking of which our travel training program it's fantastic so one of the stories is we had a transitional student and again we're all over the state of connecticut he lived in milford he loved um mark twain um just he he just adored mark twain so he learned that the mark twain's house is up in hartford so he was taught to take public transportation from milford where he lived all the way up to hartford um and that included you know multiple buses multiple transfers two trains metro north um the hartford line and now he he goes up there and he volunteers his time so he doesn't even have to go up there this is what he does and that i would find it you know pretty daunting to to take that that's at least an hour away and again as he said there's transfers et cetera but he worked with us and this is what he's doing now and he really loves it another uh example um a recent example is right before the pandemic we taught and the person um she had cortical visual impairment so she wasn't completely she didn't have a complete loss of sight but she did have some some vision um and again if they have complete loss of sight they use busby but this person um she lived in the northeast portion of connecticut and again we work with all the transportation districts so she learned to take a a bus um to a she got a job at a grocery store and what was interesting about this was the bus in that area only shows up every two hours so if she missed that bus she couldn't go to school i mean she couldn't go to work and even more so if she missed the bus coming home you can imagine what would happen after the pandemic um arrived she became an essential worker excuse me so she she was able to continue on doing what she had to do which was you know maintaining her job taking the bus um to and from work and she she got to be a an essential worker so um and she's still doing that as we speak right now so it was uh it was a great success story um and we're continuing on that so i'm gonna try to uh launch this and it says uh i can't share my screen but that's okay because what i'll do is i'm i'm just gonna talk is basically just words up there anyway um so our travel training program um it's been we work with transitional students for this instance it's a free program we're all over the state of connecticut um it doesn't matter where you are um if there's public transportation by you we're there we've had this program since and we've trained over 5000 people in the state of connecticut on how to take public transportation safely in their community and our number one goal for the travel training program is to teach individuals on how to use public transportation safely and independently safely is our main uh our main focus and the program is for individuals that are already dependent in the community and if they like to learn how to use public transportation safely basically is the two examples that i gave earlier it just opened so many new doors of of independence and and confidence i mean and all our tribal trainers are so passionate about what they do it's just a fantastic program all the trainings are one-on-one and the trainings are scheduled when the individual is available so it doesn't matter where you want to go the travel training destinations can be anywhere they could be to work places schools colleges medical centers you have to go to the doctor's house of worship the mall we're just training someone they wanted to uh go to their uh girlfriend's house to meet to meet them we can do that it doesn't matter where you go just like for public transportation when you get on a bus bus driver doesn't ask you where you're going same thing with us you know you just give us a destination we'll be there and we'll help you it's not a rubber stamp program meaning it's a it's a process so we we graduate people um that after we will go through a specific process and if they're not ready for it they're not graduated but again we've had persons with um all types of intellectual cognitive sensory physical disabilities and we're training i've been training a person um she's a wheelchair user since the fall and she just graduated so again we it doesn't matter how long it takes to train someone we're just we're just interested in one their safety and when they're comfortable and when we believe that they're ready to take public transportation and by saying that we go out we've been going out and during the pandemic we you know obviously wear uh ppe we practice all all the the cdc guidelines and we also go out in the rain in the snow and you know in inclement weather and you have to do that because again when you have to go to school and you have to go to work you don't have a choice you can't say i woke up and you know the cloud it was cloudy out or it was raining etc it doesn't matter to our travel trainers we'll be there and we'll encourage you to get where you want to get and you'll you'll learn how to take the uh the bus or the train so what is taught it's basically self-advocacy trip preparation street cost street crossing safety what to do in case of an emergency and you know how to properly use bus transfers as i mentioned before and the bus fare this is really cool so we work with the department of transportation we work with all the transit districts in in the state of connecticut and because we have a relationship with dot typically uh an adult fair because again if you're over 18 it's a dollar 75 depending on where you are in the state of connecticut for this but for this purpose let's say it's a dollar 75.
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next school-to-home connection research has shown as we all know that when school and parents work together our kids are more successful and so this will allow for parents to know exactly what we're teaching what unit we're teaching so they can talk to them at home so that they know that we're together as a team to make the child successful also six through eight um i'm not sure about you but i know as a middle school parent in the past um they're difficult sometimes to uh talk to right and so i like that they have the resource and online experience um and they have parent experts to help if there's a hot topic that you need to talk about and you're not sure how to talk to them so so that's available as well so the homeschool connection next i'm jamie and i'm at tz and i wanted to let you all know that a couple years ago i became interested in this curriculum we all went to a conference down in bloomington and they had a second step representative there and i went to her booth a lot of times i asked her a lot about her curriculum and her binder and she finally just said i think i bugged her enough she was like would you like to have the fourth grade binder and it was a 400 gift and i said absolutely yes so i've had it for a cup for a year and i wanted to pilot and make sure that i wanted to pilot this program and make sure that it was something that would be engaging for our students that was right for our students that was doable for our teachers we like megan said have they have a lot on their plates and so i have been piloting i'm passionate enough about this program i believe in it so much that being given that gift i bought the fifth grade binder as well myself because i wanted to try it out in not just one grade level but two to make sure that this really would fit at my school with my students so once a week on mondays since the beginning of october i have been going to two classrooms mrs mitchell's fifth grade class in mrs lincoln's fourth grade classroom and we have gone through i'm on lesson 19 next week there are 22.
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what we have to the state of connecticut is if the person has a disability um they they work with the kennedy center and they can get it's called a reduced fair id card and at the end of this you know my talk you can feel free to you know to contact me we can you know we can show you how to do that but what's great about it is you only have to pay 50 you get 50 off of the bus fare or the train fare so you can imagine the savings you get you know and again this is also applies to seniors as well including those that persons would have disability but if you're taking a train from new haven all the way up to hartford you get 50 off so if you're going to take public transportation to your job you get 50 off so that that's that's a huge savings what our program does charge we don't we don't charge but the only tr price that you do have to pay is when we're travel training you will have to pay your own bus fare right so again when when we start working with you we get you the the reduce fare id it's 50 off and you know you can't beat that uh you can't beat that price it's it's a fantastic and it's a one-time fee of five dollars for this uh little card and it's good for your lifetime if you lose it it's ten bucks but again that that's a little nudge not not to lose it but again we help work with you to get the card it takes about two weeks um and it's a it's a fantastic savings and again it's a it's an incentive to take public transportation um so it's great and again the outcome you get skills that are confidence confidence builders and and the independence that you get that you need to worry to where you want to go so you're not stuck in the house and you're not asking for for for people for for rides and what we do also after you graduate this program we don't like okay that's it we'll we never talk with you again we actually have follow-ups so our tribal trainers they would contact you know a trainee that has graduated uh 1 6 and 12 months after the fact to see how they're doing so let's say you have a an evening course coming up in let's say the fall hypothetically well then your spring course is in the morning no no problem we'll train you and reach wherever you want to go any new destinations let us know again there's no fee and we'll train you continue you know to exp because again nowadays in terms of the public transportation um things are changing rapidly as you all know and you know certain times there's bus schedules that are changing etc and as a good is a positive um this summer public transportation um is going to be free on weekends so again i mean what what better you know an incentive is that to learn how to take the bus and again we're open you know 12 hour or 12 months a year so if you're interested please contact us we'll be happy uh happily happy to do the travel training and again um any new destination at any time you want um it's fine and how this process works is you just send us an email and again i apologize for my screen sharing actually is anything showing up right now nothing okay all right that's what happens no problem so again just you know when you contact me we'll be more than happy to send you a referral form um you know you just fill out the referral form you send it back to us uh we'll get back to you we'll start an intake and that's it now what i like to offer that that's my 10 minute presentation but what i really like to offer everybody um it sounds like a commercial on tv but what we do is we we also offer a presentation during the pandemic it's called a travel training guide so after we have a presentation like this yeah you get some people that are still on the fence well i'm not quite sure about travel training during the pandemic we get that again we've been going out during the pan throughout the pandemic again we're none of our travel trainers have gotten covered um so we've been you know we we've applied by you know the cdc guidelines but what we do offer is for those that are on a fence about it we want to keep the pulse going we want to keep the excitement going so we have this presentation and again we we typically um i would say it's about 15 minutes we would send you a zoom credential you would zoom in and if the person doesn't have internet access no problem what we do is we print out the powerpoint presentation we'll have a phone call and we'll just say go to page one page two and what this travel training guide is i can't explain enough how how invaluable it is it basically talks to the either the parent or the guardian and it alleviates fears and concerns we go over all the steps that we take to do travel training um and then it's a leave behind it's like if you go to the doctor's office you don't remember any most of it when you when you leave this is it was initially set up is a booklet um and this is what we did after we met with the parent the guardian or the representative we would leave this behind so now what we do is you know thankfully through technology we would send you the pdf when we're done um but again we go through all the aspects to ease any of the anxiety um with the person um that's about to be travel trained or if they're on a fence about it so again we'll be more than happy to do a presentation again in the evenings during the day at your convenience and again that that keeps the interest going because what we don't want to say is okay after the pandemic we'll we'll call you no we're we're slammed in a good way we're very busy so the sooner you contact us you'll get on the you'll get on the list and we'll be more than happy to do a presentation for you um so again if you have any questions please please let me know and again we'd be more than happy to do a presentation and equally happy to do travel training for you and again we're we're throughout the state of connecticut so if there's a transit district nearby we're on it pun intended and we'll help you get to where you want to go thank you thank you john fantastic uh one of the things for everyone who is at home watching i am reminded of of not only all the wonderful um things that are available through dds and brs and noga talk in the kennedy center and ability but also the the people most importantly who work there um in working with them for for quite some time now if you have any questions or concerns please get in touch with your uh teacher your case uh the case manager at school and they can either get in touch with me um but but it's been a pleasure to work uh with these folks uh we've had a couple questions about um if you didn't get everything that you needed tonight uh you can use the same link tomorrow um and you'll be able to watch it um so if you want to go back in and just kind of watch it and pause it and just to write things down um joe was there a couple other questions there yes there are um a few of them are sort of specific to individual students so we'll we'll probably just follow up with the those students or those families individually um the one question i think that might be a little bit more useful um in general uh mr collins there was a question if somebody needs to follow up with dds directly if they've been waiting for a response or need to get in touch with someone what's the best way to do that to reach out to dds uh the best way to reach out to dds is either contacting the west region helpline which is 1 or by contacting me and my phone number is five three 203-448-3536 great thank you um i think that was it um for this for the general questions mr kirsten marcus one question that i had uh what's and i think i think that you would touch on what's the difference if uh your son or daughter um is autistic um in terms of the process i i and in terms of the of the time that you apply and then the time that you actually start to receive services as opposed to somebody who is uh um you know 69 or below was that too vague okay it's it's a little vague but um essentially if you are accepted under the asd division which is under the department of social services there is a waiting list um i do not know how long the waiting list is i'm not sure when services commence from the time you apply um but i know it's lengthy i believe it's years even so my best advice would be to get on the waiting list as soon as possible and i can't speak to when those services begin um but the bulk of our services uh the grad funding and all those things take place at age 22. wonderful and then miss uh won there was a question about um do you do do the kids who take who get assigned um a place to work do they get paid is that a paid oh absolutely yeah absolutely the kids um will get paid minimum wage actually um minimum wage right now is 12 and 10 cents an hour but august 1st it will be going up to 13 an hour so what we have decided because it would just be a fiscal nightmare to pay kids 12 10 until august 1st and then give them a raise we decided that we're just going to pay them 13 an hour for the entire summer work experience wonderful and then scott there there was a question for naughty talk um could you just briefly just just touch on the difference between if if you go to naugatuck if the kids program as opposed if you want to get your associate's degree yeah no problem bill so the biggest difference between a certificate program which most of our certificates are usually a year long and a degree plan is the general education requirements so a certificate is specific to what that area is so i'll give you an example if we look at horticulture so i'm going to come in and get a horticulture certificate you will be taking horticulture classes those are the classes that you need and you'll take them for the two semesters and you'll meet the requirement for that particular certificate or manufacturing automotive so there's a lot of different certificates that are out there but you and there's no requirement to take the math the english history social science um that are required for a degree however if you do start off as a certificate and then later on down the road you decide okay yes i do want a degree you can go back and take those degree classes and then you would be able to earn an associate's degree so it it they they still work together but you can take it separately wonderful and um scott or all the uh if i want to get a certificate in x and then somebody else want to get a certificate and why are they the same number of things that they have to take credits or clients most certificates are usually they still require um two semesters so yeah they're going to be somewhere around 30 32 credits that are required for it but again each program has broken it down it is available on the website our catalog is there in the catalog it lists all the different certificates so you can see exactly what courses are required and you'll know okay if i want this certificate i need to take these courses these courses and then i'll have the certificate gotcha fantastic and then judge um a parent today asked uh they had the guardianship up until the age of 21.
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um and so i teach the lesson on monday i give the teacher a following through card and she is able to do like five minute follow-up activities tuesday wednesday thursday friday there's quick but it reinforces the material that i teach and keeps it fresh in the students minds i have really been pleased with how our students have responded um the next whoops the next slide should have come up okay so i don't know if you all can see the quote from mrs mitchell is it big enough on your video okay so mrs mitchell um gave some thoughts about this and then i also wanted you to hear from one of my students you probably can't see him from back there but this is charlie knuth he is one of my fourth grade students and i interviewed him in my office um a couple weeks ago just so you could hear straight from the horse's mouth what what he thinks of it if we could go ahead and play that video corey do you think that all students at tv is so he's a student and he's given me and his parents have given me permission to share he feels anxious before tests at school and um so i gave him what he's talking about is the calming down steps and he has a little thing taped to his computer on his desk and it helps him before i learn and the the weekly reading tests that make him feel nervous so um thank you for listening thank you to our administrators for really trusting us to choose this curriculum and we thank you and appreciate your time thank you ladies it was great [Music] okay thank you again dr french and counselors uh next would be our report from superintendent yep so we just finished up uh kindergarten roundup last week at both grid path and deer meadow but if there's anybody left that still wants to register for kindergarten for next year we'll certainly take them i'd like to thank everybody that helped put on a successful prom this past weekend when you know we began the year we weren't sure it was going to be a certainty they're continuing to uh to work towards graduation to be held in mcanally at the end of the school year and i know uh mr rogers and and mrs goodpaster are working on getting that approved and sharing out the details of that as well we received notification that we'll be receiving some additional stimulus dollars from the federal government and so we're having talks with our buildings and with teachers on how best to uh to spend those dollars to support our kids support our classrooms one item of which will be to purchase the second steps curriculum and those are all the uh all the items i have for this month i do plan to uh to share a financial update with the board next month as well okay thank you next item on the agenda is old business and there is no old business which brings us to new business and the first item is an appropriate is an approval request for the 2021 22 school year contracted services which consists of the indiana school for the blind and low vision services contract the school psychologist contract with the stepping stones group and the speech language pathologist services contact contract with shelby slack which i believe we can approve all these in one correct approval it's my recommendation that the board approved these contracted services positions for next school year i moved to accept them second okay a motion and a second any discussion questions [Music] okay hearing none all in favor all opposed motion passes next item is an approval request for a valik 403 b plan amendment after giving so this is an additional retirement option for our employees it doesn't take away any benefits from from any of our employee groups it only adds and it has a roth ira a 403 b option and in order to have that added to our planned document the board needs to adopt the amendment grant i wouldn't see any reason not to do it no no no i make a motion that we added a second yeah motion in a second any discussion hearing none all in favor all opposed motion passes i think that's a good plan yeah it gives them another bucket to invest in sure sure okay next item is an approval request for permission to hire summer bus cleaners yep so as is customary at the end of the year in order to get the buses prepped for uh state inspection um and ready for the next school year mr clearwaters is requesting some some additional help to to help with that on a part-time basis and it's my recommendation that the board approved that i make a motion to prove that a second okay i have a motion in a second to approve summer bus cleaners any discussion or questions hearing none all in favor all opposed motion passes next is the approval request for the second reading of the 2021-22 building handbooks yep so the board received the building handbooks for first reading last month and it's actually a second reading and adoption uh this month and it's my recommendation at this time the board approve our handbooks for next school year i make the motion we accept second okay motion a second any discussion you're hearing none all in favor call opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is an approval request for the second reading of some updated job descriptions yep so continuing on with our plan to update each job description within the district this you received these last month for first reading and now we are approving them for special education services and instructional assistance 16 pages in the one description i have to say it's pretty thorough no that they're stapled together like a motion to be approved a second motion in a second any discussion you're hearing then all in favor all opposed motion passes the next item on the agenda is an approval request to rename the new transportation center to the dan green transportation center dan was long time transportation director and then operations director maintenance director green castle schools who sadly passed away last summer we've been asked by a few community members and we thought this was a good idea to to make this change in honor of dan so in honor of them i would like to make that emotion i'd like a second too okay we have a motion and a second any further discussion mr giving you having to say yep so um i've been in communication with with brenda and we're working on finding a sunny day to uh get out there for uh for a picture and uh we'll organize that as soon as we can the weather wasn't cooperative last week with the snow and everything else but definitely like to obviously just remember and recognize mr green indeed um so we have a motion in a second is there any further discussion comments okay hearing none all in favor all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is an approval request for the cramer company services agreement yep so as we move forward with the uh 32 million dollar uh building building uh project and renovations um have an agreement from greenberg companies to serve as owner rep and help advise the board and the school district in decisions and making sure that services provided by agencies are rendered appropriate and that everything is built according to planned documents and specifications so it's my recommendation to approve the agreement with kramer companies i think it's smart to have somebody looking out for us i'll make a motion to accept i will second that okay we have a motion in a second any discussion or questions okay hearing that all in favor aye all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is an approval request for the k-r-m-a-i-a document yeah so yeah so krm is the architect group that we're working with for the building project and they're the group that conducted our our facility assessment in your packet are is actually a modified um agreement with uh additions and deletions report after suggestions from uh our school uh district attorney lewis and campus and it's my recommendation that the board approved the aia architect agreement with krm and that's is that pending the changes that's yup that's pending pending the changes um and those changes have been highlighted in your packet okay i think you said but our lawyers have looked at it and correct yep good know i get a motion to approve so move a second okay we have a motion and a second any further discussion okay hearing none all in favor all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is an approval request for the fab lab institute mr gibney yeah so with the uh the launch of our digital fabrication lab at the middle school next fall um and through our through working with the consultant group um they actually put on a fab lab institute in chattanooga tennessee this summer and so i'm just seeking permission for a a group of staff members to travel to chattanooga for the three-day training we will be paying for the training and the lodging through grand dollars jeff how many uh are you talking about before we're number we'll take we're probably taking anywhere between six and eight and we're taking we're taking a core team from the middle school and administrators because they can see they can see a lab that's already been set up in an operation so they can begin to kind of truly understand what's coming to our middle school and that'll help them plan for for the fall and it'll it'll actually happen alongside the training that they receive this summer too sure thank you makes sense to go look that helps them you can see an example of what they're yes what the pros and cons are yes make a motion that we approve a second okay we have a motion in a second any discussion further discussion okay hearing that all in favor all opposed motion passes next is an approval request for a lot of donations um one from the mary allison children's trust the zonicus intermediate and then the amount of one thousand dollars from the mary allison children's trust to 21st century community learning center in the amount of 1 500 to mary allison children's trust to the greencastle middle school 250 dollars to paige pick one for birthday bags one thousand dollars to misty weeks for a life skills class two hundred dollars to amy robinson for art supplies 1146.04 cents for a sensory room 25 305.25 to jessica breonis for body positivity 204 dollars and 10 cents to jessica briones for the tiger ticket store then we have a donation from indiana safety company incorporated to greencastle community schools they must have given some personal protective equipment from jack and shirley dalton trust to the greencastle high school or to greencastle high school in the amount of one thousand dollars and a donation from putnam county community foundation from bootsy unichim usa covent relief fund green castle high school in the amount of seven thousand five hundred dollars so usually we don't have to discuss this much can i get a motion to approve these donations i make a motion to approve okay i have a motion in a second i just want to say thank you thank you thank you yes it's always the best part of the agenda all opposed motion passes thank you to everyone on that list next on the agenda is an approval request for the 2021 summer programs at the high school middle school elementary school level and speech services mr gibbon yep so this is our uh these are our summer school programs and it's my recommendation that the the board approve us moving forward with these programs so we can get the good word out and get get our students involved in these programs now are these programs at a little bit different time than normal yeah so our high school is more of a traditional summer school type program whereas with elementary and middle school just with covet and just the just the weight of the year we chose to delay our summer programs until prior to the start of the school year because we felt like staff and students and parents just need their break sounds like a good plan i make a motion to approve one second okay we have a motion in a second any further discussion hearing none all in favor hi all opposed motion passes next item on the agenda is the first reading of some more updated job descriptions one from central office staff i'm assuming uh two from the technology department and the transportation department and those are all in our packet just take a look at those and we'll bring those back for second reading and adoption next month okay jeff we give you a little hard time about about him but we asked you to make sure everybody knows what everybody's supposed to be doing when we hired again and thank you for doing that you're welcome it's a work in progress and we're going to get there eventually i'm looking forward to seeing yours oh okay so no action required there the next item on the agenda is other business does anyone have any other business just like to recognize mr hunter um vic hunter who helped with edge 21 and the program that you heard from dr frank so i just wanted to recognize him good good thank you i guess we don't need to hash it out but it i think it's important um paulie shuey is retiring after being with us for a very long time and this last year she had a lot more on her plate so i just want to say thank you to her and all her work yes we have big shoes to fill surprised to see that anyone else okay next item on the agenda is adjournment can i get a motion to move adjourn second we have a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting all in favor all opposed motion passes so thank you all for coming um be careful on your way home and we'll see you next month thank you you
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and then uh as we were talking about um if she wants to can can she reapply to get the guardianship of her daughter since it expired i wasn't 100 sure the way she explained it but the way that she explained it was that when when her daughter turned 21 she [Music] does that kind of sound right or not um so the guardianships um first of all you can apply up to six months prior to the 18th birthday but we can't appoint until the 18th birthday so typically it only takes like you know 90 days or 45 days for the assessment so even applying like three months before the 18th birthday is sufficient and these guardianships um many times they apply for them not only when they're 18 or 19 or 20 but even older we've had guardians appointed when the person's 40. so there is no expiration of these guardianships um they do they do continue their certificates of appointment may expire so they may have a certificate showing that they have this valid certificate for one year and they need to need to apply for a new certificate and if someone asks us for an updated certificate of appointment we're going to check and make sure that their file is up to date that they follow all proper guardianship reports that are due and that they've notified up in the address change etc so we'll make sure the file is up to order as we always do when we do our review hearings but there's no need to reapply gotcha kate did you have anything that you want to say just to kind of wrap things up um yeah i just wanted to um thank everybody for um participating again all the presenters there is a wealth of information um i'm sure that parents have been taking furious notes um and so i really do appreciate everything that was shared um judge german i think it was you that stated earlier what a difficult year this has been um for everyone and so i appreciate you know everyone um taking their time many of you out of your personal lives to participate in this and for parents for taking the time to join i also encourage you i think that a lot of this information is just kind of the basis and the foundation for what we um for what many of you as parents may need to really um fully understand all the ins and outs of each of the agencies that was discussed in programs that was discussed tonight so i encourage you as you look through the information and research it more to um kind of reiterating what mr kersten said earlier you know reach out to any of us on this panel um the school staff especially myself mr kirsten um your child's school counselor their case manager special education teachers we might not have all the answers but we know these individuals on the line will so if we don't we can help to connect you and get the answers for you um so um thank you again and i hope everyone has a wonderful night all right guys thank you everybody thank you thank you thank you
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oh we should be good all right [Applause] very very short we should be all right call to order the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which time any business affecting their interests is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act and board of education policy zero one six two the board of education of the borough of bound brook has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the board office and at baumerk high school and mailed our fax to the courier news bamboo borough clerk southbound brook board of education and any person who has requested individual notice and paid the required fee please stand for the 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 indivisible with liberty and [Music] justice go here mr bobby here all right um i guess we have to do it for the resignation do we have to yeah all right i need to i need to get a motion for 1.5 resignation of ms stevens motion mr bell can i get a second mr uh uh i guess take a roll call so if we vote no she has to come back no i'm just kidding you cannot vote oh ellie yes mr valentine yes yes yes and on that note i would like to uh uh express my appreciation to ms stevens for all of her hard work over what was it 10 years 10 years uh on the board um she uh certainly was a an advocate for band brook and uh sad to see her dumb so thank her for all her uh hard work uh i did want to thank all of the young ladies and gentlemen that are here to get their student of the month and gem of the month uh so thank you as well for all the great work that you do so without further ado [Music] we'll have mr dr gallagher um just a couple just a couple quick things before we go to the students of the month uh first off i'd like to thank mrs stevens again for her time on the board um she was always a great asset to the community of denver with her insights and everything else um so again i like to personally thank her for her help uh on the board during my time here as superintendent um i'd like to make note that uh we did receive a letter from the department of special education and the department of education um as the board knows we were cited at the middle school for disproportionality in special education a young among black men for special classifications in special education um we appealed that based upon the number of transfer students that we received and the state came in and they just bought it and we were found to be 100 compliant so we are no longer in that disproportionality uh piece in special education so that is good news for us second is um the county um has a grant and they are looking to buy coded testing machines for next school year so i did ask uh for a machine for us for high school for codes and testing for next year um if they do get that grant so i wanted to make you aware of that um at this point in time i'd like to bring up dr s for walmart for students of the month good evening um [Music] thank you um congratulations to aria davila congratulations to jarrett lincard lincango um morera april students of mine thank [Applause] you at this time we bring up mrs clark for lafayette school for first grade lafayette's april student of the month is jairus mar castillo alvarado [Applause] and for second grade we have michaela castillo sanchez [Applause] and this time we have mr edwards for somali school [Music] okay good evening everyone our first winner recipient came painted de los santos [Applause] our next recipient is zach quesada [Applause] varela [Applause] our next recipient jimmy calderon [Applause] and our last recipient gisele corner [Applause] now we have mr chancellor the community middle school is pleased to recognize as uh its student of the month madison missouri the community middle school is also proud to recognize as its student's month jordan salazar sanchez [Applause] good evening down brook high school was pleased to announce our four crusaders citizen of the month recipients our first recipient janet marie marin cabral [Music] our second recipient i know he's going to make it tonight but aldo culture recipient number three jason villalobos [Applause] and lastly leslie perez thank you now we have our gem award presentation we'll start with uh dr hernandez uh dr f from la monadics with her gym award congratulations to mrs mendoza april's gen winner mrs mendoza is a licensed clinical social worker who provides support to our students families and staff being bilingual she is a huge asset for our bilingual students and families that need support mrs mendoza is always willing to help as needed and her expertise in counseling is evident through her work and the impact she has on our school the students enjoy creative counseling sessions and parents appreciate her availability and knowledge on various resources that are available to system she's a team player and we are so lucky to have her as part of our staff congratulations mrs ben jose and thank you for all that you do he's not here tonight so make sure to get the certificate tomorrow thank you [Applause] then we have mrs clark for los angeles lafayette's done for the month of april is lindsay henningston she's not here tonight but i did already give her her award mrs henningsen continuously advocates for her students working alongside mrs colombrido to maintain open and consistent communication with our families having extra adults in the classroom can sometimes be challenging but mrs henningsen always remains positive and patient while helping them become a part of our school community mrs henningsen continues to display kindness with every interaction and it truly reverberates throughout the building thank you mrs hennington for all that you do for our students and our families [Applause] and mr the evening edwards mr mages is one of our fourth grade teachers he continually plans accordingly with his co-teacher and team to be most beneficial for his students mr mages has worked diligently in running his background with dll learning he works with our esl teacher attends pd when needed and uses recommendations from supervisors to grow as an educator mr mages is not shy to wear a costume for halloween dress down for the 100th day of school or wear crazy socks for the week of respect mr mages like us all dealt with personal hardships during povid but he did not complain as for special privileges he just showed up from his long drive every day and get his students best he continues to support his staff school and students on a daily basis it is my pleasure to acknowledge mr mages for the gem of the month for april [Applause] hello again everyone the community middle school is honored to recognize mrs alexandra darwin as its gem award recipient for the month of april truth be told mrs darwin could win this recognition every month because she never slows down ms darwin is constantly looking for ways to help her students both in and out of the classroom when i think of someone who's an ideal teacher someone who inspires others and someone who motivates me each and every day i think of ali darwin here are some of the contributions ms darwin makes to her students at cms ms darwin organizes the annual book fair she invites librarians from the boundary public library to class in order to host book talks and instill a lifelong love of learning in reading mrs darwin continued this tradition virtually during the pandemic pre-pandemic mrs darwin conducted walking field trips to the public library and organized on-site presentations one of the novels that is part of the seventh grade curriculum is entitled touching spirit fair for several years now mrs darwin has hosted a virtual conference with the book's author ben mickelson the seventh grade students are able to interact with the author engage in question and answer and learn about the author's point of view ben mickelson will be visiting mrs darwin's class this year on friday may 7th mrs darwin helps students develop their writing skills and encourages them to submit their work to various writing contests one such contest is entitled poetic power it's a poetry contest and over the past five years over a dozen students have had their work published another contest is entitled young writers in which students submit mini sagas this year alone with thousands of entries nationwide 15 of our students were selected for publication which will be completed in june ms darwin applied for and was awarded a grant from the mark shown weather holocaust education foundation in each of the last two years which is used to purchase classroom library books and was also awarded a thousand dollar grant for library books from the akj from akj education several years ago along with another teacher at cms mrs donald established the national junior honor society is currently one of the club's co-advisors each year including this one when students are inducted into the high school national honor society they credit mrs darwin as being the teacher who made the most profound impact on their education mrs darwin is also the advisor of the middle school yearbook free coven ms darwin organized the annual rutgers day trip volunteered for chaperone for washington dc and pot summer school at both cms and middle earth as well as extended learning academy each year mrs darwin serves as a mentor for student teachers and new teachers to the community middle school and in 2019 her colleagues selected her as a cms teacher of the year amazingly mrs darwin has managed to do all of this while completing a master's degree in reading specialization and having a baby at home yeah exactly it is it is not an understatement to say that ali darwin is a superhero teacher who makes a positive impact on the lives of students and her colleagues each and every day [Applause] congratulations [Music] good evening again it's with great pleasure that we named uh dr marion stewart as the recipient for the balm brook high school gem award dr stewart is truly an angel in numerous ways but has demonstrated her care and compassion for all during this last year of the pandemic in addition to making and providing masks for many she has for the last two months or so been tirelessly working to secure vaccine appointments for any and all members of the district staff dr stewart has become adept by navigating the difficult and consuming tasks of locating and securing appointments and his facial graciously shared her talents with penny dbhs death she has provided relief and peace of mind to many for these reasons among others dr stewart is most deserving of going the extra mile recognition thank [Applause] you the gem award for the bedford school district is a middle school teacher mrs bennett has gone out of her way to organize part of our food bank um by getting donations through the bridgewater community and organizing those and bringing them here she's also gotten donations from johnson and johnson for our uh food bank as well as a number of bakeries to tony uh items as well to our food bank our food bank has been up and running for a number of years but obviously during the course of this pandemic our food bank has taken out a little bit different approach um as number of families in our district has has needed this service more than others and more than ever during this time of pandemic currently we take care of about 150 families in the community every week and uh this has been it has been instrumental in making sure that we have enough food for all of our families um every friday when we uh when we open up the food bank so this week this week this month's for the school district is uh mrs this is that [Applause] okay we're going to take a five-minute break while we change for a budget presentation i have to change computers in a few things so if anybody needs to leave one home or anything like that please feel free to do so now as we're changing our setup thank you get started so how uh the state determines our school funding i seem to go over this every year um what is an ad budget so it's a very complicated little formula that the state uses to come up with a thorough and efficient education or advocacy budget um and to determine the local uh failure for the public of bamboo and the equal disease need that comes from the state so again the local fair share is what the the public of denver will pay and the way they calculate that is the property value plus uh property breed plus income times income rate and they divide all that in half and you can find this on the school boards website is where i got this information from so this year the local fair share for bound brook is 12 million 813 855 the equalization that we're going to receive is 24 million 320 470 dollars so the the total e payable to the district i'm sorry we're supposed to get 24 million but the fee that we're gonna get is 22 million eight hundred eight thousand four hundred and fifty four dollars so when you look at our current budget um we're our total tax in this budget is 13 million 37 373 which is 223 518 over what the state says um is the local fair share so that represents about 1 of the current tax rate meanwhile um we are still owed or underfunded three million nine hundred fifty four thousand four hundred and fifty three dollars from the state so again you're supposed to receive 24 million three hundred twenty thousand four hundred new jersey received 20 million 366.017 and we get an extra 2 million um for our building project or our debt service and again you can find all of this on the new jersey school board association website so if you look at the tax increase over the last 15 years for the school board for the community the average tax increase to the borough of africa over the years over the last 15 years is 0.62 per year so in our strategic plan which we're going to be going to the year three or forty plan is our five goals culture culturally responsive proportionality and equity consistency continue continuity data driving instruction academic achievements due to motivation family and community engagement social emotional uh mental health and mindfulness so service door students we want to maintain our student teacher ratios continue curricular transformations reduce local taxes increase health and safety measures continue to the social emotional programs continue or expand our mental wellness programs continue industry counseling with clinical counselors expand our cte options and work study programs and adopt a new science curriculum k-p we want to continue to increase instructional capacity continue the district as a high performing district continue to implement procedures and policies to support construction continue our early reading intervention program increase our asi support expand our summit school program for the learning laws due to defend them we want to maintain our extended school programs for grades 1 through 8 our summer school reading programs from k1 and 2 expand our self-team special ed program to the middle school this budget will include the final new staff members a new work study coordinator a new special education teacher a new instructional aide and a new stem teacher for the middle school and i believe the special education teacher and the instructional aide are also going to the middle school there is no stamp deductions um increases to the budget obviously are health care costs contractual increases workman's compensation special education costs new staff well we do have a couple maintenance projects in this budget a new roof section of smalling for the art room new intercom system at the high school repointing the chimney at community school and automation projects for smalley school for temperature controls in the older part of the last building button was 32 million 798 thousand 300 dollars this year's website 965 um the difference of three million seven hundred eleven dollars three million seven hundred and eleven thousand six hundred and sixty four dollars a tax uh increase in zero dollars an increase in funds of one million nine hundred and seven thousand two hundred eleven dollars overall last year's overall weapons 37 million 430 188 this year's budget is 41 million 0084 878 the difference of 3 million 654 um our grounds this year's pain will be one million two hundred and seventeen thousand three hundred and forty two dollars um we have three years left on its lease at least we'll end in twenty three twenty four and that again is for the twelfth classroom edition of small [Music] projects on the horizon district is lafayette cafeteria but we're in the design phase of that we have a little lafayette classroom edition that we have to still consider we have a field turn replacement which is definitely on the horizon need to be done sooner rather than later replacing the field lights restoration of high school bathrooms high school boilers and led lights for some classrooms that we still have not gotten to um obviously again our cost per pupil is significantly lesser services compared to districts of our size throughout the state we rank you know in the top 10 of those categories if not in the top five and that's pretty much where we're at so if there's any questions regarding our budget i'll be more than happy to answer them [Music] i just have a question um with that uh with the underfunding is this the closest to like being actually funded we've been for a while or okay i just wanted to this this is the this is this is the closest to being fully funded being in the entire time and i've been here for 17 years that's a good thing all right hearing no questions i guess at this point we are open to the public for agenda items only so if you have any questions about something that's on the agenda please come forward just state your name your affiliation hello lauren paxton president of bbea uh what are the rules to filling the vacant spot on the board yeah go ahead um we have to advertise for that position that we might we did send down that every time we're ready correct it's being processed yeah that advertisement should be going out shortly the resumes will be sent to me which i will give to the board on may 10th the board will have uh public interviews um for the for the open position on the board from there the board will make a determination of who they would like to fill that position um and then hopefully on may 24th the board will appoint somebody into that position will be sworn in okay so when you say public uh interviews you may that aboard the next board meeting yes okay thank you right official raleigh 745 school house lane um so i did post stuff on the computer but since you're here and i'm here and could you know add that back and forth um so uh on agenda item 6.16 i asked about what does a life skills teacher teach and where can we see the curriculum life skills is is a teacher that's going to be for our special ed population for the 18 to 21 year old population that kind of needs to learn how to live you know some basic skills of living um once once they leave school okay is it posted anywhere the curriculum is not done yet oh um the curriculum is in process but we also have to approve the job description before we even post for a position or do the curriculum or anything like that so okay and then i asked about uh 10.4 um i noticed about the cafeteria bills and um they're going to be used for paying other bills i'm just wondering is that because like why that is and then i i just thought that maybe it's because the kids have beaten the cafeteria this year so you have a surplus of money cafeteria account no be used the cafeteria um and currently our cafeteria account does is receiving monies through the summer food program because we are feeding kids so there is money coming into that account through the federal summer food program and we are paying bills to the cafeteria people for food um that we are purchasing to feed the kids and for equipment if we need to replace equipment okay so this 10.4 sounded like you're paying under you're not it's simply for food yes yeah okay hearing no one else online okay um this is from scott powell 312 park place 627 approval of non-represented staff salaries i notice that discrepancy and salaries for security aid positions despite the fact that those who are making less have been here longer if it is not an issue of longevity what is this what is a determined by um that is a personnel issue which i am not able to discuss at this time all right we're done yeah there's no other comments okay so five approval of minutes uh 5.1 uh resolve the bamboo board of education approves the minutes for the following meetings regular and executive meetings of march 22 2021 can i get a motion motion miss morris first and mr thomas ellie's second um any comments or questions does anyone need to abstain for those meetings i think you do i do on the last word um yes yes all right at this point uh six personnel resolutions district in high school resolve the superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions as outlined in personnel resolutions under district and high school 6.2 to 6.24 can i get a motion motion mr valderrer second second mr zupko any questions or comments um question on 6 18.
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good evening we're going to go ahead and call this meeting to order dr foley roll call of the board please let the records show that all members are present thank you we're going to go ahead and have a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance the united states one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right i moved that we approve our agenda with a modification with the removal of item 3.1 board comments second any questions or comments regarding the agenda all those in favor aye aye motion carries 5-0 the next item on our agenda is the request to speak we value input from our constituents this time has been set aside for anyone from the audience who wishes to address the board please remember this is not an appropriate venue to evaluate discuss or criticize district personnel policy keb provides a process for complaints about personnel speakers should be aware that false statements about individuals may result in civil liability members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda therefore pursuant to ars 38-431 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and a decision at a later date please limit your remarks to three minutes i will try and pronounce names properly and please forgive me if i do not we will start with jen sauer thank you for allowing the opportunity for the public to speak and for the countless hours you've spent the last week trying to make another challenging decision i've had the chance to review the presentation proposal that will be shared tonight for amending the mass policy to continue to require masks to be worn indoors for the remainder of the school year thank you for doing the right thing for all students and staff in husd schools as i shared in my email to you last week wearing masks is not only the number one recommended mitigation strategy from the cdc for schools it is also what every parent every parent sitting in this very room agreed to when they sign their child up for in-person schooling this year in addition it allows for all children who are currently attending school in person to be able to finish the school year and participate in the activities they were looking forward to in the safest manner possible i believe your proposal to amend and adopt a face map mask policy that would still require masks to be worn indoors keeps the health and safety of the students and staff at the center of your decision i want to also encourage you to not be premature in making a decision tonight about what will happen beginning on june 1st in the presentation posted for tonight you use the current cdc guidelines as support for why you are continuing to require coverings indoor for the remainder of this year we do not know what cdc guidelines and recommendations will be come july if these guidelines inform your decisions about safety today then they should still inform your decisions regarding safety in july we cannot just pick a date and say well we gave it our all that's it we're done if you're committed to the health and safety of all in husd not just for the rest of this school year then you owe it to the community to use the cdc guidelines as the standard for deciding when it is safe to completely remove the requirement of face masks for summer school and next year therefore i'm asking you not to suspend the policy as of june 1st but rather set a meeting to review the plan this summer with the most current guidance from the cdc we are all tired from the pandemic nobody can deny what a truly exhausting year it's been but this pandemic is not over we are getting closer to everyone who chooses to being protected being able to do so however until then we have to be willing to work together as a community to keep everyone as safe as possible don't give up what has been working and what has allowed our children the opportunity to learn in person this year please continue to require masks for the remainder of this year and then review this summer where things are at for next year thank you thank you all right we will go on to janae mclean hello i feel underprepared after that last i think she did amazing um i am in complete agreements with her as to everything that she said as far as keeping the mass i feel mass are very important for not only solidarity and showing the rest of the community who has not yet had um covid that we are still supporting those people who are waiting to get their vaccination as of today i saw that only 27 of arizonians have received both copic vaccinations we're looking at about 40 percent who have gotten one dose it's also my understanding that some people are only getting one dose and not actually doing the second dose for myself i am a dental hygienist which means that i am not able to socially distance when i do my job i am not able to have somebody around me wearing a mask i did end up with covid i got concerned that when i got coveted it was from a patient and how many patients did i possibly infect because i'm so close in working conditions with these people however i found out that i got coped from a co-worker when i was unmasked at lunch not wearing proper ppe i could not imagine doing my job without the proper ppe that i use every single day the last pandemic that we had is actually what brought about a lot of the ppe that i wear on a daily basis that peop that excuse me pandemic being hiv aids so while this is temporary for the rest of the public this is something that is long term for health care professionals and something that we need to stick together with as a community thank you thank you all right our next speaker stacy finter thank you guys for letting me speak um just wanted to let you know i've i removed my second and fifth grader from chaparral right before school started because i did not want to send my children to school masked because of their physical mental health they attend prenda school with nine of their other friends and they are unmasked and they thrive as you know there's many harmful effects but i won't go into that my second grader though has a speech issue and there is no way that he nor others can correct that with a mass teacher and friends the physical effects will linger for many years to come i decided to send my seventh grader to cooley since he is in all accelerated classes and needs a challenge i was told that they would be given mask breaks and had someone from the district meet with him and tell him what his rights were and how to take past breaks he was never allowed these breaks starting the following day the teachers refused to allow him to even take a drink in the classroom they wouldn't allow him to go to the back of the class either he tried out for cross-country and was the fastest kid on the team but was told that he'd have to fully wear a mask over his nose in order to participate and i want to know who can run six miles with a mask on because that's not okay um he did the same thing for soccer and was told to sprint and do suicides for two hours fully masked with the mask over his nose and no breaks from it the coaches just told him that it's building their stamina that's not the truth my son has more stamina than almost any kid out there he walks the stairs in the hot halls with a crazy heavy backpack and he can't remove his mask at lunchtime he sits alone principal refuses to allow him to sit at his friend table since he is the seventh child to arrive from his class one day he was forced to sit outside alone he had a bird poop on him and in his food so he left his poopy food and continued to clean himself up in the bathroom for the remainder of the lunch period he came home depressed and he still hasn't forgotten about it he is picked on daily now knowing that he's the seventh child to arrive at that table and almost daily sits alone my ninth grader started at williamsfield this year she suffers now from anxiety and adhd which was diagnosed a few months ago she also met with the district as person to show her how to take mass breaks she too was never given the option after that day she can't breathe in walking up the stairs with her gear and face mask she then hyperventilates and panics and has a full-on panic attack at times she frequently eats lunch in the bathroom or outside by herself and she can't find smiling faces and people she knows to sit with she's had multiple respiratory illnesses this year from the masking and her anxiety is at an all-time high so much that the doctor has put her on medication to be able to handle going to school she can't find smiling faces of acceptance she's learning spanish and can't see the teacher's face properly so they are instructed to use online platforms for their learning governor ducey has removed the masked mandate for a reason and the teachers have been vaccinated if they choose to and also parents the children are not suffering from covid and it seems to not be spreading in our community and i ask that you understand that it is a parent's right to choose you know what is for the best for their children so i hope that that you guys are able to understand the long-term effects also on the kids and they need to be free and they need to be happy and if their parents choose for them to be mass that is their choice thank you thank you very much all right our next speaker andrea andrea nielsen thank you board and admin for all you've done this year i'm also very grateful for the teachers in our district and all that they've done um it's been a really hard year for all of us um our child's pulmonologist was in the icu in july with covid his wife is also his nurse practitioner and two weeks after we after his her husband got out of the hospital we had a telehealth visit with them for my child's asthma we were given a mask exemption um so he wouldn't have to wear a mask um she said that it did not increase the risk for covet issues with asthmatics and that the mass could increase his risk so because higley did not provide for any mask exemptions we had to move him to a different school we have another child who's in kindergarten and we will be moving her as well if we don't if we aren't able to get the things that we need from higley um sorry so i want to know for each of you when does the fear of potential illness outweigh actual mental and physical illness or lack of connection in our kids what are the unintended consequences of keeping masks on our children for the next four weeks some of the kids who were online got to see their teacher's piece they saw their friends faces they got to connect with them in different ways that our children who've been in school all year have not my kindergartner has not really seen her teacher's face she adores her and loves her and never wants to leave kindergarten because she loves her so much at the after school pickup i've seen kids with masks with black spots on them they've been stepped on they've been chewed on they've been dropped they've been touched all over there's other things going into our children's bodies that's not coveted i'm concerned with what they're breathing in with the masks on my children have suffered headaches difficulty breathing dizziness and more from wearing masks all day all year they refuse to go to the nurse to get tylenol because they're going to get sent home for 10 days my overall happy compliant kindergartner who loves school more than anything has had to take mornings or entire days off from school because mask is just too much that day looking back at the august 25th board meeting i found some comments from parents and teachers who were concerned about going in person so they wanted to follow the data and the science on it a teacher said if we look at two to three weeks of data we will know for sure if their model is protecting students and staff so that was in relation to getting back into school they wanted to see what other schools were doing another was a parent says science matters and if we will listen to what it says a few more weeks we'll let us see what happens in the other districts it is our job as adults to make sure it is safe for our kids teachers and staff many charter schools in the area have not been enforcing masking for weeks my son has not had to wear a mask all year they are doing better than schools with zero mask exemptions these schools do not have credit recovery courses lined up for the summer or for the next quarter because their kids are thriving my son is thriving at a different school my kids who are in higley unified are struggling and they are not kids who typically struggle do the requests made in octo august 26 from the other parents and teachers follow science to follow the science and the data do they not apply today my kids challenges from the unintended consequences of the policies in place now are too personal to share in this setting who will protect our kids from the unintended consequences of mask wearing what in unintended consequences have your children faced if you refuse to unmask all of our kids please consider unmasking our youngest kids they are the least at risk they are the least at risk of spreading thank you would love to have the teacher thank you so much all right our next speaker heather mays i start my words with you this evening with comments from my daughter who's a seventh grader at coley middle school i asked her what she thinks about wearing masks at school and these are her words first of all the mask mandate has been lifted for all the schools in arizona by the governor i see why people might want to still wear masks but if they are uncomfortable not wearing them they should have the choice to do online school or continue to wear them at school also if the teachers are vaccinated why are they still required to wear masks questions which i did not answer to her at the time if she says if our parents don't feel the need to make us wear masks then why should the school they should let students have the option to wear them if they want to but not be required to wear them another student also enrolled at cooley says masks make it hard to focus and hard to breathe it's hard to understand other people some personal comments from a senior who is attending williamsfield high school says masks have personally made me feel like i'm hiding behind something i got anxiety from being locked in my house for so long and then i had to try and show up for school already uncomfortable i wore my mask and still got covered even though i was being lectured every day to wear a mask so i didn't get it i think it's awful how if anyone feels insecure they can just hide behind a mask it's really affecting kids mental health these thoughts and feelings are straight from our students in our district they should be allowed a voice in something that directly affects their daily lives i've personally heard other kids saying things like i like wearing a mask i don't have to talk to people as much and i like that i can hide behind my mask these masks are not only causing potential physical harm but the mental and emotional harm they are causing for our children is detrimental depression is thriving behind these masks and we cannot let that continue i ask that you consider making mask wearing an option and not a requirement this decision that affects our children's physical mental and emotional safety can and should be left to the individuals and their parents lastly i just want to say thank you for the opportunity to share these comments and also thank you and our teachers for the time and effort that you all put forward on behalf of our children thank you thank you our next speaker is jen larson hello thank you for allowing us to be here and thank you for holding this meeting especially to talk about masks and giving us so much time to express our concerns i've tried so many times over the last year to put myself in your shoes i know that none of you actually signed up for this part of being on the board um it's a little surprising i'm sure what you're having to deal with but um i feel i've often thought that it probably feels like you're in a no-win situation for every single parent telling you that their child will be harmed by removing masks there is a child that will be harmed by keeping the mask mandate in real in reality there are countless arguments as to why we should or should not wear masks i'm sure you felt like it's quite the tug of war it seems in the past year we have tended to error on the side of catering to those that prefer masks we have somehow disregarded the concerns of those that are negatively impacted by wearing them and there are many negative impacts most of which we don't even know because we've never done this as a society this has never been required of k through children k through 12 children or society in general [Music] anxiety claustrophobia any kind of breathing or respiratory issues psychological harm speech impediments hearing problems or a few there's harm to social connections misunderstandings in tone and delivery and instruction of instructions and a lack of human contact there is countless research stating what a simple smile can do for someone that is having a hard day so what do we do i can only see one option and that is choice everyone has a choice it always has been the only option there are countless ways we can protect ourselves at this point there are vaccinations there's online school there's grocery pickup there's restaurant delivery and on and on we go we've created a very safe society if you have concerns about coven no one is negating those but we all should be able to choose for ourselves what we need to do in addition experts have actually altered their original view that mask wearing only protects others according to the cdc it does protect the wearer you can continue to wear a mask even if the mask mandate is lifted if you feel it necessary if someone has concerns with how much protection that one mask gives they're welcome to wear two they can do online school they have their options but when we continue to keep these mask mandates we take the choice away from those of us that no longer think that this is necessary we can't continue to pretend that there's only one solution to a very complex problem every time you choose to enforce masks and cater to one group of children you are in fact harming a different but equally important group of children choice is the only answer i've heard from perspectives i've heard from kids and their perspective that or i've heard from parents that their perspective is that because they had returned to school thinking that we were going to be wearing masks that we should continue through the end of the year i sent my children to school this year knowing that once the mask mandates would be lifted that i would have a choice and this last couple of weeks does matter i have very big events for my children like graduation dance concerts these things should not be impacted just because it's easier to say let's just finish out the year thank you so much thank you our next speaker is sarah lunder hi members of the board my name is sarah lunder and i have a six-year-old boy who should have started kindergarten at cortina this year and an eight-year-old second grader at cortina elementary i had so much i wanted to say tonight but three minutes is so short so i just wanted to focus on some facts maths were implemented at the beginning of last year to number one make sure hospitals were not overrun and number two to protect the elderly and the vulnerable we are now into this over a year our hospitals are at the lowest number they've ever been since this started we have three vaccines and every adult 16 years and older who wants the vaccine has had ample opportunity to get it mass have been optional in the community for over a month and our spread has remained well under five percent public schools have lost nearly 50 000 students in the state of arizona over their handling of covet gilbert public schools have just announced that they're laying off hundreds of teachers due to low enrollment is this what we want for higley charter schools have gained over 18 thousand of those students and are on wait lists all of the charters in the area along with queen creek and combs have made mass optional listen i am all for those who want to wear masks being able to wear them i would stand shoulder to shoulder with them any day of the week and fight for their right to do so unfortunately that feeling does not seem mutual they have told me to sit down and shut up and put my mask on myself and my children this is not how a community functions we do not mask four five and six-year-old children because we as adults can't make common sense decisions covet is here to stay it will be a seasonal virus that mutates every year just like the flu we had better learn to live with it because we certainly can't hide from it here's the bottom line it does not have to be us against them you can deal with this in the best interest of everyone involved you swear to govern in the best interest of all higley students now let's stand up and do the right thing for everyone and make masks optional for all higley families thank you our next speaker chris gilligan madam president members of the governing board dr foley and members of the cabinet my attendance at the governing board meeting on april 21st i absorbed the board enter the chamber mast unmasked to speak mass back up to come to the floor for pictures and to hug and congratulate award recipients return to their seats and unmask again if the surgical and cloth masks worn by the board during that meeting were effective what effect does the board think they had on their efficacy through the repeated removal of and then re-masking do you think you compromise the efficacy of your face covering through these practices do you think that your students age five to 18 do a better job of not compromising the efficacy of their face covering each school day what are we doing i also observe cabin members periodically wearing and not wearing their mask with some cabin members wearing over the mouth and below the nose what are we doing i'm talking about adults during a meeting which the duration was two and a half hours am i to assume the board dr foley and the cabinet where they're face covering for seven hours or more each school day the same of what is required of higley's students to do are you i observe cabin members struggle to remain awake and alert no doubt due in part to their dysregular co2 and o2 levels breathing in their own carbon dioxide how do you think my children with asthma anxiety and autism are doing by enduring the same day and day out for seven plus hours what are we doing i realize that with face coverings you have those that are for and those that are against convincing the other party to change their mind is extremely difficult the only way is through education as educators perhaps you can answer the following questions what are the long-term effects on mass squares such as headaches arising from impeded breathing do the mass shed fibers or substances that are harmful when inhaled supporting continued face covering policy without knowing the answers to these questions is irresponsible educators will you apply critical thinking to your decision or will you be complacent the proposed update to the current policy of not requiring students to wear face coverings at school bus stops and changing physical distance from six feet to three feet is not enough it's lazy it reeks of fear for taking a real stand and creating a warranted positive change now unacceptable doing the minimum is not a high bar end the fear and the current face covering policy it's not too late to walk back the proposed update discuss during your executive session and make the change that is in the best interest of higley unified school district parents teachers staff and students thank you thank you all right our next speaker anna van hook hello my name is anna van hook i'm a medical freedom and parental rights advocate i am also the vice president of children's health defense arizona chapter i have lived in this district for 15 years my oldest went to higley school district for nine years sorry i ended up pulling my children from higley in august after the district violated their own mass policy at the time and refused my children a mask exemption when they were aware of their medical conditions and my oldest had an iep my children were moved to a school district that allowed them a mask exemption and they have been in school since august 17th without masks and without ever being sick even though my kids no longer attend higley school district i still fought the district i will continue to fight for other people's children to be free of these bacteria felt cloths the metrics were initially the metrics initially said that the mass would be removed when it reached a certain number of cases and then the department of health decided to secretly change those metrics and keep the mass on children for good every mass specifically states that do not they do not prevent the transmission of viruses you are quickly quick to implement the masks when the governor said to do so but now that he removed the mandates games are being played our children are not to be toyed with enough is enough schools can create rules as long as they do not supersede existing state statutes and the arizona parental bill of rights is an existing statute which needs to be upheld there is no current law or executive order that requires children to be in masks therefore by denying or parental rights to choose is a violation of the law per ars 1-601 the liberty of parents to direct the upbringing education health care and mental health of their children is a fundamental right ars 1-6-0-2 all parental rights are reserved to a parent of a minor child without obstruction or interference from this state any political subdivision of the state any gov any other government entity and any other institution including the right to direct the education of a minor the right to direct the upbringing of a minor the right to make health care decisions for a minor this includes a medical device such as a mask the right to consent in writing before a biometric scan of a minor is taken such as a temperature check the numbers are obvious and this and so is the science there is currently no pandemic and kids were never impacted even the safely returned to in-person instruction clearly states the state of arizona does not make any express or implied warranties regarding the face covering the state won't even accept what they're putting out there the only reason the emergency order is not ending is because the vaccine is only approved for emergency use and it cannot be administered if that emergency order is over you need to think about the emotional and mental well-being these kids play together have sleepovers and even play sports together outside of school they then are forced to keep their distance and mask up when they're in school with the same kids it's absurd and lacks common sense far more kids have committed suicide and od'd than have been impacted by kovid it is beyond time to stop playing politics and get these rags off of our children's faces thank you thank you all right and our last speaker kevin jacobs i have to say this is a difficult topic and and i'm very happy that i'm not in your seats because because it's been a tough discussion today and there's been a lot of motion both ways and um it's not easy so we've heard a lot of talk about the kids who can choose to stay home we've done that with our children our children have been at home since the beginning we're really lucky that my wife's a stay-at-home mom so she's been able to do that i have a four-year-old that i would love to have in over at cooley in the preschool but we we haven't felt safe doing that even with the masks my wife's health compromise and we've had family that's passed away from it unfortunately and other friends who've been long-term illnesses it's it's not an easy decision you're going to have to decide what's best for our kids and and we appreciate it whichever it is we're hoping to bring our kids back to school whichever way that goes if if we keep the masks and they still have the option to do that then at least they can wear the mask and they can be protected and and i'm sorry for the how difficult this has been it's been hard for our kids as well this last quarter has been really hard for those who stayed at home we have not had the support that we had the first three quarters the number of kids that are staying home is getting smaller and it's getting harder as we look at whether it's right to be wearing masks or not there's some other similar items that have limited our our freedoms and as i talk about mass my four-year-old loves his mask like we get out go to the store and as we're starting to loosen up and say you know like there might be cases where we don't have to wear a mask outside or other spots where the science is supporting it he's hesitant he takes that mask as a safety and so he shows that even the small kids can do it but um we don't allow people to drive drunk in the u.s we feel like that we take that freedom away from you that saves about ten thousand year lives a year in the entire us we force people to wear a seat belt that only saves about fifteen thousand lives a year and we force kids to sit in these tight destructive child deceits and if you don't sit in one your child can be taken away from you and again it doesn't save more than ten thousand lives a year so as we make this decision of whether we feel like it's it's time yet and i know it's a hard one um we just asked you to think about those of us who are or i think the the minority in this case but but are still trying to be safe for the last few weeks this week as we stay there and thank you for this time thank you all right now our last speaker andrea fortenberry thank you board sorry for the disruption i had signed up online i don't know how my form didn't come through but i am here today to ask you to please make the mask mandate optional or to make masks optional at all higley schools effective immediately and i would like to say that as parents of two children in higley i have been very thankful for the leadership of our district i was very grateful that last spring we got an email that said that masks would be optional going into the next school year but then the county and the governor came down with the executive orders requiring mass at schools and our two children who thrive in school had a very hard time in virtual schooling and so we decided that the best move would be for them to attend in-person schooling and we are very grateful that our district gave parents the choice of in-person schooling or virtual schooling for their children i feel that we have all been very patient with this mask policy but with the governor ending the executive order requiring masks at k-12 public schools i believe the time for change is now every family should have the right to choose whether their children wear masks at school just as parents were given the choice as to whether their children would attend in-person or virtual schooling removing the mask requirement really is a win-win solution for everyone those parents who want their children to continue masking at school are able to do so and those of us who wish for our children to not wear masks at school would have that option as well it is hard to believe that children who are primarily not affected by this virus have had to wear masks at school for eight months now our children who are generally healthy have complained of headaches anxiety and overall discomfort from wearing a mask for seven hours a day and as a mom i have guilt and anxiety for requiring them to be at school in a mask for seven hours a day now that we all know more than we knew back a year ago about this virus i believe that it is cruel for us to continue requiring them to wear masks for seven hours a day to learn to be in pe to play sports and to play together outside on the playground i ask that you please consider the mental health and well-being the social well-being of our children please consider that although we only have 22 days of school left that means more than 150 additional hours that our children would be required to be in mass at school all day i do not believe that we should be forced to put our children through those 150 hours of masking if we as their parents do not feel it is in their best interest for us to do so i ask that you would please put our children first and move our district to a mask optional policy and put the choice back into the hands of parents thank you thank you all right thank you for everyone taking the time to come speak and share your thoughts with us we appreciate that as well as the countless number of emails we've received so thank you with that we're going to go on to our next agenda item which is 5.1 uh it's an informational item for face covering recommendation for the remainder of the 2020 2021 school year dr foley president reese members of the board um it was a week ago today that the whole conversation of mass has consumed good awakening hours of all of our administrative team so tonight i'd like to bring to you the conversations and the information that comprise our mitigation plan that we have worked with our entire admin team and that includes all of our general administrators who are principals directors in this district for feedback as we look at how do we navigate moving forward from now to the end of the year and then and then beyond um next slide so obviously the impetus for our conversation tonight is as many of our speakers tonight eloquently captured we have been under an executive order the mask requirement but we had two uh mask requirements that required us to have that it was an essential part of our mitigation plan and has been as far as because our mitigation plan also dictated to us how and what we did to communicate when we had positive cases on campus who was primary who was secondary when did we quarantine what did the cleaning protocols look like so when we talk about mitigation plans it's far more than just the wearing of the face masks obviously next line when when the governor last week unhinged that it causes us to look at this a little bit differently one of the things that was very clear in his his communication was is that legally there was not an executive order that held it now the issue is you still had governing board policy that we are governed by that was initially in place because we were required to have it um one of the interesting things and we've been all week in conversation with administrators and superintendents across the state and with our own attorneys we've been getting on on the day legal guidance and updates what does this mean now what about these questions one of the things that um one of the things that has come through this is because there's the part in there that we have policies that legally we're allowed to continue to have them if we so choose to implement them our attorneys have informed us that we are not violating even though there are other things in place that we have the right to put a mass policy in place but there again is um the fact that we don't no longer legally have to have one in place so next slide obviously though you don't have to have a mask in place but your mitigation strategy is obviously you you're still navigating through as again many of our speakers eloquently said tonight we're still navigating and we'll continue to navigate through at our last meeting we talked about one of our strategic initiatives is how are we going to begin the school year safely and evolve from this obviously social emotional being a huge part of what's very very important for us so all of us are very very aware of this we have received hundreds of emails we have read we've gotten emails we've gotten things through social media we've gotten some of us to us directly some through public relations and we have thoroughly read all of them we've heard from parents we've heard from employees we've heard from students who have very very im very diverse opinions we've heard um many of them tonight the social emotional want to see faces want to see emotion want want our faces free and have very clearly said that then we have heard from many saying you i agreed to come back with these understandings we have employees who are saying i agreed to these mitigation strategies i i have very very much do not want the rules to be changed we have heard passionately from both sides so we are once again in a position where ultimately whatever we decide to do there will be those who are unhappy with whatever is decided and so we're trying to navigate through the multiple factors here which have led to our our recommendation tonight so one of the things that we do and that we've done well i think in higley is is that we don't operate in a vacuum we work with our entire team just like we did this summer with our task force where we have our principals and our assistant principals and teachers and different representation on the group we did the same thing here quickly too first thing tuesday morning we had late friday monday night last week we were getting everyone on the phone saying need these people in the room need get a pulse check find out this information we need more information on this tuesday morning we start working through what are the issues you're hearing what are the what are the concerns from our sites what are our issues with our employees what are their concerns if we were to do this if we were to do that principles what are you thinking directors issues what are your concerns and hearing from them obviously when you look at our administrative team we're all over the place with our own thoughts and feelings about this very thing as well so again there's much diversity amongst even those of us who've worked all through this process we've talked with our employees once we got a plan in place we also shared this with representation of higley's education association beat it up what are our issues what are our concerns what are the what are the thoughts and obviously we have reviewed and considered several ideas um every day we have been part of talking through so what now what okay and so again we bring to you that the challenge is is that um there isn't a one answer that will will will make everyone happy but right now what we're proposing to you is considering multiple factors in our mitigation plan and going back to these filters we first saw these when we were putting together our mitigation plan this summer and going into this next year understanding that yep health and safety is important what what that looks like and how we address it this year will be important what we do with instruction is huge um and wanting to make sure that that becomes a focus for us no matter what that we're respecting of and accepting diverse opinions that we're not all going to agree um and then again ongoing communication and and communicating quickly and timely with people as soon as decisions are made so that they are able to respond for themselves to the best of their ability so tonight our recommendation that we're bringing to you has two parts again multiple considerations in this and a lot of these are tightly connected with the fact that we are still while we are not unhinged from from a um we're unhinged from a mass ordinance we are still in concert with when there are positive cases in the classroom and we have positive cases that continue to happen we are thrilled that we have fewer than we had but again tomorrow morning as you see every day you get the daily updates we currently today have five um who will hit the dashboard tomorrow and again we've had days with zero and the great news is we're trending in the right direction and then we also have days where we're trending up so we have to continue to focus on whatever we do how will we handle what happens in classrooms when there are positive cases so our recommendation has two parts the first thing that we were looking at is your face covering policy we looked at multiple things the parts that are in red would have been what we would have modified or added in the things that we struck were things that we would remove up and this is the exact policy this is two sections there's obviously a much larger policy but these were the only two spaces that would require modifications that would be the face covering should be worn individually indoors and then it would be we've removed bus stops being that that is outside and that we would add a component that face covering should be recommended for outdoor activities and events on district property where physical distancing is more possible where you're outside again what the anas was heat begins to continue to rise there's a lot of things that are connected with some of the guidance that is part of cdc that is actually getting ready to to forthcome loosening up outdoor restrictions with masks the other piece was updating in that policy from uh in alignment with the cdc recommendation of three from six to three were the two pieces um that we would amend in that policy so why would we amend rather than just immediately suspend and this consumed an awful lot of our conversation and discussion with our administration and i'm going to ask hospital for jillian to share from the arizona department of health services guidance with us at this time too so one of the things we're looking at is this at this moment we have 22 days left of this school year starting tomorrow this year has felt like it has flown by and it's felt like a hundred years all the same we are looking at we have students and families who entered into instructional models and with their current employment contracts with the understanding that we would follow certain mitigation strategies we'll talk with you here in a minute but if we immediately suspend our mass policy we go from our definitions of primary and secondary to just plain exposure and it just changes our communication structures and who when when and how we have to quarantine which will give examples here in just a minute we did have a lot of families who returned to us from spring break with the idea that we would be following this mitigation we have heard from a lot of those families um our current we if we hold this it allows us to keep our current mitigation and communication protocols in place with primary and secondary exposure and again this one also allows aligns with outdoor recommendations that are connected with cdc guidance with again more space and again would allow us for outdoor activities or events for instance such as graduation to be where where there would be an optional or highly recommended but i'm going to ask mrs fulton to share for just a little bit more a little bit about the health harrison department of health services feedback and guidance to us that also had a large part in our our recommendation to you this evening on the amending portion president reese members of the board i'm here this evening i want to give you health background information related to our recommendation the health department is not changing their guidance as of the webinar with the maricopa county department of public health on thursday april 22nd nothing has changed with face covering guidelines or contact tracing and they have no plans to change anything in that regard they do have a lot of concerns and they do not agree with face coverings going optional right now why we would suggest that we wait until next year we have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours combined putting our mitigation plan in place including the communication and implementation of it if we move to face covering optional now we move completely away from our communication protocols that have proven effective and our community is accustomed to expecting this will be a shift from primary and secondary exposure to everyone has exposure the current primary and secondary exposure protocol in alignment with the health department our current husd mitigation plan has outlined primary and secondary exposure these definitions drove our mitigation plan our communication protocols and consequently our potential quarantine guidance for example today i had as dr foley told you five cases and we had a scenario where there was a very high probability that i was quarantining an entire class because everybody in that class had their masks on i did not need to do that that definitely would have been a snowball effect because when we're looking at the contact tracing with the health department the way most classes are set up and kids are going to different parts of the school whether it's specials in an elementary level or if it's different class schedules at secondary the way they combine in the way that they're moving around it would have snowballed into quarantining many more classes over the next few days full classes of students when we went back to in-person learning options in september we gave our community an expectation and outlined what our year would look like waiting to go face covering optional gives our community a common expectation of our year ahead and allows current mitigation plan and communication protocols to stay intact we do not want to change the rules as students families and employees entered this instructional model and their current employment contracts with understanding we would follow our mitigation strategies through the end of the 2020-21 school year we will then begin summer and fall with new updated plans that can be communicated prior to their start why we are recommending the modification of the policy our recommendation aligns with the health department's current recommendations of exposure while students are inside they could be sitting next to a potential case for longer than 10 to 15 minutes students that are outside at recess or pe have a much lower risk of potential exposure due to the amount of time they are around each other students outside for recess pe or other educational opportunities with their face covering software moving and playing are not considered a high risk of exposure because of the potential for social distancing exposure protocol when we go to face covering optional when we move to face covering being optional the primary and secondary exposure distinction goes away if there is a positive case in the classroom everyone in the classroom will be notified of potential exposure it will then be a case-by-case basis with the health department's recommendation we may need to quarantine an entire classroom even if they are wearing face coverings depending on the number of cases in the class the risk of quarantine could happen at any point and that risk will likely be higher when face coverings are optional that's it sorry i was waiting for him next slide so with additional information one of the things that we would recommend then is that we would keep this effect that if that this policy or our suggestion would be to amend this policy that would basically beginning effective immediately tomorrow we would hold indoor um indoor masks in place until the 31st but would option make make outdoor utilization of face coverings optional until the 31st the second part of this if you will this next slide would be effective immediately then june 1st that you would suspend the wearing of this is requirement but make this an optional for families that way those who are choosing to those who are choosing to teach or those who are choosing to attend summer school have are understanding what we're agreeing into the mitigation would then obviously our mitigation plan will change our communication protocols and structures will change we'll have to have a mitigation plan for next year but it would look different because we would be wearing optional face coverings any questions dr foley can you just explain we heard from someone tonight that said you know carefully about suspending the june 1st face mask policy can you talk a little bit i believe when it was discussed that it's there's less kids in the class can you talk a little bit about kind of how that discussion went yes um president reese members of the board one of the things that we think would be kind of nice is to have summer school as an opportunity to test run our new mitigation with mask optional uh obviously summer school has smaller numbers we'll have smaller number of students will be able to do again we can update our our communication structures protocols people will be entering into this with an understanding the other thing is too is we can also monitor this i think what will be important is is that um again if if there were any changes in our numbers or the number of cases or we had to quarantine large groups of classrooms we may be looking at then having a conversation about what we've learned in this process and again would need to probably come with our guidance and recommendations based on this at this point we would be saying that we would we would would like to communicate with people that this would be optional with the information that we have at this time and obviously the summer school would allow us to see how how that plan was implemented we have already started we've already started the updating of the mitigation plan for next year and the communication structures what the letters would look like because it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when and we still have positive cases in the classroom and we'll need to be able to communicate with families and what are we communicating with families and what are those communication structures look like for some reason um i apologize for not getting this too sooner but my question is um for those that would be wearing a mask if they chose to wear a mask if it was optional indoors um if they were wearing it would they have to be quarantined or would they have to be quarantined is that my understanding no matter what even if president reece remember schultz yes and it would depend on the number of cases in the classroom so and here's here's what here's how this works is currently the health department understands that if we have people who are if we are aware if everyone is wearing a mask the assumption is everyone is wearing the master if there are more if for instance aia had different guidance into this and i may have julian help me answer this question aia had different kindness we have had to quarantine when we had teams who had multiple number of kids who tested positive who had expansive amounts of time in which they were not wearing masks now this is a classroom situation in which if they had not been wearing masks if if they had not been wearing masks we would have had to have quarantined now if i have a going into next year if i have students who choose to be optional and i choose to wear a mask right and there are multiple kids in a class who end up getting um coveted that's what they're considering an outbreak and then because there had been the extent of exposure depending upon the number of kids in the class depending upon the number of people who ended up getting it we may end up having to court we'd be able to be directed to quarantine anyhow and it would be on a case-by-case basis again you also know this year we had examples where we have special education classrooms for example where a student's conditions do not allow them to wear masks and when there were outbreaks in those classes we had to quarantine in this case if we had a certain number even if we had been wearing masks there was a high risk high transmission we would end up needing to quarantine president reece mrs wilson do we know how many kids are coming into our health offices with heat related illness i guess i would call it you know not feeling well headache whatever because of the heat that we've determined heat not covered um because i heard that a lot um it was an underlying theme in the emails that they're hot and um that they're you know getting sick from being so hot thank you president of vice president wilson that was a question that you had had curious about and i'll ask mrs fulton to follow up because she has conversation with the health department our health our health aides thank you thank you president reese um vice president wilson i surveyed our health offices with that and i started looking at all of our data in the system we have not had any students come in with with any heat related or you know wearing their masks from that i think if you don't mind if i can speak from the murmur from the crowd as a teacher i can say that i have had students in my class many times who say i have a headache i don't feel good i say go to the nurse they say no they're going to send me home so i am curious about the numbers in this case i'm not saying it's not real i'm just saying i i have personally experienced students refuse to go to the nurse many students no i'm sorry i'm sorry no [Music] no i i'm sorry i can't have you continue to speak we had our public comment thank you all right do you have any other questions before we move on to our next item okay i just have a quick statement mrs reese if that's okay mrs wilson when i was thinking about this highly debated topic i started looking back at my notes from august 2020 when we were deciding if and when to go back to in-person instruction i gave a small speech then and i want to echo some of the words that maybe have a little meaning today we have divided our community once again i've said it before and i'll say it again whatever is the right decision for your family make it it's the right decision don't judge others from their decisions you don't know what they're dealing with safe means different to every family and each person some feel safe others do not it's okay please continue to be kind and show your kids that kindness matters these are the words i spoke eight months ago and i continue to speak them today i've read every email i would encourage everyone to look at and empathize with your opposing view it doesn't mean that your viewpoint will change but give some empathy to your neighbor the teacher or the friend that maybe has a different view than you that's all i need to say today thank you all right then we'll move on to 6.1 i move that we amend our policy edb pandemic emergencies with the recommendation that face covering policy is amended to indicate face covering shall be worn at all times while individuals are indoors on district property or at a school function face coverings will be recommended for outdoor activities and events on district property this policy also amends the change to the physical distance separation of at least six feet to three feet between individuals i'd like to make an amendment to the motion we need a second answer i'd second that and then i'd like to make an amendment to the emotion i'd like to make an amendment to the movement that we make face masks optional effective tomorrow [Applause] i second that and can i make a comment yes mrs anderson i'm good evening you're all eager to get to the vote so i will keep this to the point my decision is based on three factors consistency student experiences in my experience as a current high school educator first consistency district policy procedure have not been consistently followed on husd campuses since january and even prior to january i've received photos and videos of students not wearing masks sharing food from the same bag with multiple students and that means many hands grabbing food touching your mouth and hands returning to the bag masks not worn over their mouth and nose and please understand this is not my attempt to ridicule the teacher or administration and i want to point out because i have trouble keeping track of mass in my classroom and i allow students to eat and drink in my classroom my point is that our students have already been close to other students on and off campus without math that's my consistency point also with consistency schools within our district in neighboring our district legacy queen creek unified school district mesa which is potentially phasing to mass optional ala and eva we have families with children that exercise school choice within their household and have different children attend different schools within that household and we also have students that attend our high school campuses and the ebay campus so they're going back and forth also with consistency all of the athletic leagues outside of the aia regulations playing in city and neighborhood parks that i have observed every weekend i got to drive my kid over the weekend places at minimum for months consists of k-12 aged children not wearing a mask while playing coaches aren't wearing a mask and attendees are not wearing a mask again i'm not stating this to ridicule these people i am pointing out the inconsistencies in mask wearing for school-aged children and their family members that have been going on since january i'm aware that their interactions are outdoors but children are in close proximity touching breathing rapidly and excessively excreting particles from their mouth and nose at higher rates children have been exposed due to masking consistency for months also with masking inconsistencies mask wearing hasn't been consistent after school hours as children gather and friend in social groups without masks i've witnessed this since the summer of 2020.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
i called to order the oswego community unit school district 308 board of education meeting can i have a roll call please mr bauman president mrs doyle here mrs croner present mr lightfoot present miss morgan here mrs moyer here mrs swanson peasants please rise for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all please put your mask on now sorry i was eating dinner i swear i had a plate right here thank you so much for reminding me can does that mean i can leave no because you did put it on thank you thank you for correcting me i apologize item four our april pride winners teresa tonight the board of education acknowledges our pride recognition program winners for the month of april pride stands for proudly recognizing individuals demonstrating excellence and recognizes the efforts of teachers and staff who are engaged in exceptional work across the district this year teachers and employees were nominated for this award by the schools they work in due to coveted constraints winners are being chosen using the wheel of names prize wheel we would like to thank our generous program sponsors allied first bank chick-fil-a huntington learning center and culvers for their continued support of our program the following teachers were selected as our april teachers of the month from homestead sarah walenzik from plank carrie morin from prairie point andrea pratt and from the wheatlands jolene cayman join me in congratulating our teachers the following employees were selected as april employees of the month from oswego high school don cino and from trauber junior high school jason costa these winners received a certificate from the board of education a congratulatory letter from dr sparlin and a gift package from our sponsors congratulations to all of our district april pride winners [Music] item 5.1 public comment on behalf of the board of education i would like to thank the public for attending tonight's meeting we value the feedback we receive from our residents and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their public school system residents interested in speaking to the board this evening are asked to have completed a comment card and presented it to the secretary to the board when the secretary calls your name i ask that you come to the microphone state your name for public record and provide your feedback please note that comments are limited to 5 minutes per person and that no discussion of personal matters or responses to questions are permitted the board does not participate in discussion during public comment follow-up to your questions or concerns will be addressed by administration through the contact information provided on the comment card or email justin lewandowski enough of the unwarranted policies regarding our public schools remove the masks from our children the science and data do not support the notion that kids need to be masked our kids deserve better remove the mask mandate from public schools district 308 melissa yeager good afternoon i have a soon to be kindergartener in the fall and i'm very concerned with her wearing a mask seven to eight hours each day so much so i might be looking for alternatives to public school example home school or private what is the game plan to get these kids unmasked it's not healthy for their growing lungs and there have been many other reasons that these masks are hurting our children physically mentally socially emotionally we have three vaccines now and even according to the who guidelines it's not even safe or effective especially for children ages five and under my questions when will the school board recognize this and not make this a requirement can we at least let this be a decision for the individual families to make for themselves wayne harshberger uh good evening i'm wayne hershberger i have two kids in the district one's a senior and one's a freshman so as a senior parent it's been a very challenging past 18 months i voiced concerns on some things last fall i was reassured multiple times including by this board that my concerns were taken care of regarding athletic teams wearing masks in march i observed more violations i was assured those were taken care of guess what i found over the weekend even further violations so i'm going to ask a question what's it going to take to solve this problem when our coaching staff steps on this property as an employee they need to put their own personal beliefs of this pandemic to the side and they need to teach the kids to follow the rules it's that simple okay it's that simple what's it going to take to get this through their heads okay when student athletes and other people don't follow the rules you're gonna put all the seniors at risk of milestone events when is this district going to take this seriously and do something about it what disciplinary action is they're going to be taken against these student athletes that are violating things what's going to be done with the coaching staff i'm exasperated by it i've reached out multiple times and for the fourth time i've been told it's taken care of is it really taken care of the fourth time i don't believe you guys i don't believe anyone in this administration and i don't believe anyone in the buildings what are we going to do about it apparently it's okay to do nothing i got a senior email on friday for mr gray's when you read through that email it talks about what guidelines we're going to choose to follow if you're exposed you're not going to go to graduation but yet when we're on athletic buses are we going to enforce the six foot rule if you read the email it reads like we're picking and choosing the guidelines we're choosing to enforce i'm gonna ask you has the board attorney seen that email because it reads like complete insanity their guidelines are you going to heed all of them some of them are none of them why don't we make up our mind on a positive note so i want to end on a positive note tired of complaining all the time does anyone recognize what this is this is a mask designed by coach whipple for the boys cross country team okay why isn't this part of the uniform for every sports team he started it girls tennis coach follow it makes the team look unified okay i've been so impressed with what coach whipple did and i said i didn't want this public but i'm making it public been so impressed with coach whipple the past four years with the tone he's set with all the kids that my wife and i made the decision to start a coach whipple scholarship there are fees that this district imposes on our athletes and that cross-country team at ohs has a chance to get state next year i'm not letting these fees get in the way of one varsity athlete blocking that dream you don't get to go to state that often back in 1990 1988 i had the privilege to go to state in indiana and win a state championship you don't get that uh often i'm not gonna let our fees get in the way i'm proud of coach whible and that's why we did what we did are the rest of the coaches up to the same task because apparently they're not item 6.1 board member comments anybody have anything raise your hand mrs moyer first this is my big statement um no i did want to um you know take a minute as this is my last full full you know real real feel kind of board meeting um so you know i wanted to take a minute to say something and i thought that i would have something really profound to say i've thought i'm in the car and you know commuting ruminated um about things that you know you know profound statements um so i sat down i wanted to be well prepared sat down to begin writing it out and just got totally stuck you know and after staring at the screen for a while i really kind of came to the conclusion that i think i need more time away from the the position and the um experience to really reflect on what it's meant to me um so i don't have anything really profound to share right now but i do want to take this moment to thank some people um thank you to our teachers your job is a difficult one it's more difficult than i ever imagined and i think a lot of us not in the educational field think we know what it's like to be a teacher because we've experienced being taught we've had teachers we've been students and you know what i've realized um and my tech with my time on the board and also getting to observe virtually and what what a classroom looks like um that what we see is just the tip of the iceberg so um now more than ever i know all of you teachers out there need to not just be needed because we have needed you badly over the last year and a half but you also need to be appreciated and so please know that you have my heartfelt appreciation for all that you do for our students thank you to all of our staff our teaching assistants our administrative and secretarial staff our support staff nursing staff bus drivers custodians all of you who keep the district running kind of working hard toiling away in your own corner of the district world to make every day happen for students and teachers you are seen and appreciated thank you to our administrators building administrators our central office you are our chosen leaders and you are shouldering great responsibility and great great pressure especially the last again 18 months you do it all juggling the varied and often conflicting needs of our students parents staff community board members so thank you for doing a often thankless job thank you to our students you're why where i'm sitting here my interactions with students over the years has been so powerful keep showing up and keep making like keep showing up and make sure that we're listening to your voice is really the most important voice that we have and we need to be listening to you thank you to my friends who have offered words of encouragement and support even through really tough times and i'm sure moments of them thinking what is going on up there what is what's happening um those little messages have really kept me going when things felt difficult thank you to my fellow board members those who have served with these last four years those who have come before me and those who will be leading ahead of me it's a tough job but it's work worth doing and i appreciate really all of your time and your commitment to this very important and demanding volunteer opportunity that's really critical to all of our students and finally thank you to my family my son was in kindergarten when i was born in now he's going to be a big fifth grader and i had a toddler when i started four years ago which is pretty unbelievable now at kindergartener so they have endured and really been just fine many nights away from mom so really the big shout out has to go to my husband who is not watching tonight i may never really know you know what i've said unless i show him my notes here but he has picked up the slack whenever i have dropped it without most mostly without complaining but he um has been unbelievably supportive so i appreciate my time here on the board i appreciate everything that you all do and um it really has been an honor even through the very very challenging moments so that's it mrs morgan um you know a lot of times we've talked about parents and how hard it's been this year for parents and i just want to my comment is pretty brief but i want to highlight two parents who've done a terrific job um tammy and dallas coburn who sadly this past week lost their son in a car accident and he is part of the graduating class that my daughter is a part of 2017 he was turning in a car full of kids going into judson university and i think something happened and two of the kids were killed in the car accident that happened um this thursday there would be a visitation from six to nine at judson university and then there will be a memorial service on friday at 10 but i just want to point out that no matter what's happening with your kids just be grateful even if it's very hard it's better than what these two terrific parents are facing and they were absolutely wonderful it's their only child and i just wanted to say that here because that's hard thanks sure yeah so it's it's our last uh full meeting um and i will i will take this opportunity to say that i 10 years ago now decided to run for and won a seat on the school board at the time there were some very difficult issues being discussed within the district for those of you that don't remember there was a push to build a third high school i'm happy that i was part of of that group that found and saw that there was an alternative and as we all know we did two additions at the high schools for half the cost of a new total third high school and our the timeline of our being able to run these two buildings without exceeding capacity and needing that third high school has surpassed even my expectations so that was i'm not taking 100 credit because we're aboard of seven but that was something great that we did for the district that actually think it helped everyone opening another large high school in a district of this size tends to tear the district apart even further because you splinter affiliations but i think the bigger point i want to make is as as much as i was um dead set on what my thoughts were around that building and my reasons for running for school board it was more about the way it was being presented to the community when administrators at that time who were no longer in the district said if you don't approve this third high school your kid's going to be learning math in the hallway i wanted to make sure that this district doesn't ever use those tactics again no matter what it does and i will tell you that in my time on the board obviously not everybody agrees with me and i don't agree with everybody and that's perfectly fine i know that i have personally helped make this district better as each and every one of us has helped make the district a better place from hiring practices to starting salaries to curriculum improvements you name it we have covered the lot i learned more than i could ever imagine and i think i in the last term i was able to provide back to the district more than anyone would have imagined in terms of the history that i was able to bring forward to help the board move forward instead of repeating bad ideas of the past avoiding those pitfalls i love that i am an expert on school district finances and i love being able to share that information i know tony when you first got on the board we had some conversations even though we knew we didn't always agree on things that was wonderful that you reached out to me and said help me understand this because that's what i'm here to do is to help share that knowledge so that we can move forward together the district has continued to have various issues that we have to deal with unfortunately they're mostly focused around finances while there are some things happening that are going to help this district in the short term it will continue to be an issue for this district that is the funding of public education in this district and so i wish those that come after me the best of luck and godspeed to the district our students and our staff thank you i guess we're doing it i mean you don't have to no but it's the right thing to do um so unlike heather i didn't take the time to write anything profound and think it through um but thinking about it tonight i thought oh my gosh after eight years john dr sparlin and maureen i think well brent for except for youtube for a period of time um everyone's relatively new so there's been so many administrators that have come and gone um some uh disappointingly some not so disappointingly but it's been a great privilege working with you to dr sparlin the eight years we've we've been together through this and i'm glad you're still here i really am um you can learn a lot from the administrators the teachers the building administrators i encourage the incoming board members to take the time build those relationships it's wonderful to come in with the mindset of what you kind of want to do a fresh lens a french fresh lens is always going to be good but there are so much to learn there is so much uh even after eight years that that i'm still learning and that i'm that i learn from faith faith's been you know relatively new as an administrator but there's new things that she continues to teach me so i encourage the incoming board members to be open-minded and take that knowledge and run with it um the the teachers and the building administrators the custodial staff as heather said there are so many people who are such an important part to make this run we can show up a couple of times a month and talk about some of these bigger issues and make votes but without the 2000 staff members that run this institution day to day it really doesn't matter what we do up here so it's always wonderful walking into this building and even though the staff here working at night i don't know them by name but they're always welcoming and greeting and it and it's wonderful and i have to think that they're that way to every single person that walks through that door so that's an important factor um lori i thought that as board president going through a superintendent change a boundary redis restricted thing budget cuts and reductions was a lot to go through i give you a lot of credit for working through this district through this pandemic for what we've gone through it's not easy it's been tough on everybody but it has to be have has to have been really unbearable for you just thinking about it day in and day out so thank you for leading the board through that process it's not easy and to every board member that's sitting up here i know the time that this position takes from each and every one of you i know the time it takes away from your family from dinners the emails the phone calls it is all consuming sometimes and you really have to set some parameters for yourself so i know what each and every one of you have given up or sacrificed to be up here and i thank you for doing that as well that has to be has to be said and that would be my last bit of advice for the incoming board member is proceed with caution because this can be involving it can become a second full-time job and you really have to be careful of that so focus on your kids focus on your family and then the district so um just thank you for allowing me the time to to serve with you guys i appreciate it and wish everyone the best of luck moving forward item 6.2 board committee reports finance and facilities brent would you like to your last hurrah just think how many questions that trivia night you can answer about school finance i think i'll do my own version of uh pictionary or one of those games school finance school finance properly um so uh thank you ruth yeah we met last monday a week ago on the 19th [Music] we got a budget update so thank you very much as always for the work that the finance department and you christy do good numbers to look at these are happy things that we've been able to over the course of this budget year bring that gap down and narrow it and it's it's it's not it you know it it's unfortunately that we had to use budget cuts to ensure that we're on the correct path but i'm i'm happy i think ruth is happy as well that we're we're on a good path uh looking better than last year we spent most of the time on monday talking specifically about the elementary and secondary school emergency relief act funding the school district is going to get quite a bit of money i don't want to quote the wrong number 12 million 12 million um [Music] thank you 12.7 million it's spread out into different tranches um and some of that money has already come in and we've already realized that towards projects such as we know um chromebooks uh more of that money will come in it is recommended i i i don't think i got the chuckle out of the group that i expected when i pointed out that the state of illinois provided a 162-page powerpoint presentation telling districts how to spend the money i'm pretty sure we can figure this out on our own again that document is recommendations there are no requirements there's no strings attached other than obviously we are supposed to direct those to operations and education really can't be used for for bricks and mortar [Music] the we think that the kind of the next step if you will is obviously there are a number of priorities that the district has had that we've kind of had to put on hold due to budget constraints and so i i hope that the the district because i'm not going to be part of it um on a on a day-to-day basis but i think that the district will hopefully be very mindful of placing those dollars uh in the most impactful places possible um and and hopefully less of the one time and more of the things that can help us build upon building an educa a better education for all of the students in the district we talked about um i guess the the theme of the meeting was talking about well how is this money going to get allocated and and obviously there are a number of ways that that's going to happen the administration obviously is going to make recommendations the board itself is going to have ideas on how things should be allocated the finance committee meeting would like to meet in the fall at their next meeting because we're done for the summer pretty much we actually talked about possibly meeting over the summer we don't know if that's if that's workable or not but um and just letting the finance committee assist if there are deeper questions that the board wants dovan into regarding those spending and those needs so i think there is a an offer from the committee to help and also a desire from the committee to if nothing else at least understand what the goals are and what the thought process is ruth would you add anything to that nope i would agree that that was definitely a desire to be be part of the process and you know they want to help provide solutions if possible which is great that's what you want in a committee yeah very engaged which is a good thing teaching and learning well we had our um teaching and learning uh meeting on april 14th um we um we had a you know a small a relatively small group but it was a really really good group at echo what brent said and really really engaged i think it was a really it was just a really positive meeting maybe with that smaller group the exchange of ideas was able to happen a little bit more naturally so um we um went over the consolidated district plan for federal grants which doesn't sound super exciting but it was come on it was great actually i think was really helpful i think it provided a lot of really helpful context um for our committee members um around you know the different um grants that we have and the restrictions and um guidance around how we can spend certain dollars and how those that decision making kind of comes into play um so we spent actually a good amount of time uh and that and asking questions kind of back and forth um so much so that we didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked to on the next agenda item which was um a really nice grid you have it in your um email it's linked in your email with the minutes um but the what was it called the changes from covid that we could possibly continue and it's a nice grid of just some different things of you know lessons learned um we were able to focus on a few of those areas um with parents you know in particular able to provide a lot of really good thoughts and feedback around you know around some of those areas but i think we had said this may be a good one though it's not really up to us um to put on the agenda uh maybe for our next teaching learning or an upcoming one so that we can delve into more of those ideas that faith had kind of put together in that grid tony what would you add i don't need to add much i think it was a really good meeting i think that preserving what is done right in covid is a good step on the district's part and i think faith put it together nicely but it was stuff that came from a lot of different departments and a lot of different people and i'm all for it i think i've seen a lot of things that could be saved and could be cost savings and could be training people more specifically for professional development and making sure that kids get services that maybe are more varied or there would be more minutes available for services and things because of some of these changes so all those things are great 6.3 superintendents report good evening board uh at our last uh meeting i shared the wonderful achievements of three of our oswegovi students jensen coonrat ethan ashcroft and gavin roman regarding their selection as being finalists in the 11th annual samsung solve for tomorrow competition last week they were interviewed by fox 32 and they did a wonderful job representing themselves oswego east and district 308 i had the opportunity to speak with each of them today on the vizwiz and it was a wonderful conversation again i know there are many people who are very proud of them but i felt like the uh they deserved to be mentioned once more i also wanted to share that last week i met with approximately 40 high school students who have shown initial interest in applying for the student ambassadors to the board of education positions uh those students have until may 14th to submit those applications so very exciting to have that kind of turnout for this first round last week was national signing day for student athletes this is a day when student athletes commit to their verbal scholarships they've received from colleges and between our two high schools we had dozens of student athletes commit in a variety of sports so congratulations to the student athletes the coaches and their parents on all the hard work and that the kids will be able to continue their education and their sports and their collegiate at the collegiate level and congratulations to our high school students who competed in this year's southwest prairie conference literacy festival uh students submitted writing in the following categories poetry short fiction personal narrative personal essay critical essay dramatic script and descriptive sketch uh our students from both oswego high and oswego east uh combined for 50 51 of the awards that were issued at the festival this year so congratulations to our students and the sponsors on another great season so congratulations and that is my report for this evening i have a question dr sparlin do you think enough people are voting for the vizwiz project online every day you know what i wouldn't i wish i would have asked the students today because like i said i just i just had my conversation with him at three o'clock today and i did not ask that question but i appreciate you reminding him because everyone you can vote once a day until may 30th yes and that's i saw that even on a big banner downstairs so we should all remember to vote every day and the information for that is on our district website correct risa all right thank you very much item 7 approval of consent agenda i have a motion to approve please i make a motion to approve all items under consent including 7.1 minutes for the april 12 2021 board of education meeting open and closed session 7.2 to acknowledge the foia request received by the district and 7.3 to approve the illinois high school association membership renewal for the 2021-22 for both oswego east and oswego high school second mrs moyer aye mr lightfoot aye mrs croner aye mr powerman aye mrs swanson aye mrs dorial aye ms morgan aye motion passes seven zero information item 8.1 is information on information on financial statements does the board have any questions regarding items 8.1 item 9.1 bills for payment can i have a motion please i make a motion to authorize the payment of bills in the amount of three million two hundred and ninety six thousand two hundred and thirty five dollars and thirty cents as presented second mrs swanson aye mrs doyle aye ms morgan aye mrs croner aye mr bowman aye mrs moyer aye mr lightfoot aye motion passes 7-0 item 9.2 i make a motion to approve the following board policy section 8 community relations 8 colon 30.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
okay welcome to the april 26 2021 regular business meeting of school board of trustees held in public with a start time of 605 this evening if we could all rise we're going to ask mr hoffman to lead us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge of allegiance united states frozen okay adam two board of school trustees resolution accommodation awards we have a few awards this accommodations this evening to start with 2.01 the 2020-21 taft dance team we have 2.02 the 2021 cromwell high school varsity dance team for being named the state runner-up and the varsity double-a kick and receive the sportsmanship award at the ihs dta state finals let me rewind for a second i didn't give the acknowledgement to this the taft dance team was named the indiana state junior high assemblies junior high assembled champions and then 2.03 the crown point high school 20 2020 2021 latin club for being named overall state champions and winning the sweepstakes trophy placing first in the helen wappler spirit award second in a publicity contest first for the t-shirt design first for local chapter publication the tempus conus and second for the sharon gibson community service award at the indiana junior classical league state convention do we have a motion to approve these wars second moved by mr angel and second by mr babjack any questions or comments all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 uh sounds like um now we're on a little loud mr gill are we okay i'm talking fairly quietly okay oh if i could have my taft dancers please at least step into the room here so we can hear this thank you and you can stay right there for now ladies look a little bit further you're good thank you all right we're trying to pro covert protocols so i'm going to read these accommodation awards so we have madeline kendall and elise did i say those right yes okay good we're off to a good start all right so resolution accommodation reads as follows the crown point board of schools trustees is honored to commend these ladies for meritorious achievement here hereby resolve at the board of school trustees the crown point committee school foundation crown point school corporation wishes to express sincere congratulations to these ladies for being a member of the 2020 2021 robert a taft middle school dance team for being named the 2021 state ensemble champions at the 2021 ihsa dta state championship the board of school trustees publicly recognizes this achievement and renders it permanently to its minutes to be preserved for public posterity dude this 26th day of april 2021 and then in addition to that kendall also was named the indiana state high school champion for being a sole champion at the ihsa dta state championship is that correct all right see i got through that right so congratulations dude ladies uh madeline elise clark [Applause] and kendall fedex [Applause] uh coach anything you would like to say about the ladies and the performance or anything about the season well congratulations ladies we will need to get a picture so if you move into the center there parents if you want to jump in right behind uh you're more than welcome to we'll make sure they stay there for those thank you ladies uh if i could have my christ uh crown point high school dance team step in please or those ladies that are here from it we understand that some of the ladies had additional conflicts so we're glad that you can make it resolution accommodation the crown point board of school trustees is honored to commend the 2020-2021 crown point high school varsity dance team for meritorious achievement beer be it hereby resolve that the board of school trustees for the crown point committee school corporation wishes to express sincere congratulations to the 2020 2021 crown point high school varsity dance team for being named state runner-up and varsity aaa kick and receive the sportsmanship award at the ihsa dta state finals the board of school trustees publicly recognizes this achievement and renders it permanently to its minutes to be preserved for public posterity in the 26th day of april 2021.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
okay we are live but we're going to give it a couple of seconds because we told everyone we would start at five o'clock and just to give them an opportunity to get onto the computers to be able to or their smartphones be able to watch us and give them a little time to be able to do that absolutely so far it says we have about five people watching hi everyone yeah it's always nice when i see this eye and it tells me a number it's like oh i feel like the house for the day okay um so welcome laura and i want to thank everyone in the community for joining the amherst pelham regional schools and the fort river community for our second of four community forums we have asked staff and caregivers to send us questions that they would like to have answered by all the principal candidates and in addition to those questions that were sent in by the community i also added some questions that you may find familiar that was in your interview so you will have an hour and 30 minutes to respond to the 14 questions i kind of added two more just giving you one an opportunity to repeat yourself and your qualifications as we go further into the session for those who get on the call later and then another um just brief tell it you know anything more that you'd like us to know opportunities so it really comes up to about 16 questions or 16 opportunities to speak to the community and um so you have an hour and a half to do that with those 16 questions and points and you just want to make sure that you are ready absolutely i'm ready to go so thank you yesterday i made sure that we had a the candidate had their water bottle i hope you have your water bottle next to you because that's all ready you're gonna make you want to stop and take i'm gonna start with some water okay so to begin and you know this is basically par for the course when you're being interviewed or in a session with the community we'd like you to tell us about yourself what roles responsibilities experiences and licenses you may have that has prepared you to be the next principal of fort river elementary school so without further ado laura take the stage thank you so much doreen and welcome everyone i really appreciate you joining me and doreen and and your fellow community members this evening buenos dares to everyone um i'm very very happy to be here so i had a few slides that i was going to share but you know it's a different platform i don't really know how to do that so you might i'm going to read off a couple of slides over here because i just want to make sure that you get um a full picture of who i am just the same way that i think it's really important in the school that we learn about the whole child i want you to know me fully and know about me so um so who am i uh first and foremost i am a learner um and that is why i am in education that's why i love schools and i really appreciate this opportunity to learn about what makes the fort river elementary school community unique and vibrant um i have had lots of different school experiences i got my training and as a school leader at bank street college of education and um that really influenced my leadership style and i will share a lot about that today uh or this evening sorry day night we're on all the time right so um i have 15 years of experience in public schools in new york city uh i am currently an assistant principal at a pre-k through 5th grade school in sunset park i predominantly work with pre-k to second grade teachers but i do a lot of coaching math coaching and specifically this year in the upper grades and so um i'm part of the leadership team and uh though my adult uh sorry though my direct supervision is with the younger grades i interact with all staff members uh prior to being an assistant principal at ps24 i was an instructional coach i worked at a pre-k through eighth grade school on the upper west side and i worked with teachers in all grade levels in different capacities social emotional learning play we were implementing a new reading and writing curriculum and also a new math curriculum as well as developing the social justice uh program that i'll talk more about later on i'm sure before then i was a teacher uh for the majority of my career i taught fourth and fifth grade at the neighborhood school in the east village and before that first and second grade and prior to that second grade at a school uh in brooklyn where i currently live so um that's a little bit about you know a little a little overview of my different learning and teaching and leadership roles um i really see myself as a progressive educator that's a very very core part of my identity and i wanted to talk a little bit about what that means to be a progressive educator because um language is really important and what those words mean can mean different things to different people so when i say a progressive educator i really center children and i really think about human-centered experiences in schools i believe that children bring gifts passions and interests as do all the adults who are in the building whether it's staff families i believe that schools need to be a center for support and they should be in there should be places that are responsive to the people who are part of the school community and another really integral part of my identity as a progressive educator is that justice and equity and anti-racist practices are really inextricable from schooling so that's really important in thinking about how we develop children um into critically conscious citizens so um i want to tell you a little bit about uh myself as a parent i have two children my son is a kindergartner his name's benoit he's been doing remote kindergarten all year and my daughter pascal she's four and she has been doing outdoor school outdoor preschool uh all year this year as well um and so you know that's a big part of who i am and thinking about the elementary school experience and the last thing i wanted to say about myself is that i am a very dedicated community member i'm a community member here in my neighborhood in my school where i work i'm a very active parent and just like all of you who are joining us here this evening um i think it's really viable to communities to really voice you know voice your questions show up and so um i really appreciate all of you being here today um oh one last thing okay i could really go on and on but i'm just gonna i do want to just um share a little bit of my my my educational stance because that's also important and i think reflective in the way that this interview process has gone um i really see schools as being democratic spaces in which everyone's voices are valued respected and needed so i really do appreciate the way that all voices have been included in this process and i'm looking forward to hearing more about what everybody wants to talk about this evening so you mentioned that you live in brooklyn and i'm sure that many of the people on the call would probably be wondering why amherst you're all the way in new york why amherst and you know why would you come here and stay here i'm glad that you asked that question um so my family uh here in brooklyn we have um we're all very active in our community and um we have uh we've really enjoyed you know i grew up in new york and we really enjoyed being part of a vibrant community and we live our lives outwardly we are you know always out in the neighborhood with other families um we're involved with you know you know all the local businesses um and we're really ready and we've been thinking about a move from new york for some time now um and we've been looking it's been a very big process for us um this is not a coveted time decision this is something we've been thinking about um you know i think the last time we were up was in december of 2019 we have some very good friends who are in the amherst area and when we the last time we were there and we've been there a few times we really felt like it's a place where um that really mirrors a lot of our values and that mirrors um a lot of what we want for our family in terms of community in terms of culture in terms of diversity um and in terms of experience so um i'm very excited to uh to be thinking about this and to to learn more about why amherst is such a special place for all of you okay so question number two says how will your leadership style influence teacher instruction so one of the ways that well first of all i think that any um partnership in terms of a person who's a school leader or a supervisor hopefully has a positive influence on teacher instruction and practice that is that's the number one thing to have another set of eyes a partner um as i mentioned you know it wasn't so long ago that i was in the classroom and so i really do think about the experience of teachers and children and families in the classroom it's not a distant memory it's very fresh to me i believe really and truly that i am a teacher of teachers and i take that role um pretty seriously um it's also the thing that brings me a lot of joy in this role uh i take an adult development stance when i work with adults so the same way that as teachers and as parents we think a lot about child development and how it's really important to know you know at each at each stage how children are growing we need to have that same attentiveness to adults and so taking an adult development stance really considers where different um teachers and different staff members are in their learning where are they in their careers is this a year where teachers are working on a new grade level is this a teacher who has you know been uh a more veteran teacher that has been you know part of the fabric of the school for a long time and so i think really being responsive to where teachers are in their careers and really tapping into what their um goals are and helping them to reflect on how and which ways they want to grow and in order to do all of that i think that the base for all of that is relationship building so without having um a relationship where you can be vulnerable with one another and really talk about what's going well what's difficult and planning next steps none of that growth can really be possible so that's really at the core of it all okay all right so thank you for that question number three says knowing that there is a pandemic and students and staff are just returning to in-person instruction what is your vision for a fully thriving school committed to equity social justice and the social emotional well-being of students and staff yes uh it's it's been a very challenging time it's been a very challenging time for everyone and um the pandemic has really magnified experiences and challenges that people faced before the pandemic so i think that it's it's really crucial to remember that um everyone is struggling in different ways and we need to think about what kinds of supports people need as we move forward um i think moving forward you know we're we're all moving forward and there's a lot of hope right now i think in terms of returning to in-person learning i've been able to read more about that in terms of your school district and we've certainly experienced a lot of we just had our own wave of of children come back into the building this week um so it's been a real test in terms of being responsive and really thinking about making those intentional spaces where people can really take a moment to reflect to grieve to process what's happening things have been ever changing you know for over a year now and in ways that we never imagined and so i think that for the health of a community and for the individuals in that community it's really essential to um to prioritize social emotional health mental health really checking in with one another about how we're taking care of ourselves um you know schools are full of caregivers and it's really important to recognize the different ways that people have um have been affected during the pandemic um so you know continuing to move forward together and always making sure to have those intentional planned times to reflect as we reimagine school together okay question number four says and this one should be familiar it says at fort river we consider all groups to be critical stakeholders in our schools how would you work effectively with a diverse group of families and caregivers who may have values that differ from yours how would you get input from groups that have not felt included in school decisions in the past so it's a really important question and i think it that question is related to the prior one in thinking about where those spaces are where people can feel heard and the ways that they can feel heard um that's something that i've reflected on a lot what it would look like coming into a community um as a new school leader as a new community member and um you know having intentional planned listening circles uh and ways that people can have an opportunity to voice what's been going well what has worked for them what hasn't worked for them that's a very um crucial part to um the entry plan that i would that i've been thinking about and working on in considering um what my first steps would be coming into the fort river community um i think something else i'm trying to slow down a little bit i think i'm feeling i'm honestly just feeling a little bit nervous then i want to make sure that i address everything so i'm going to slow down just a second um and say that um you know there's that that part of the question where you said um you know how do we how would i think about what voices were missing right like what voices maybe have felt left out in the community before and that is my personal responsibility and that's something that i'm always looking for not just what are the voices we're hearing but more importantly which voices are missing and there can be lots of reasons why um we're not hearing from folks it could mean you know that um you know certain conversations are taking place at times that don't work for people and there are all different kinds of ways that people want to be involved in community whether it's being part of parent organizations whether it's that you're able to drop your child off and pick them up or whether you're able to be part of a community event so it's really important to keep a pulse on what are the opportunities for people to participate and be part of the school community um and to listen for and look for ways to involve folks who you know maybe the the current ways that things are happening aren't really like bringing them in because i think everybody has something to share everybody um everybody has talents everybody has an investment in their child and in the school and so we need everybody's input in order to make sure that school is a place that feels responsive to children and to families okay do you want to pause for some water or anything cause then thank you i know you were saying you were feeling nervous and sometimes just stopping for the water can can relax you a little bit don't worry you're amongst friends here so or hopefully we'll be friends right um so the next question just goes and says tell us about a time when you had to make a decision that you knew would be unpopular what steps did you take prior to making this decision and how did you handle the pushback if there was any thank you for that question there are a lot of decisions that need to be made in schools and um they don't always meet the expectation of what every single person wants so i have a pretty recent um so coming into this school year um our school was tasked with figuring out the best sort of model for hybrid instruction um where students would come in for some of the time and they'd be learning from home some of the time and some children would be learning from home remotely the whole time and um the district and the city provided us with a few different models some possibilities of what what that could look like um the teachers union also provided some input about um what teacher responsibilities and roles could look like um and then of course parents you know we had a lot of parent voice about what worked for our community and um what they were hoping from this school year for their children um and so that was a lot to take in and a lot to consider in thinking about um maintaining the integrity of our school uh programs and also thinking about what our priorities were as a school and how to keep things really as stable as possible in a really unstable and unsure time so sort of the first process was taking in all of the information from these all the different constituents and from the different levels of you know information and of course you know health and safety and all of that on top of that which was a major consideration and what we decided as as a leadership team was that a priority for us was that children had the same teachers all year and that felt really crucial to the support of our children we had already kept cohorts of children together as they moved up because they had had interrupted time in the spring and so children were already together and we said to ourselves well it feels really important to us that um children have a home base so whether they're at home or in the building they have this home base and we really want to make that work it was really really hard to do because in all these different models and all these different ways um in considering how many people could safely be in a room together how many children um felt like the right amount of children to be in an online classroom there are a lot of different um factors so what we did was we um we came up with two as a leadership team which includes myself another the other assistant principal my principal and then a bunch of different teachers who are also part of our instructional team we came up with two different models and um one model was more it was closer to one of the models that we'd been presented with from the city and then the other model was a more creative approach which would allow for teachers to and children to stay together but it required teachers to wear multiple hats and to sometimes be teaching um in the classroom but also be teaching remotely as well and it was it was scary you know it seemed like there was um there's a lot that would have to be negotiated and um we felt like this was not a decision that we could take lightly so in terms of our process we brought in our great team leaders so there's a representative from every grade um as well as one of our enl teachers and we presented the two models and we said here are the two ways that we could go about this and hear the pros and cons and what do you all think about this we had conversations this is probably mid to late august um teacher leaders then went back to they went back to their teams they also discussed these models um and they came back to us with more questions and concerns and um ultimately what we were able to negotiate as a staff was to do this more creative approach even though the demand would be greater on teachers we knew it wouldn't be a one-size-fits-all we couldn't just say this is going to work in the same way for everyone but what we did know was that um it felt right for the children we knew that teachers would be teaching in their license areas and that our programs would remain and remain intact which felt really important we weren't going to be pulling anybody to teach something that they you know they weren't qualified to teach um and we were also able to then think about well what are the individual supports that teachers might need and we were able to bring in some substitute teachers or additional support staff for teachers who really felt like you know it wasn't going to work for them to to be wearing these multiple hats so um that um that's something that um that that definitely was not popular with everyone but that we've continued to work through and it wasn't something you know something that everyone felt invested in in terms of the making and it has especially at this point in the year when now we have many more students who are back in the building um i think that you know the children are happy to be back with their same cohorts um for the most part there's always an exception right um there's always an exception but um and so so we we've we've really like worked hard as a community together to make this this this work for everyone okay well thank you for that are at question number six and it says what is your ideal discipline policy and how would you develop such a policy okay and i don't know this is the point where you're going to revisit that social justice program that you talked about at the beginning yeah i think i will a bit yes um so i the first place that and i think durian you've probably heard me say this a couple of times because when the when the term discipline comes up i really think about the root of the word discipline and discipline at its root means to learn right and so i do think that in terms of thinking about a policy um it's really thinking about these opportunities for learning and for teaching um in situations where children are you know not meeting the expectations um or you know sort of following the guidelines of the community agreements or norms so um that's the place where i think that it's important that um you know having shared expectations and having shared norms within the community are you know crucial that it's a living and breathing and shared um uh philosophy i did have a chance to look at the pbis you know program that currently is at fort river and i looked at the matrix and i thought about oh these are really like elements of like what does it look like and what does it sound like or feel like whether you're on the playground in the music room wherever you are like what does it mean to be part of our community um and so i think that you know a discipline a discipline policy is one that really feels like everybody understands it and everybody has um a say in it but also one that is responsive to the individuals because um i'm going to go back to that thing if there's no one-size-fits-all and so it really needs to be a policy that's responsive to individual needs i think that you know as individual people and especially as our younger learners really have different um different challenges at times or different needs that they're faced with and so we can't have a policy that says you know if x then y z but really thinking about um what is it that individual children need to be able to understand what the conflict was what their responsibility was in it to take ownership of that and to plan next steps together and all of this of course in partnership with families because i think that school is really an extension of home and so the more that we can have those home to school connections the more that we understand that like the way that we move throughout the world it's not something where like you enter school and you have to be one way and you're at home and you have to be another way you bring your whole self to school we bring our whole selves you know where wherever we go and so really understanding that um you know our needs are going to look a little bit different i don't think i'm getting to the social justice part in this question um but you know i think what i think the overlap maybe is being responsive to individual children and to the way that different children um bring themselves to school right so that that to me feels like a culturally sustaining and responsive practice to say that like okay who you know who's part of the community and how do we understand how we operate in school and in the world um and really take our cues from that as opposed to it being a disciplined policy that feels like a monolith that feels very apart from um that's part of the institution and not part of the individuals right and the only reason i brought it back that social justice program is because you mentioned it with question number one and you said we'll revisit it later so i didn't know if you wanted to revisit it now but well i actually i didn't even get to some of what i wanted to say in my introduction so i was going to weave it in at some other point so yeah so i i figured that i would be able to come back to to that in terms of of the work that i do it every day as a school leader okay all right so that was question number six let's go down to question number seven which says can you give a specific example of action steps you have taken to implement restorative practices in your current role or in your prior schools okay sure so in terms of um restorative practices so as a classroom teacher that was definitely something that was part of my work especially when i worked in upper elementary school classrooms um as a teacher and also as an instructional coach so um i guess that my first this must have been about like five or six years ago when i was first thinking about um restorative circles and practices and how those could be opportunities for um really developing you know better sort of strategies for conflict resolution and community building in the classroom so at that time i was working in an ict classroom with an integrated co-teaching model so in the classroom there were children with ieps and there were you know children who did not have ieps but everybody who had different kinds of needs and my co-teacher and i she was the special education teacher we really were seeing a need coming from the group for specific processes and ways for us to come together and think about some really big questions and some really big um questions around race around identity around gender that were coming up for the young people in our class so that's sort of the inception of of where it started for me as an educator um but if we sort of fast forward a little bit to where i am now i would say that restorative you know practices really do extend beyond the classroom and are really a place for us to think about how people in a school work together um so more currently i would say that the restorative practices that i um engage in are really more adult based at this point like thinking about um and i think part of this has been really in response to the pandemic um thinking about ways that this sort of you know comes back to that idea of spaces and intentional places where we can process what's going on um you know recently we had um a staff meeting around crisis response and crisis response can look very different if you're in the classroom versus in an online classroom and crisis intervention can look very different if you have a child who's in the classroom a couple of days and not so we really wanted to expand our thinking around crisis intervention and really brought it back to thinking about ourselves and ourselves as educators and how we bring ourselves into the school what are the ways that we're in touch with um how we're feeling what our triggers are um you know what might be going on for us in our own families um and so we're in a better place to really help children to regulate and to think about preventative sort of ways that we can um work with children so that we don't get to the point of crisis right um so um those circles have been monthly circles that we've done during staff meetings and it's all you know over zoom or in this kind of format so we've had to be very creative and thinking about you know what are the ways that we um really hold to that idea that everybody is able to participate that there are ways that everyone feels safe in participating and no one feels put on the spot um you know that we share share the mic unlike what i'm doing tonight right but like how we get all voices and um and how we um you know we we continue to hold that space as we have to continue moving on with all the other demands and things that that are happening around us okay and so the next one just adds on it says how ready and equipped are you to address issues of racial justice please provide examples of how you engaged with this type of work um yes and i recognize this this question from from the interview i think as well and i spent a long time on it during the interview and so i hope i have time to spend on this on this as well um so how ready am i so i think that there's a couple of different ways that i need to approach this question one is personally and one is professionally um you know i am someone who um identifies as being biracial i am black and i am white and i have had you know my own experiences growing up where you know i i confronted issues around race and around equity and in my own family and so i think that that's important to state because um sometimes when these questions get asked you know it can feel like um we get pushed to talk about where things started professionally but i wanted to start on that personal note um in terms of my work in this way um in school communities um i really i really started this you know i guess when i was back when when i was at bank street and i was doing my action research and at that time i was um i was teaching i was doing a lot of different teacher leader roles i was doing my administrative internship you know i'm sort of all over the place in my school and i was really interested in the experience of children of color in the school and that led me to this question around race and if we were a school that talked about race um and so that was now gosh um i guess that was back in like 2011 or and so that has that sort of core question has really um guided me as i've been in different contexts and in different spaces in my leadership work after i left the classroom and up to present so when i was um in the classroom and in at the neighborhood school i was part of the diversity committee uh which was made up of parents and of teachers and um we you know we were able to really i guess the best way to put it is my research was was a place where i was able to start planting seeds and to think about you know where are the places that we can start having some more um focused conversations and some real honest conversations about the way that race is operating in our school and we were able to bring in an organization and partner with um at the time they were called border crossers now they're called the center for racial justice in schools i hope i yes i think i got that um the center for racial justice in schools and so um it was a real partnership between the pta and the um and the staff in coming together around um you know different trainings and workshops that were very responsive to for instance um one issue that came to light was that there was a real inequity in the way that some of the parent organizations were were running um that a lot of parents felt like a lot of the uh focus was on fundraising and other people felt like well is my time and my commitment not appreciated because i come in and i volunteer and i'm you know making costumes and i'm helping with bulletin boards but like how do we you know how do we really like think about what the culture is of these of these groups um and so um so that that was a school that i was a part of for you know for for a long time i was i was sort of a long-standing community member and then when i left the neighborhood school and i was a new uh community member at the riverside school for makers and artists um they also you know were um thinking about like race and the school and issues that were coming to light um but i was a very different person in that in that um in that context i wasn't a classroom teacher i was a coach i was working with school leadership and so in that context i was able to work with a committee of teachers to write and apply for a grant that we were awarded i think we were one of nine schools that was awarded um a year-long grant again with the center for racial justice in schools to work with the school um and so um you know there were different kinds of things that were coming up um at that school than there had been at the neighborhood school but there was clearly a need for facilitation around these types of conversations um and so um in my current context now uh you know these conversations are really like part of the everyday work that i do um it's not something that feels like an add-on it's not like a separate committee it's really just it's part of the work and it's really at the forefront uh and the way that i guess in formalized ways that i'm continuing this is through there's the equity team that is school based at our school and we're really thinking about teacher expectations and how that gets translated and communicated with children and families but then in another way i'm also involved in district level work where right now we are working on equity in mathematics and thinking about how there are overlaps in conversations around math instruction and practices and um how that affects um our young people so that's a very brief version but i think in the current work that i'm doing it really does bring together more ideas more um school leaders in partnership with teachers in every school so i'm partnering with a third grade teacher at my school she's looking specifically at practices in her classroom i'm taking a wider lens and i'm thinking about language and the kind of language that we use to describe children and um currently i'm informed by the book school talk which was written by um mika pollock who wrote everyday anti-racism which came out a few years ago so a few years back i should say um and so i hope that gives like a snapshot of both sort of like my um professional journey in this work um but also gives a flavor for the way that it's really just at the heart of of what i do every day i hope we have time for other questions wow we surely do we have quite a bit of time okay so question number nine says speak to the importance of art music physical ed tech and library instruction in our students education and in our school community absolutely i'm so glad that that is a question because it really does show that it's um those are valued parts of school at fort river and um and i think that the more that's the more that we can help children to make connections and the more that school can be integrated as opposed to cut into different sort of periods or subjects the more the children are able to make meaning of the world so i think you know in all of those different ways um you know i think that the more that we can partner together as educators and think about where are these overlaps um if there's a unit of study um you know that is about let me think of you know if we're studying like rivers for instance that's that's you know a big unit of study um in third grade at the school that i worked at so if if that's the the topic then how are we incorporating the arts how are we thinking about um research and how do we use the library as a hub for information and how is library not just a place for books but really a place um a meeting place for all these different ways that we access the world um thinking about you know um how science plays into that thinking about you know how we you know physical education you can think about like moving fishing swimming like all those different ways and then of course music you know i can't think of anything more more lyrical than than nature so i think that really thinking about how these are not like um you know specials or that these are places where children go to do very different kinds of things like how do we bring all of these resources together so that children can really see the interconnectedness of it all because i think that that really sparks a lot of curiosity for children and really helps to engage children in ways and in different ways using different modalities do you want to pause for a water break or anything [Music] all this talk of rivers and swimming i was thinking we're also at question number and we've only been on for about 43 minutes though we have time okay i'll slow down a little bit good reminder so question number 10 this one should also be familiar it says at fort river we have three distinct programs the caminantes which is our dual language program we have aims which is a specialized program for students who with the high functioning autism spectrum disorder there's building blocks which is a specialized therapeutic program for students with emotional disabilities and it says can you please discuss your experiences with each of these populations sure yes so i think it's really exciting that fort river is a place with the opportunity for children to both be together in one campus and one school and also to get individualized support and individualized learning and individualized instruction so um my experience with each so at my current school we do have a dual language program um so we have dual language uh classes in pre-k through fifth grade and um i will say that i i'm not an expert i always want to be honest you know um i am i you know came to the school and have learned a great deal i've learned a lot about the different models um you know i've learned about roller coaster models side by side we looked at best practices we visited other schools and thought about different um language color coding and thought about um you know different ways that we can ensure that we as a school are taking in the latest sort of research and the latest sort of um practices to help strengthen our dual language program the dual language program has been part of the school for a long time but it's been evolving and it's been it's changed as leadership at the school has changed um so that's definitely a place where i have growing experience and i think that it's a place um where it feels like it's something that's very important to the fort river community i have you know been able to do some research to see about the inception of the program and it seemed like there was a really big um need for it and a really a lot of enthusiasm behind it so it's really great to see that so many people are invested in the program and seeing it grow so um so that's that's really an important thing in terms of the identity of the school um the aims program uh feels similar though not not um no no two programs are the same but also at my school we do have an um a program called the horizon program which is for children who are on the autism spectrum it's an eight to one to one program and i think what you said was the amps program is for um for students who have high functioning autism spectrum disorder okay so um our program is not necessarily high functioning it sort of varies sort of on on the spectrum um but um what i have learned so our horizon program we're in our we're going to be starting our third year so we have two cohorts of children we've been growing the program from kindergarten and um i've learned a great deal you know i've worked with children on the autism spectrum before um but i have not ever been a teacher or specialized teacher in that program but i've learned a lot we are uh we've partnered with both the programs is in partnership with nyu and so there's a lot of learning that goes along with it i've done a lot of coursework aba training we've thought about ways that um i think we went from thinking about having a program at our school to thinking about how is this our program and how do we make this really a part of the ps24 fabric and so the thing that i think the place where i am right now in it is thinking about how each child is different and each cohort can feel very different as well so how do we think about um staffing how do we think about responses to parents how do we think about the kinds of supports that people need what you know especially thinking about incoming kindergartners where for many of our students it's their first you know school experience so we've been able to put some really um good structures in place especially as we're growing to second grade next year um we've trained some internal staff so we haven't brought in external people but really like you know growing it from within and um and right now we're at the point of like registration and all of that so really thinking about like as people are coming in what do they need to know so that they feel part of our school family um and then within the school even with all the constraints that we have right now in terms of you know um social distancing and all of that what are the ways that we are integrating um you know and having uh moments i'm losing the world uh hang on what are the opportunities for um inclusion that's what i was looking for for inclusion so that um you know we saw that uh actually you know we had we had our we were able to prioritize our horizon program so that children came in they've been coming in five days a week and they've had a lot of experiences together both in their own classrooms but now at this point of the year with more children and the weather getting so nice we are now at the point where we're thinking about okay what are the ways that children need to you know want to be part of you know recess or lunch or being outside together so um it's really been a really nice evolution to be a part of um i could talk about that for a while but i want to make sure that i get to all all three programs and um the third program that the third district program is the building blocks program and um again as an educator i've had individual experiences with children who have been in my classroom and then you know have benefited from being in therapeutic or more therapeutic environments and i think what has always sort of been a shame in that is that children were then they weren't able to be part of the schools where i was they always had to go to a separate program or to a separate kind of school and so it's really inspiring to me to think about having a build a program like this that's part of the school i have had personally as a school leader training in tcis training through cornell it's therapeutic intervention in schools and that was something that came out of a need within our school last year we had um in our we had a kindergarten cohort an integrated an ict classroom so special education teacher general education teacher students coming in children coming in in kindergarten and you know as children come into school some children have challenges that haven't yet been identified as challenges or you know maybe some new sort of challenges present themselves once they're in an elementary school setting and so uh we really thought a lot about what the children were saying that they needed and what kind of supports teachers and paraprofessionals and office staff like what what people needed to be able to support children in school and so we really sought out the tcis training and a team of us went and we we were trained and thinking about diesel diesel de-escalating situations and thinking about ways that um that we could continue to um build in programs in the school that anticipated these kinds of needs so again felt more proactive rather than than reactive so um that's a little bit you know i think it's it's really heartening to hear about these three programs and to really think about um just sort of the parallel or the mirrored experiences that i've had with children and families that have been in similar programs um such as these so it's it's exciting to think about it's exciting to think about so we just talked about the coming on this program for a second and the next question goes further into it it says caminantes is the dual language program in fort river how will you support the mission staff family and curriculum of this program and serve as an ambassador of the program in the larger community absolutely um so i i remembered this question um from the interview and i did have an opportunity to look up the mission of the program and i i was really inspired and um it gave me a lot to think about to think about the similarities between the mission of the program and the mission of the fort river school community and all the overlaps that were there so thinking about words like how it should be a nurturing place and how ways that we want to prepare children to be global citizens and be part of the world and so i think that thinking about the ways that the program lives within the school all the things that are similar in the way that you know what we want for children in the dual language program is the same as what we want for children in in all of the programs um and then thinking about what's unique about the program as well and so i think those curricular questions are particularly important um i'm someone that thinks a lot about curriculum and pedagogy that's that's really you know a lot of my experience is in curriculum development and so um you know at my current school we had to make a lot of decisions this year about you know how we were going to continue to meet the needs of children in these different contexts and we you know a really critical piece of our decision making was around our dual language program because um you know there are a lot of really great curriculums out there but then the workload falls to teachers and falsis staff to do a lot of translating or to find a lot of the materials and and there's there's a lot of work that gets additional work that additional pressure that gets put um that gets put on just a smaller kind of subset of of our school and so um you know i think that keeping in mind like what's good for the school and what's good for the dual language program um that's really crucial in decision making so we actually decided to adopt the expeditionary learning curriculum because of all the really rich resources that already existed um you know in spanish and all these different you know amazing kind of opportunities that the children could engage in from the get-go where we didn't have to you know do a lot of this the sort of back work and legwork on our own so i think that so in that way i think there are ways that like the priorities um of a dual language program then inform the priorities of the school i think there's there's a back and forth in that and then that question of being an ambassador you know um i think that it really does um it it really is important to think about like where the program came from again i touched on that a little bit and like where this um need came from and i would really want to hear from um the families and from the teachers who are part of the creation of the program because that would really inform me in thinking about how are we engaging in the greater community how are we engaging with other schools that have dual language programs what are the desires of families who are in the program who are spanish dominant families who what are the priorities of families that you know are learning spanish as a second language um i am i'm not a spanish speaker but i am an advocate of dual language programs my daughter is in a french immersion program i speak french to my children at home because i'm of haitian descent and so i really believe in you know all that dual language programs can offer children and becoming both biliterate and also just you know all of those really amazing things that happen in the way that we problem solve and the way that our brains work when we're able to think um and and be in two different languages so it's a little bit of what i what i bring to it and i would want to know a lot more i would want to know a lot more and hopefully i wouldn't be the only ambassador because i think that it's good to have it's good to have you know people who who who have like hold the institutional knowledge of the place and who hold the history to be able to to speak to that as well to continue that that thread and let me see at this point we have a little more who have joined us when you first started so we can take the moment and go back to that first question again for you to tell us about yourself and what roles responsibilities experiences and licenses you hold that helps you to be the next or prepare to be the next principal at that school sure welcome everyone i'm glad that you joined us it's okay that you had to join a little bit late we're all being asked to be in a lot of different places simultaneously right now so thank you for being here this evening bonastadis i'm very happy you're here so i shared a little bit about who i am and i hope to give a fuller picture of who i am because as it's important as important as it is as um educators for us to know the whole child i want you to know me as a whole person so i have i'm reading off of a slide which i was hoping to share with you all but it'll help keep me on track so that i don't forget anything to share with you um first and foremost i am a learner um i am someone who is very excited about school and being in school and learning about the unique priorities of the fort river community i have 15 years of experience as an educator currently i'm an assistant principal at a pre-k to 5th grade school in sunset park in brooklyn prior to that i was an instructional coach on the upper west side at a pre-k through 8th grade school and i worked with teachers in all aspects of curriculum and before that i was a fourth and fifth grade teacher and a first and second grade teacher and before that a second grade teacher i'm at two different elementary schools one in the east village in manhattan and one in brooklyn so that's a somewhat shorter version of what i said at the beginning um but i hope it gives an idea of the different roles that i've played as an educator i do identify as a progressive educator and it's important for me to tell you a little bit about my philosophy because it really does drive my decision making and it says a lot about my stance as an educator i really believe that schools are human centered places where we need to think about what's developmentally appropriate for children and also what is developmentally responsive to the adults and all of the learners in the building i think we can't just focus on the children we're all learners and we're all coming to school with different strengths and with different needs i take an adult development stance so that that comes from that in terms of my leadership and i really believe in the unique talents and the capabilities of people in schools and justice and sorry social justice and equity work is really inextricable from all of that it's not an add-on it's not a separate sort of thing that we need to address on the side it's really part of what it means to be responsive both culturally and culturally sustaining ways and also in individually responsive ways so that really anchors the way that i interact um and with people in the world i would say i was going to say in school but that's that's really just just who i am um i am also a parent and that's you know that also is a big part of my identity i can't just wear my parent hat or my teacher hat or my school leader hat i wear them all at the same time i have two children my son benoit is has been doing remote kindergarten all year he's six years old and my daughter pascal she's four years old and she has been doing outdoor preschool at a french immersion progressive preschool so she's just she's been out in the park um nearly all year um so um i'm also a very involved community member and i was saying that you know for everyone joining tonight um i'm like all of you you know a very active i want to know what's going on i want to ask all the questions i want my voice to be heard and i want to hear the voices of others i'm an active community member in my own school in my own neighborhood and also in my children's schools i'm actually the class parent of my son's class i don't know how that happened but it's it's been great and it's been really nice to be able to connect with other families even though we've been in this remote environment um and i've also been um i guess more like a thought partner for my daughter's preschool especially as they decided to pivot and changed their whole model to outdoor school so that it was really you know in terms of safety and in terms of the philosophy of the school um that was the best move for the school so we really have been i've really sort of seen it from from both angles again they're they're my three hats all at once um in everything that i do so um so i oh sorry so i think what what else did i want that oh um i think it's also important to just state with my what my educational stance is for schools because that also uh i think is reflected in this in this interview process and what makes me feel like fort river is a really good fit for me i really do believe that schools are democratic spaces where all voices should be valued and heard and where all voices are needed so i'm really deeply appreciative of all of your questions and i'm happy to hear them because it tells me a little bit about you and it helps me to share about myself so thank you so much um and i'm really i'm really happy for a reintroduction so um thanks for the opportunity to do that you know every time i ask that question or go back to that question during the the interview process i always say huh they're gonna watch it on on youtube later on anyway so they they can always rewind and hear but i still ask it anyway okay so anyway question number 12 it says what thoughts or ideas do you have for bringing a sense of joy compassion love and unity into fort river elementary school at the student level staff level and for the whole school that's great ideas so many ideas so um i think where i would want to start and then i'll address the question is i would want to know what is currently bringing joy to the community and what um you know i have a deep respect for places and histories and so i think it's it's important to know like what are the traditions what are um the ongoing um you know experiences so that that all continues to be part of the school um and so you know there's there was one parent who shared with me about um ways that her daughter created these hearts and brought them to the school and made them for for everyone in the school and that that really stuck with me in terms of a story and i was like what a great idea you know that's not my idea that's a that's an idea that came you know from a first grader and so um you know i think that uh that when we cultivate joy it's something that we do together as a community and i think that you know ways that we cultivate um love and cultivate joy are really through shared opportunities for making and doing together um and there's tons of opportunities for that in a classroom but what are the ways that we can be intentional in thinking about that so we can continue to get to know each other and to learn about each other in new ways um so i think you know a big part of my um philosophy and teaching is that curriculum is what happens when people and materials meet it's not something that comes out of a book you know we can be influenced by ideas but it's really about making and doing and so um you know a concrete idea that i have about ways that we could continue to cultivate joy at fort river is to have experiences to have um project time or work time together um and so i'm thinking about those three different levels doreen that you said the student level the staff level and as a school and so one way again always having to keep in mind the current context right so what are the ways that we can be together in communities safely um because we want to be together right we want to be together we've been apart for a long time um but how how can what are what are the ways that we can do that and so um you know i've been thinking about the the beautiful area around fort river elementary and all of the ways that the outdoors can be a place for making and doing together opportunities for play opportunities for gardening opportunities for creating and those could be you know when i was a teacher we had a dedicated project time that was part of the curriculum where students had opportunities to work with different materials um that sometimes were very linked to what we were doing in the curriculum and at other times they were very independent projects that children wanted to explore on their own and so i think that having project time or a work time where children can have those opportunities individually in partners across classes hopefully and having the outdoor space to do that that's a really beautiful way to you know to make and do and and be together and then just to sort of like think about in terms of concentric circles you know thinking about ways that families could come in and lend their expertise you know i'm not i'm i'm not a woodworker um but there are plenty of people who are very handy and who you know have different things that they want to bring i really am um uh i i'm a very beginner knitter and i was noticing during um the last round of interviews that there was somebody knitting and i almost wanted to say to her like oh what are you making because like that's something that's really inspiring to me and i think that that's something that that that those are ways that we can share with each other um about ourselves and about our cultures and about our backgrounds um and so thinking about places where parents could come in it seems like there are already structures for families to come in from from what i read in the handbook opportunities for families to come in for visits um but maybe even thinking about community days or you know community project days where there would be again these these ways that we could be together safely um and then i think from a staff level you know there's a different kind of intimacy there i think there's certainly you know it sounds like there's certainly staff members who are also parents so there's a lot of crossover in that you know you can't again just wear the one hat but um i think in terms of staff thinking about ways that staff members are able to share with one another about you know what's going on in their classrooms opportunities to really like celebrate the wins and celebrate what's going well and to problem solve around things that feel trickier um i was really happy to hear that there are a lot of structures for collaboration that are already in place at the school and so thinking about really like building on that solid foundation and what are the other kinds of opportunities and ways that people could continue to have um you know cross cross grade sort of connections um in school and then also all of those ways that maybe teachers can connect outside of school um i guess i'll just throw one more out one more idea out there um you know a way that i think that like as as educators we're always like sort of on the move right because there's a lot to manage there's a lot to do and so again thinking of intentional space as um i you know one thing i've been involved in before is staff retreats where we have decided it's not like a spa day unfortunately which sounds really lovely um but a staff retreat is really thinking about a time where everyone in the community can come together around an idea that's coming up for the school you know next year will be a moment of transition um and it will be a long transition right like it takes time to with all the things that are changing um and with kids coming back now and with new leadership in in this in the fall so you know where the places where maybe a staff retreat could offer you know whether it's an afternoon or you know a weekend morning just ways to come together um as a community to um to be together and to you know have some opportunities for shared visioning and for um sharing of ideas and sharing sharing of ourselves in ways that you know like that go beyond like the classroom and the hallways thank you question number 13 says how would you support ford river staff to demonstrate their expertise hmm well i i feel like that that really does go hand in hand with thinking about cultivating joy and and compassion and togetherness um so i really do feel very strongly about schools being democratic spaces where all voices are included and also i believe in distributive leadership and so i think really the way that i see myself as a leader is a facilitator and somebody who really helps others to see all that's possible in themselves i always come in and say i'm not an expert i have experiences i have ideas um i get really excited about things like staff retreats you know but like maybe that's not what other people are excited about either and that's okay right um i think that in order to demonstrate your expertise you have to have someone who gives you opportunities to do so where you have that platform or you have those opportunities um you know i i this is the like this amount of time talking is not something that i'm used to doing i am much more um comfortable and and i am much more because my style is more facilitating hearing voices pulling together those threads echoing back what i'm hearing and trying to you know echo something back or move the conversation forward from what i hear coming from the group and so um you know i've heard i think that the word uh the adjective that was used was um that the staff is exceptional at fort river and so i have no doubt that there's a lot of expertise and that people you know have been at the school for um there's a lot of experience at the school as well um as parents as teachers some people uh i think there were some people who said even their like their partners had gone to fort river as children and so um there's a lot to tap into there there and um that's something that i'm really seeking out in terms of this next move is really being um in a community where we're doing the work together where you know i it's fine if we need to move the rock up the hill as long as we're pushing that rock up together um you know whatever that is i really do feel like um we can like work together in partnership and really inspire one another and push each other and be critical of each other because um you know i think that there are places where there's a lot of support but there's not a lot of sort of um uh what's the word i'm looking for like uh people build each other up but they're afraid to really help each other grow by being critical friends of for one another and so i think that that is is really important like being able to recognize all the ways that we're experts and also really being able to recognize all the ways in which we need to grow and how we're going to support each other to be able to do that um so i i tend to say that like when people come with questions like answers are overrated so but there are lots of questions that we can think about together and that we can work on together um in moving the school forward as a team okay so the next question says what is something you have done that you are especially proud of and it does not have to be work related that's a nice question to be asked um something that i feel especially proud of so it's been a very it's been a very difficult year you know there's been a lot that the pandemic has brought to light for um for myself for people as individuals and for parents right um i am just a couple of days ago i was listening to an episode of the daily um which is the new york times podcast and it was about pandemic parenting and i was actually i was going for a run and i was listening and it's always like the right amount of time because it's like 25 minutes so i can always time my run like with that podcast and um i was listening to all of these voices of parents and i just i burst into tears as i was listening because there has just been so much that has happened this year for children um for parents for parents who are educators and so i feel really proud of me but i really feel proud of us in making um and making every day just you know just moving forward and making every day happen um it could be very small wins but um i think that we really do need to recognize all of the ways that um pandemic parenting has been difficult for families um and the ways that children have like just continued to like grow and be resilient in all of this you know i look at my own children and the ways that they've adapted and the ways that they're mirroring back for me the you know the feelings that i'm having and the way that i'm mirroring back for them things that are going on for them and so um it's really taught me a lot about myself and um and it's really opened up a lot of possibility you know i i'm really deeply appreciative of this interview process and how i've been able to reflect and it's given me space to do some really exciting imagining to really like think forward in a time where a lot has been reactive or you know a lot has been about safety and and and it continues to be but like having that space to like be vulnerable and really start to think about the future has been really energizing for me and so i'm really really grateful for that um and i think the last thing i would say about that is that um this year has taught me a lot about what leadership looks like um i have had a few conversations recently not at work but with people in my life who have thanked me for my leadership and it has really expanded my thinking of the different ways that i show leadership so different family members who've who've had to make decisions difficult decisions about you know whether or not to sell their home whether or not to you know like make these really big kind of decisions and um and without any prompting several different people have thanked me for my leadership and it has made me realize that really like my my um my strength is being able to understand what people care about and really help them to meet their goals however that looks and to keep checking in with them to help them reflect and to you know keep going and so um i i'm thankful for for the time that you've all given me to be able to reflect and to think about you know how i'm going to be moving forward as well and these next steps um in my career and hopefully with all of you so thank you nice and the last one says is there anything else that you'd like us to know about you um well i i guess i would just come back to your question doreen about you know how i'm in brooklyn right now and and you know and i and i'm really excited about this move to amherst and so for anybody who who wasn't on the call earlier i just want to reiterate that but like i really am very excited about all of the possibilities that um the amherst community could bring um you know for myself for my family for my children and um i just see so many parallels between um what i value in community and you know some of what i've learned about the fort river community as well and so um i'm i am very excited to learn more and i welcome all the tips and i welcome all all the all the insider information about um about the amherst area because um it really does feel like a place where um where i can bring my whole self uh in terms of being an educator being a school leader and and a parent and a community member so thank you well thank you for joining us and um we are excited that we've had an opportunity to hear about you and your experiences and you know it is 6 19.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
and good evening everyone i'd like to call this meeting of our school committee to order for monday april 26 we have a role called please miss chris oliver shannon jenkins here kathleen admiral here mary wait here john nunes yep and thank you very much everyone as a reminder for governor baker's daughter suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law chapter 38 section 20 the public will not be allowed to physically access this school committee meeting the meeting will be conducted remotely members of the public can access the meeting via live stream at youtube.com forward slash dhs tv media in addition the event will be rebroadcast on dc tv channels 9 and 18 on the following days wednesday and thursday at 5 p.m friday at 6 a.m saturday at 8 a.m and sunday at 2 p.m school committee reserves the right to implement additional remote participation procedures and will notify the public of these procedures as soon as practicable just so everyone knows we are coming to you remotely this evening as immediately following our school committee meeting we'll be having a joint session with the select board and the finance committee so we look forward to that uh with that at the time we typically allow a few minutes for anyone wishing to comment on any of tonight's gender items uh miss gunther have you received any public comments i have not thank you very much and as a reminder the viewing public can always uh forward their comments for uh first to consider it to kathleen genther at dartmouthschools.org and and we can revisit that um at the end of this meeting with that being said here we'll entertain a motion to approve for the approval of the regular session minutes of april fifth twenty twenty one i got a motion by mr nunes a second by dr jenkins i believe that was on the motion any further discussion it was uh either miss amaral or miss waite it was not me it was not you okay i had my screen minimized that's all right so that mustard it was miss amaral or mrs amaral i think we both did at the same time we'll give it to kathleen any other discussion we'll call please chris oliver yes shannon jenkins yes kathleen ameral yes mary waite yes john nunes yes and thank you very much passage unanimously uh next up not sure if we have our student rep uh on the with us uh this evening i don't know if uh he was supposed to be joining us or she uh they were coming perfect i had thought so i wasn't sure perfect but this time we it looks like we have morgan joining us uh good evening morgan how are you hi i'm good how are you guys good thank you so much thank you so much for joining us so we're just uh you just missed it we are just at the point where um we're going to turn it over to you for our student rep report see what's happening uh over here perfect so um as you guys know we just had april vacation but before that around 130 sophomores took advantage of the opportunity and we all took the psats which was um pretty scary as somebody who took them i was a little nervous but um it's important because it's sat practice and the sats are normally taken next year as a junior so it's good practice for that we also have four student artists work on display at the new bedford art museum which is interesting so there are dartmouth high art club members which is gabby ruda mia carter and julia gilchrist they all have art expeditions on display under the topic passage of time and then senior shout outs are underway if you follow the dhs instagram and twitter accounts they have daily senior shoutouts to our graduating class and all that they've accomplished at dhs which is really interesting and the still with the seniors they began signing their commitment to graduate banner during their lunch sessions today and spring sports also be gone which was pretty cool over the next few weeks we start the mcas session and then further on we do start ap tests so lots of testing coming up yay but yeah about it right now awesome well sure sounds like there's a lot going on uh congratulations to you for getting through the psats no thank you for your report do you have anything else for us or does the committee have anything uh from morgan no thank you morgan thank you morgan thank you have a good day everybody you too thanks you too take care perfect so we thank morgan for her report um and at this time we're going to uh typically after uh every year annually after the election we have the reorganization uh per school committee policy of the dartmouth school committee so at this time i am going to turn it over to dr bonnie gifford so in her role as secretary to the school committee so she can take accept nominations for the chair very good so obviously um at this time i will take nominations for the chair for the new coming year thank you dr gifford i'd like to make a motion that we nominate dr jenkins as the chair of the dartmouth school committee i'll second that mary wait i'm stuck in okay other nominations i would like to for are we doing this as a any this is discussion right sure you can you can nominate someone else for chair yourself no i don't [Laughter] did you want to add something no i don't no okay okay um do we need to take a roll call we just do um yes yes mr noon says yes okay roll call ms ganther krista oliver yes shannon jenkins yes kathleen admiral yes mary wait yes john nunes yes congratulations do you continue do you continue to run elections uh dr gifford does that go over to me now now it's you i'm all done i did my part so at this time i will uh entertain uh any nominations for vice chairman i would i don't know i would love to do the honor thinking back to my first term um i would like to nominate if she so chooses to accept mary wait for vice chairperson this year i'll second that all right so i have a nomination by miss amaral and a second by miss wait uh by mr oliver miss wait do you accept that nomination i do thank you are there any other nominations all right so then we can close the nomination are there any discussion on the nomination okay hearing none ms ganther can we have a roll call please chris oliver yes shannon jenkins yes kathleen amaral yes mary waite yes john nunes yes thank you guys thank you um all right so our next order of business would be to uh i will accept nominations for our appointment of secretary to the school committee i would like to uh nominate dr gifford i'll second that all right so i have a motion by mr oliver a second by mary waite any other nominations don't go forward at once right all right if there are no other nominations is there any discussion on the nomination with the same rate of pay correct all right so hearing no further discussion um ms gender can we have a roll call please mr oliver yes shannon jenkins yes mary wait yes john nunes yes all right so according to the agenda the next item of business is for me to make comments but i'm not one for long speeches so i will just say uh thank you for your votes and i look forward to working with you all again this year our next item of business is the school committee assignments um do you want to sort of go through these in order and the sheet that ms genther gave to us and see if anybody wants to switch or stay is that how you guys want to proceed that work that's fine it's fine right now we have mary waite at the dartmouth education foundation mary will you do you want to stay there for certain sure and i i also you you do that too you do that as well but you've been doing that really more than i have so we'll say you're the official representative okay mr oliver we have you down for the uh smack the southern mass educational collaborative do you want to stay in that role i think you've been in there quite a while which is good for continuity but if you want to change it up that's fine too i i'll be happy uh to stay with that position um i look for i'm i'm currently the chair of the uh southeastern mass collaborative so i'd be happy to continue in my role there given that your chair let's keep you i there that catherine cooper says thank you mr nunes is currently our representation to the masc the massachusetts association of school committees mr nunes do you want to stay there or do we want does anybody want to take over for that um i'm good with that that's great thanks thanks john excellent mr news we also have you as our negotiations representative um and ms amarill is the backup um can we leave it at that were you still willing to do that for us mr nunes sure we definitely i know i appreciate your willingness to do that as it's a difficult time for the rest of us to make so we really appreciate you doing that um and ms amarillo can you still be back up i mean mr dunes is so dependable i don't think you have to back up very much so awesome last year we decided that we would have no specific school assignments do we want to continue with that or do we want to go back to school assignments what's the committee's opinion on that one can i ask a question actually in that note in the past what have those assignments entailed since i came in and we were you know not you know specifically targeting schools or within our domain there wasn't i don't think this i'm going to look to mr nunes our sort of committee historian but i don't think there are any specific duties it was more just the administrators could know that if they wanted to talk to one that was their assigned representative yeah that's exactly what it what it was you know okay you pop in take a walk around this you know make an appointment with the building administrator and you know pop in and walk around and talk with them every once in a while that's fine you know the way it is right now personally i think it's fine we're all we're all available you know i mean schools are just really now starting to get back into into going so you know i think it's it's better if we leave it the way it is that sounds fair that's my opinion i would agree i would agree okay so we're all on the government that's going to leave that one okay um next on the policy committee we have uh kathleen amarillo and mary weight uh that's fun you want to keep that you guys fine with that yeah it was pretty minimal this past year so it was fine for me to stay on okay and then mr oliver you were on the technology committee and i am perfectly happy staying on that committee considering my background background yes um we have the fields and facility committee which i'm not sure but i mean we can continue to have that and have representatives mr nunes and miss amaral i'm not sure if you guys met or what happened and again i think with the government you know there weren't a lot of meetings type of deal especially with the stadium renovations right and then we offered that was the big thing so go ahead mr oliver and then also i believe mr kylie correct me if i'm wrong there's also the turf field committee um that has been kind of overseeing the state this specifically the stadium project right right i would expect that we may meet this year though on the field on the facilities committee so okay um do you two want to say or somebody else wants that that's fine too no i can do that i'm good with that okay um i feel like my name's only on here once miss amaral do you wanna um do you want me to replace you on that or do you wanna stay on that um i'm i'm happy with what's the committee's pleasure um you know my difficulty this past year has just been that 3 30 hour it's really tricky for me my son coming home but um i've only come into conflict once so um i'm happy to stay you know well you can just leave that that's fine um the budget committee is mrs zamrall and myself with mr nunes backup you can leave that the same as well i mean we can leave everything the same as i think there hasn't been a ton of work on a lot of these committees in part b and pandemic pandemic pandemic so i think it may make sense just keep them as they are um ms we did mention that there are two sort of assignments that aren't on here that we might add and one is the diversity committee which is ms amaril and myself which we haven't met yet so i don't think we want to change it up but i do think we should maybe put that on there with respect to assignments and then wade is also serving on the charter committee yep um and i think again for continuity sake unless any of you are dying to jump into the charter review committee i think i actually kind of like it i have to say believe it or not but they they meet barely once a month so i i'd like to stay on the committee unless someone really is desperate to you know put me off i don't think any of us are but i so i i would like to see um miss guenther if we can add that to the to the list when we finalize um after all this so i think dr jenkins go ahead mr oliver thank you and i would just like to add i'd also like just like to thank mrs heidi brooks as she is our other uh school committee representative uh to the child to review committee and i believe correct me if i'm wrong mrs wade but she has taken over the chair yeah she she's taking over the chair exactly yeah and just like fabulous job that's awesome but yeah so i'd just like to take this opportunity to publicly thank uh mrs heidi brooks uh for her role there great yes i will echo your thanks that's a big my husband served in that role the last time this came up it's a lot of work so much appreciate her for stepping up to that and agreeing to serve as one of our representatives so i believe that we've decided we're not going to make any changes we're going to add those two committee assignments to that document do we need i don't think we need to make a motion here no this is a oh good that's what i thought okay so if there's any other just is there any other comments questions concerns if i may just yeah no i just wanted to i don't know if i just want to quickly thank chris for his time serving as um chairperson uh this has been a very difficult year and i know previous i i really only served uh in in the preliminary stages of covet not you know and and you really have stepped up and done a great job this past year and i just wanted to thank you for your service and um and shannon as well as vice chair so that's all yeah i'd like to echo that you know great job guys it's been a tough tough year been managing a lot and certainly many more meetings from what i understand that we would typically have and just um you know there's there was a lot so thank you both my thanks to mr oliver who did a lot of that work it was thank you and thank you for your kind words everyone knows certainly a lot um i'm more than happy to uh see it see it go over to dr jenkins i tried to convince him that he should stay on for another year but that didn't work [Laughter] i was wondering all right so the next uh item on the agenda moving on to new business is the 2021 summer sports camps um but i believe mr kylie are you gonna talk to us about this muted mr kylie i am yeah thank you um so i sent an email i apologize it was a little late it was this afternoon um and what we are proposing is to do a summer sports camp similar to what we have done in the past it's now been a couple of years obviously since we didn't do one last summer so we would be talking about summer sports camp for students grades two through nine a variety of activities it would be a five-week uh five consecutive week um where students can be signed up for any particular of athletic pursuit that they enjoy we will keep the cost the same as two years ago so it'll be eighty dollars per week we are hoping to finalize soon the dates it would either be june 21st or june 28th this year is the beginning of the cycle would start then it's a little difficult because we're actually going to have high school sports um still playing at that time which we normally wouldn't so we're working on that it will be based at dartmouth high school and we will obviously have all cobit protocols in place and we will include uh you know statement to folks who sign up that you know obviously things are subject to change based on health requirements and the covet situation and you know we need to be flexible like we need to be in in all things these days previously you know in previous years the camp has made a small profit like a couple of thousand dollars the last few years so we hope that we'd have the kind of enrollment we get about we've had about 200 students uh enroll two years ago so we hope that you know we'd we'd find a similar number of students interested um or maybe more maybe people are going to really want to get out of the house um after you know having gone through all that we've been through and basically those funds can be used to support athletic equipment or pe equipment needs for you know for the schools so that is our proposal and i'd appreciate your consideration on that does anybody have any questions for mr kiley mr oliver thank you madam chair uh just really quickly i think uh you think you're right mr colley i think we'll probably end up with a lot of parents wanting to sign their sign their students up just based on trying to get out there especially uh with this opportunity so i i'm hopeful that we'll have a great uh turnout any other questions comments all right so we have a motion to approve from mr news do i have a second second all right a second from ms amarillo is there any other comments and questions um no this is great and i i i agree that we're probably going to see more families interested than in past years and i just appreciate when i you know in the planning that um having one week at least in in june uh would allow for presumably potentially uh students who participate in extended school year to have an opportunity to sign up for um you know a camp if they so choose so that's really appreciated i know that's that's there's been an effort for that over the last several years um and that's just to note really really good and thank you for the equity in that the other comments i will just echo my colleagues and say i'm super excited just you know this step towards a little bit more normal i know camp's gonna look a little bit different um but the fact that we're gonna be able to do this this summer makes me excited so um yay um no further if there's no further discussion uh ms ganther can we have a roll call please chris oliver yes shannon jenkins yes kathleen admiral yes mary wait yes john nunes yes excellent our next item of business is revisions to the handbook um dr gifford are you gonna lead us through this yes um so we'll be looking for a vote for approval for the handbook for this year noting there are only three changes i'll call your attention to um really not anything substantial but on page 12 the dhs cost of transcripts was increased from four to five dollars so that's been added to the handbook on page 13 we took out wording that talked about progress reports they have no longer given out since all the teachers use aspen there's language about families accessing everything they need through that and also on page 14 a simple change of what we call now we call a student support team it used to be called case management team so it's just a little housekeeping things nothing substantial so we would ask for a vote of approval for that and so let me just dr gifford this is the one that's common to all of the schools and then typically the high school does a supplement to that right yeah that's right that's right other questions for dr gifford i'll entertain a motion to approve the handbook with the men's the changes that dr gifford outlined one second a second i need someone to move it first all right so we'll go mr newton's moved in and miss wait seconded since she already seconded we don't have to go to that any further discussion uh hearing none can i have a roll call please miss guenther chris oliver yes shannon jenkins yes kathleen amaral yes john nunes yes mary wait yes okay our next item under new business is the superintendent's update so hand it right back to you dr gifford thank you and um seeing we only have um half an hour so uh the important thing is to have mr tebow here as we know we'll be moving to bring the student the high school students back full in person asap just as a reminder the middle school students are coming in on wednesday and um in anticipation of the high school coming in there's been a lot of work going on of course so we asked mr kibo to come on board tonight to provide a little update to that he's there somewhere very cool hi can you hear me yes we can hear you so i couldn't start my video so i'm hoping mr pirati did that for me uh it would it would not let me start my own video here so um thank you for having me um i put together a quick oh now the host has asked me to start my video all right there we go all right here i am um i'm going to share my screen if it's all right with folks just because i have a presentation that kind of quickly goes through what i think are some of the questions that folks might have and at the end i'm happy to answer any questions um you know that um folks might still have so you know one second i apologize i have not used zoom in a little bit because we've we use google me at dartmouth high school so let me just mr tebow if it's any consolation i i'm now associate dean at our school and i chair meetings of our faculty and they're all like telling me push this button they're so good with the technology and i haven't been in class and i'm not so i know that feeling so here it's you know zoom is just different enough from google me that it presents these challenges so i think you should be able to see my google slides presentation now hopefully um so real quickly i thought i'd just give a quick overview i would talk about the two learning models and then um i know what's uh you know what's on a lot of folks minds are what are the health and safety protocols and then as i said i'll answer any questions so quickly just an overview if i could summarize it in one sentence it would be that the biggest difference is we're moving from six feet uh of distance inside of the classroom down to three feet that's the biggest um change in terms of safety um measures with with as we transition back to full in-person learning so obviously you know more students means less space in a classroom so our classes will be at three feet of space between students as opposed to six feet as i said that's the minimum three feet is the minimum obviously in some of our smaller classes more space will be possible but three feet will be the minimum um another change is that hybrid learning will no longer be an option for students once we go to the full in-person return the two models will be full in person or fully virtual the other piece that i would stress is that all of the covet 19 mitigation measures are going to remain in place and i give a lot of credit to our teachers our faculty and our students especially because they have done an excellent job this school year in terms of being compliant with mask wearing washing or sanitizing their hands frequently throughout the day um you know so so those mitigation measures that we know are so important um especially the mask wearing i'm very comfortable in saying that they're well established and and have been um you know our students have done a great job with it this year morning arrival and dismissals will remain virtually the same lunches i want to stress this lunches will continue to be six feet distance between all students at all times um you know so i'll talk a little bit about how we achieve that uh in a second so the two learning models as i said it's full in person meaning that we exp you know students who opt for this um will expect them to physically report to dartmouth high school five days a week which i know um many of our students are looking forward to uh our teachers i know are looking forward to having increased in-person time with our students as well again classrooms will be arranged to provide at least three feet of distance or there are some classrooms which we talked about this back in the fall our science classrooms are our art classrooms and our computer labs in those classes in those classrooms it's um it's just under three feet when you measure seed edge to seed edges the guidance calls for so in those classrooms and you'll see a picture of this on the next slide in those classrooms our maintenance staff has worked diligently to install plexiglas barriers in between each student workstation so that there's that protection um between students only students in the full person in full in-person learning model only students who have to quarantine due to covid or medical reason those students are going to be permitted to join class via google meet obviously because we we want to continue to provide them an education if they should have to to quarantine the second option is the full virtual learning model and for that option students will be enrolled in ingenuity um we have 164 students who are currently in edge annuity and as we started this planning we reached out to to those students to the families of those students and we asked you know if um we were to return in person what would your preference be um and only somewhere in the ballpark of 10 to 15 students and it has shifted a little bit that was a month ago already that we did that outreach so it shifted a little bit but it's still around 10 to 15 students who have indicated if we return in person they'd like to return um you know they'd like to return um so you know the the full virtual learning model like we think will be fairly stable meaning students who have already been in that model will continue in that model however if there are students who are uncomfortable or parents who are uncomfortable with the three feet that is an option they can um you know have their student begin full virtual and we will customize those edge annuity courses so that the coursework represents what is doable and um you know uh practical for the final however many weeks where we're back in in person um again i can't stress enough that the hybrid model is going away and i'm stressing that because we want our students unless they're sick we want our students to come in person one of the challenges that we have had in the hybrid model is some students have opted to remain home and not because they're ill necessarily but they had a long night of homework so and i get it i i understand that um but that's that's a challenge that um you know teachers have have uh found to be you know daunting at times when you have half your students in front of you half of them you know remote figuring out who's who just an added challenge that you know kind of takes away from the educational experience so once it's once we are full uh in person and that's the choice that student has made unless they're sick we want them to physically come into the building and the department of ed has also stressed that the hybrid model um isn't an option moving forward once we go full return they've actually gone ahead and said that those hours would no longer count towards time on learning um if you remained in the hybrid model so that's the reasoning for just the two models here um i'm sure there are some questions about transitioning from one model to another and i kind of alluded to that if students are returning from the vla to full in-person learning um those students have been made aware like i said we did outreach to vla our vla students those students have been made aware that we're not going to just drop them into live classes at dartmouth high school they're going to finish out their curriculum in ingenuity they'll be in the building which means that during the pace period they'll have access to to in person go and get support if if they need it um but in terms of you know i've been in biology class on the in ingenuity all year it just does not make sense educationally to be dropped into a live in-person biology class with a few weeks to go in the year the curriculum while the standards are the same the um sequencing of the units is just different enough that it's just not practical to do um we just had a student um for extenuating circumstances we needed to return and we returned them what we found was there was a unit that she had already done an ingenuity that our live biology class was just getting to and vice versa there were there was a unit that she had not done in ingenuity yet um that had already been covered in the in-person class so for curriculum alignment purposes it it doesn't um [Music] it's not sound we don't feel to to do that another question that we thought would come up would be about students who are opting to transition to hybrid at this point in the year as i already mentioned we're customizing the courses down to um you know estimated times that make sense for however you know many weeks we have left in the school year but the other question that comes up is how will the grade be determined uh and since we have three terms worth of grades for these students already those three term grades will just be added to the actual grade they earn in edge during the you know final term and divide by four so you get um you know you get an average and that would be their final grade which um again that's different than how the students who have been in vla all year will have their final grade determined but we thought it was important to point that out all right on to the health and safety measures again three feet um in each classroom seed edge to seed edge i already alluded to the fact that maintenance has uh installed plexiglass barriers also in a handful i'm talking four classes um well seven classes total um but four new ones where the class the largest class size can't fit in that particular classroom so for that class only we would schedule it in an alternate room for example all year we've had a world language class one of the world languages class one of the world language classes the cohorts were split unevenly it's just how it happened one of them could not fit in the classroom so they've been meeting in the auditorium and the teacher for that period only goes down to the auditorium and teaches that class um it's a burden for for our teachers but our teachers have been fantastic in terms of making it work um and so that's what we would do um moving forward at three feet like i said there's going to be four additional classes we believe where the room that they're currently assigned to just won't work in terms of spacing at three feet um so we'll move we'll relocate them for that period only but again we will be able to provide that three feet distance which is important so these are some of what the classrooms look like set up at three feet um the picture on the left with the desks those are new desks um thank mr kiley um for acquiring we we did need additional desks at the high school level because we're using so many desks in the cafeteria um to to do the dining so um we did need some additional desks and and that's what you see there in the room those are spaced out three feet from seat edge to seat edge um the classroom on the right is actually one of our science classrooms you can see it's not a great picture i apologize but you can see the installation of the plexiglas barriers that i was i was talking about um that bring us into compliance and you can see that those chairs are obviously not three feet apart it's a little bit under three feet um because the tables themselves are just under six feet um so in a number of our science classrooms you see that uh the next classroom you see here on the left again similar to our science rooms those are our that's one of our art labs one of our art rooms um and again you can see the plexiglas set up so that the workstations um that our students are at are separated by that protective barrier and then to the right that's obviously a computer lab again um with the plexiglas batteries in between each workstation so in addition to the three feet other um you know important safety measures are the mitigation strategies that have been in place all year long i want to stress that especially the universal mask wearing the excellence in hand hygiene maintaining distance when you know at least three feet but more whenever possible the self-monitoring for symptoms and airing on the side of caution has been an important part too that has contributed no you know no transmission within our school um our students our faculty and staff have been phenomenal about self-monitoring and airing on the side of caution um you know so that's allowed us to avoid you know any transmission in the school obviously and then the final one that i remind folks about because the weather is nice now um again it's the adequate ventilation we've had air purifiers in every room all year long but now we get the added benefit of with the nice weather we can open up those windows again and really make sure that the air ventilation um is is more than adequate so that's an important protective factor as well for us morning arrivals and end of day just missiles are not going to change um at least not initially if we find that we have to make adjustments we will but again morning arrivals our buses will drop off at 7 15.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
okay good afternoon we're gonna get started everybody welcome my name is kate kylie and my name is lindsay d'angelo and we are the faculty advisors for the dodd chapter of the national junior honor society on behalf of dad middle school we would like to welcome you to this afternoon's induction ceremony to start our ceremony we would like to introduce yulin do who will lead us in the pledge of allegiance would everyone please stand i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic from which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you we would like to begin this assembly by welcoming dr jeffrey solon cheshire public school superintendent baz assistant principal mr john pierocino and the njhs inventees please join me in welcoming mr woods our god principal for the opening remarks that's all i get is a golf class not even a bigger round of applause thanks guys well good afternoon it is with pride and honor that i congratulate all of you the 2021 inductees to the don middle school national junior honor society no one could have ever imagined our current situation from last spring until now this induction ceremony is the first of its kind and quite frankly hopefully the last to our parents i empathize as a father of two daughters the special moments in our child's life where we want to see their recognition live to take pictures or provide that hug at the end to our inductees this ceremony helps you avoid those embarrassing moments where your parents are taking photos and giving you hugs at the end of the ceremony please know that i'm working on a live promotion ceremony to make up i want to take a moment to thank our advisors ms deangelo and ms kylie for their collaborative work with our inductees a big thank you to ms braun for her work in organizing and supporting this event today without their hard work and dedication to all of you none of this would be possible [Applause] each year as i look over the characteristics of the national junior honor society i cannot help but reflect on how vital each of these characteristics are needed in today's society we are in the midst of an unprecedented time to say the least with a global pandemic and a social outcry for social and justice reforms today's inductees face many challenges ahead of them the years ahead are very uncertain but one can say let's make an impact and define what the end result is going to be through kindness and strong character this year's inductees have embodied the characteristics of scholarship service to others leadership citizenship and strong character these traits will prove valuable for you in life for the measurement of success is not a collection of material things but the manner in which we are remembered by others this ceremony is only one milestone on your path to success let this induction spark your drive to further develop the principles of the national junior honor society strive towards academic success in all environments whether that be in person or remote reach out to support others in times of need and listen to those who may just need to be heard demonstrate good character and citizenship by participating in conversations or taking action in your beliefs and use your talents to lead in a manner that brings people together and does not look to separate for any reason as you continue to develop to develop these traits there will be no limit to what you can achieve not only in school but in life congratulations again to all of our inductees and their families on this impressive accomplishment thank you and please welcome back our advisors miss lindsay angelo miss kate kyle thank you mr woods mr angelo and i would also like to say a few thank yous we want to extend our appreciation to the faculty and staff who were instrumental in the preparation and presentation of this ceremony this mrs laurie braun mrs nancy lee liebler mr dominguez rivas mr pat cruz and mr mike salamini and finally we welcome parents grandparents relatives and friends all giving virtually who are here to acknowledge the accomplishments of this year's inductees to the national junior honor society on behalf of the administration faculty and staff congratulations to you the inductees this afternoon's program is to recognize your scholastic and personal achievements the national honor association determines the qualifications and selection process of the national junior honor society the candidates need to earn a 4.0 gpa or higher after the four marking periods of seventh grade the list of candidates was reviewed by faculty panel for the qualities of leadership scholarship citizenship character and service each candidate provided a list of his or her community involvement various activities and service commitments from the past two years this year the members of the national junior honor society here at dad have participated in various community service projects both individually and in groups due to covin this was a bit of a challenge due to the number of restrictions we had the students had so many great ideas and persevered despite the limitations presented as a whole group the students chose three charities to support this year these were the cheshire animal control st juice children's hospital and png safe drinking water njhs members made flyers pitches that were read over the morning announcements and collected donations here at school totaling over 650 other students participated in projects that they coordinated on their own a couple of these groups volunteered to speak today and we'd like to welcome elizabeth schaffner and cameron lewis to discuss their service project so you can get a small glimpse of their success and hard work um hi hi i'm cam lewis hi i'm busy snapper for our service project we decided to do our project called cheat drive sheet drive is a project we created based on the fact that many women and girls struggle every day with lack of period products or supplies izzy shockner caleb fitzgerald molly bowman willie shaheen brenda zapakowski and i all decided as a group that women and girls missing school or work because of period poverty and the long time impact it has is something we changed we wanted to change and educate our community thus our project exam first we had to do a lot of planning research and brainstorming on how we were going to get the word out raise money for our products and where we were going to donate them to we ended up deciding that the best way to help our community was to donate the products to the treasure food pantry the best way for us to get the word out fast with social media we start an instagram account and views our parents facebook as well as the have a go fund me we made a video explaining myriad poverty and inheriting a call to action we also had an in-person drive on the farmington canal trail on february 20th with the money we raised we got together and bought supplies for all this we were able to get more than 3 200 products and raise 2 180 in addition we also made four first-time period kits which had heating pads fuzzy socks bath bombs an assortment of period supplies and a carrying case we went to the food pantry to drop off the products we got a tour and learned over 180 cheshire families depend on the pantry for weekly supplies at the food pantry they taught us about food stamps volunteering and how foods we take with granite like cheese and deli meat are on the wish list for many families each person is entitled to approximately 12 pounds of food each week and often they don't get to pick their exact groceries the pantry also does not accept any money from the state it is fully supported through donations hearing that made us feel good about our decision to donate to the cheshire food pantry and to help women and girls in this town overall our goal was to inform and teach about how period poverty affects a lot of women and girls around the world and hope that we can start solving a piece of that puzzle thank you next we welcome leah bassani savannah martelly and jillian falcone to discuss their project and what they've learned so i'm jillian and i'm savannah so for our project we decided to create our own fundraiser to represent not only leadership but also service our initial idea was to create care packages for the state vincent hall from the shelter and water bags as we began our first step was to locate one of the largest homeless shelters in canada i bring many different phone calls to multiple shelters around connecticut who finally ended up working over for local attention as we communicated with the shelter they gave the specific items that they primarily needed overall these included socks multiple different types of clothing toiletries and masks if we were finally be set up we begin to share the links throughout our family friends and facebook to spread the word about the fundraiser holdings the passing result of 500 years raised almost four thousand dollars our first mission was to gather all the specific needs for around 45 care packages we ended up having to take two different target trends in order to buy everything that was necessary overall we spent around one thousand five hundred dollars on all sizes below did the amount we had left over we decided to create different birthday bags for our local foods pantry and cheshire these 30 birthday bags including cake mix frosting sprinkles a car candles cupcake pants and confetti you're given the amazing opportunity to not only be able to tour but to learn how the food pantry came to be this service only ended up however costing us one thousand dollars leaving us with one thousand three hundred left to still donate we ended up putting this leftover money towards the saint vincent default suit kitchen that was connected to the homeless shelter we donated and to the safe payment of greater one grade for domestic violence with the remaining money of one thousand three hundred dollars we were able to donate 650 to each program throughout these experiences we were able to collaborate all of our different ideas in order to form an overall plan to complete these different service projects although it was difficult to coordinate our schedules through teamwork we stayed dedicated to our overall goal and accomplished more than we expected and intended throughout the weeks we worked on our project we found it extremely difficult to find days that everyone was available we made a point however to take time out of our personal lives to accomplish these acts of service these projects made a huge impact not only on our local community but to those in need in our neighboring towns we were completely honored to be able to take part in giving back to the community and knowing that we made a difference overall [Applause] so miss d'angelo and i were so impressed with everyone's hard work this year and we are really confident that this stellar group of students will continue to add to this list of services and accomplishments in the future so congratulations you guys thank you so much for all of your hard work we will now begin the candlelighting ceremony together knowledge and truth provide the initial spark for the five pillars of the national junior honor society scholarship leadership service citizenship and character margo leske will speak on scholarships and like the candela scholarship caitlyn matkin will speak on leadership and light the candle of leadership caitlyn finney and picky will speak on service and light the candle of service finley perselius will speak on citizenship and light the candle of citizenship conor mcshaw's will speak on character and like the candle of character [Music] a student who achieves scholarship 8th grader who has proven him or herself academically by maintaining a cumulative middle school grade point average of 4.00 the student who exercises leadership is resourceful in proposing new problems applying principles and making suggestions demonstrates leadership imposing school activities exercises influence on peers and upholding school ideals contributes ideas that improve the civic life in school is able to delegate responsibilities exemplifies a positive attitude inspires positive behavior in others demonstrates academic initiative successfully holds school office course positions of responsibility conducts business efficiently and effectively and is reliable and different throughout the product demonstrates leadership in the classroom and in school activities is thoroughly dependable in any responsibility accepted service the student who serves is willing to uphold scholarship and maintain a loyal school activity participate in some outside activity girl scouts boy scouts church groups volunteer services for the age or for disadvantaged family volunteer dependable and well-organized assistance and is widely available works well with others and is willing to take on difficult or inconspicuous responsibilities carefully and enthusiastically enthusiastically renders any requested steps in the school is willing to represent the class or school who enters class for an interscholistic competition thus committee and staff work uncomplainingly shows courtesy by assisting visitors teachers and students citizenship the student who demonstrates citizenship understands the importance of civic involvement has a high regard for freedom and justice and respects the american form of government demonstrates mature participation and responsibility through involvement such as activities as scouting community organizations and school clubs character the student of character takes criticism willingly and accepts recommendations graciously constantly constantly exemplifies desirable qualities of a personality cheerfulness friendliness stability upholds principles of morality and ethics cooperates by complying with school regulations and concerning property programs office halls etc demonstrates the highest standards of honesty and reliability it shows courtesy concern and respect for others observes instructions and rules and practices from actuality and faithfulness both inside and outside of the classroom as powers of concentration and sustained attention as shown by perseverance and application to studies manifest truthfulness and acknowledging obedience to rules avoiding cheating in written work and showing unwillingness to profit by the mistakes of others actively helps to rid the school of bad now that the five torches representing scholarship leadership service citizenship and character have been lit we would like to welcome dr solman mr woods and mr parasino for the distribution of our 2021 national junior honor society certificates and hints joseph ammo day brianna anders shreya banerjee emma vouch helen baxter grace ian molly balman james boyd carly cahill caitlin canavaro peter carson sienna cartera eva canelotto daniel danielle chamberlain elizabeth cohen chloe crespo eva curran peyton daniels jack to joseph rosa de joy sophia della porta john doyle yulin do daniel ann alsheva jillian falcone leah farrell kaelin fitzgerald finley corcelius lilly frank samantha garcia lydia galley alexandra gilson sarah goldstein allison grove sydney hale murray hall haley hannon grace harlow sophie harris aaron hirsch callie hearst sarah cooper isabella who eve hubble bank [Music] daniel irish gabrielle jerimillo reagan kappas sarah kareem riley knickerbocker ashley lentini cameron lewis maddie wilbeck emerson lilly connor lopez anthony mariani nathaniel markman savannah martelly caitlin maskin al mccauley claire mcmanus max mitchell empire narayanan mia neglio joseph norton james o'connor alexandra orland carlesha outlaw patel katarina pollock john luca petronio lia cassani jerry piscotelli matthew reed abigail rinaldi brian roche court elizabeth shafner lily shaheen alicia chatelaw sarah silverman nimish singh brianna ceniscalco ava stink ryan smith colin spence jeremy sisda lacy thoreau tanista fumari jacob tierney bailey vitanza paul labelle eliana woleski paige warburton kaden weinberg haley weissman betty weskey margot weskey ava wilson christina young brenna zipkowski maya sir hughson valerie zhang and teresa cirollo [Applause] congratulations to all of our inductees this year treya banerjee will now lead the industries in the honor society pledge will the industries please stand i pledge myself to uphold the high purpose of the national junior honor society to which i have been selected i will be true to the principles for which it stands i would be loyal to my school and i will maintain and encourage high standards of scholarship service leadership character and citizenship please welcome dr solon to the podium at this time good afternoon guys oh there we go you know i worked in the dodd cafeteria for seven years as an assistant principal and principal and i know that you can be much more vocal than you were so we'll try that one good afternoon guys this is a really joyous occasion so it's okay to to share a little energy today and as mr woods alluded uh we haven't done a lot of these in-person ceremonies where we get to celebrate our students much recently and i've got a lot of material this is going to be like the best 45 minutes of your career um and thankfully i'm just joking on that i do want to make some brief remarks and i'm really honored to have the opportunity to speak to you today i'm really humbled to be a small part of this special moment in your life it took talent commitment and character for our students to arrive here today and this year more than any other you've demonstrated flexibility and patience and perseverance beyond all of it the don middle school national junior honor society class of 2021 has earned entry into a very prestigious group that being said this ceremony is not the end of the journey today is a milestone in what will hopefully be a lifelong journey of scholarship leadership service character and citizenship i'm going to ask you our inductees to just reflect for a moment on an adult in your life who most inspires you think about that an adult whom you look up to and perhaps emulate somebody that you may want to be someday it could be a family member a friend somebody that maybe you know from afar mr paracino i'm glad you didn't laugh but my guess is that those individuals are people who have modeled scholarship leadership service character and citizenship for you i ask that you continue to learn and grow to lead through example to extend a hand to those who need it most to do what is right even when no one is looking into act with your civic responsibility in mind as members of the national junior honor society you owe that to yourself and to everybody else in this room in order to fulfill the pledge that you made today this is a celebration it's a milestone but it's something that continues throughout your life if you want to become the people that you look up to and today is a huge step in that journey and i'm so very proud of you and so proud to be here so on behalf of everybody in the treasure public schools i congratulate all of you and your families on your tremendous success we're very proud of you good luck on a safe and exciting close to the school year congratulations everybody [Applause] these students are a wonderful reflection of their family and we are delighted to honor them today congratulations to the inductees and thank you for attending this afternoon this concludes our ceremony
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