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he created a support group for people living with type 1 diabetes in the dhs community for advocacy education and camaraderie caleb is a dedicated musician skilled in the flute saxophone piano and several other instruments he is currently an officer in the modern music masters tri-m group at dhs he is also a decorated dancer and choreographer and volunteers his time to teach and inspire others caleb how about telling us where you're going as you accept this award as well he's not here today what but he had a prior commitment but at cornell university and he just wanted to say uh thank you to everyone thank you victoria appreciate it so dr sal we have one going to duke and one going to cornell yeah wonderful the commentary to the faculty right from the beginning right through elementary middle and high school great work tell them congratulations victoria from us thank you very much and good luck to you and duke i do um we have john weber usually the principal will assign his homeroom teachers so i don't know who's here but i'll let you guys start the alternative center for excellence go ahead hi um oh miss armstrong how are you it's me um my student tonight is brian gallardo valverde and he is uh we're happy to recommend him for and have him receive this award brian is a resource to himself uh to his family to his friends to his community and to his country uh the pandemic was a big problem for a lot of our kids but brian seemed to excel not only did he keep his grades up and he's graduating with a 3.4 gpa um but he also helped his little sister every day so that she could make it through her studies in elementary school before he decided he needed to take a job and help his family through the pandemic brian now works uh at a local grocery store but more importantly brian has recognized his value and his gifts and brian has decided uh he went to um naugatuck valley for the second semester from january to june he has he took three classes he had two a's and two b and a b plus so he did really well first semester his first semester in college and he's looking forward to his second semester in college and naugatuck but more importantly brian in the last month has been sworn into the national guard he's only 17 years old uh tonight i'm hoping he's still here he was supposed to meet with his recruiter he did his first weekend of drills last weekend um and tonight he's put off uh going for more drills until 7 30 so he could be here for this uh award ceremony and he leaves for uh national guard 18 weeks of training in late august early september so i present to you a kid who has really embraced the american dream brian delarza valverde i don't know if brian is here still are you still here brian uh yeah i'm right here i just want to thank you for this award and everyone at the staff and ace for supporting me through this journey still there i think we lost i don't know if it's armstrong you frozen yeah i think he we let we lost him ryan if you're there thank you for your service and be careful congratulations um i'm really proud of you goodness armstrong howdy is next yes hi glenda thank you for that thanks brian congratulations faith uh and her family are actually having some wi-fi issues right now i'm not quite sure faith are you on i know they were trying they were kind of kind of cut off a little bit so i'll read a little bit of my my tidbit on faith uh faith luckner was a shy and quiet girl when she came to ace three years ago when i joined the danbury community uh through the love and support and encouragement there she is hey mira from her parents she has become a more confident young woman with strong values and a commitment to her community i also want to say that this award could be shared with their parents because they have been so active and supported ace ever since the beginning so here are some examples of what they've been doing every single parent-teacher conference uh even when sometimes it was you know not too you know there's maybe less people at one point but they were always there every single time every single fundraiser that we do with the community whether it's breakfast with a great pumpkin the ace thanksgiving feast the danbury community breakfast with santa et cetera um often and glenda was telling me this earlier today that you know she was saying that you know she remembers this time that you guys were cleaning off the tables the faith and her mom would stay up wait till like 2 30 in the afternoon to stay to clean up and wipe down all the tables so thank you for that uh faith's father's also if you guys have seen the grinch walking around town he is danbury's adopted grinch uh she and her father continuously can probably continue to do this after she graduates uh they continue to volunteer their time to give back to the children basically of denver but everybody really uh while her dad is dressed in that grinch costume um and also even putting up just christmas trees and decorations um in my classroom and helping with uh decorations and photos around the the school uh definitely your parents are hands on so again i kind of i it's for faith but again i really want you guys to know that her parents are so supportive of us and we're going to miss her and i we hope to still see you guys come back to the school after she graduates because you're like our honorary parents so thank you so much um and lastly i just wanted to say that that spirit resides in her and she's acutely aware of the positive effects of her community involvement she could have actually finished up in january because she's done so well but she wanted to graduate with her friends and just you know do it not the right way but just wait till june um she even retook a class um in the fall and you know which class that is faith i'm not going to say it because she apparently liked it so much i was kind of surprised about that which is great um and she's just grown so much since she's been here and uh and we at ace are so proud of her and her achievements so congratulations faith we're so honored and uh love you so you want to say anything you're on mute by the way [Music] thank you um thank you to all the teachers and staff members at ace for helping me get my act together and keep it there so i can succeed and be the person who i am today so thank you thank you thank you thank you congratulations uh and that ends the recognitions madam chairman thank you dr sal uh and board members i think it behooves me as chairperson of the board i think we should all give these uh smart young people a round of applause because you know i heard probably we might have some uh board members in a couple of years and someone going to get into a doctor so you know we need to give them a round of applause in their parents because it just it takes everyone and the school system so thank you young people so very much so next week uh why does she cut out a mute there yeah after you do the strip for uh public uh participation then carol will come and do the comment section okay the board welcomes public participation and asks that comments be limited to 3 minutes the public may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them the board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the danbury public school system due to the unique nature of the covet 19 crisis and the limitations of technology members of the public who are danbury residents are invited to send brief comments and questions via email in advance to dps underscore public comment underscore boe at danbury.k12.ct.us thank you yes we have three uh public participations first one is from dennis mccauley first i wish to express my admiration for danbury educators heroes during the pandemic and my appreciation for you school board volunteers whose good citizenship is better described as practical patriotism the top domestic priority for our nation should be social social justice if we do not do better at giving every person the opportunity to achieve the american dream the very fabric of our society is at risk this is what social justice should be this is why social justice should be an important selection criteria during the superintendent search i propose that the search firm provide information about each candidate's personal social justice philosophy and the degree to which it has been implemented in that candidate's purview and the information be made available to the public for each of the finalists what do i mean by social justice one version one vision is that of martin luther king who famously dreamed to have his children judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin as a christian minister he believed that all individuals are sinners but are also capable of redemption and he believed in the american dream and that the black community is fully capable of achieving the dream if the burden of unjust laws and other barriers are removed he also believed in color blindness assimilation and the melting pot the other version predominant today is the critical race theory it is the physiolog philosophical foundation of the black lives matter movement the 1619 project and many diversity equity and inclusion programs unlike king crt teaches that the sin of racism is more collective than individual that color blindness is not a goal but evidence of racism and that separation not assimilation is necessary derived from marxism it divides people based on skin color of members of either an oppressed group or the oppressor group any disparity between an oppressed group and whites is due to systematic systematic racism which has been intentionally built into every aspect of american culture and society starting in 1619 and continuing to this day to maintain white supremacy martin luther's king vision is widely understood it is not so with the critical race theory i ask each person involved in the superintendent search to learn about crt whether king's vision or crt is more likely to help disadvantaged communities and base his or his or her superintendent choice on that decision for me and my for me and for my many black intellectuals that choice would be easy at its core crt principles are neo-racist incompatible with the western liberal democracy and potentially catastrophic for people of color the danbury school system should hire a superintendent who rejects the principles of crt regardless of what they are named and embrace the optimistic christian and pro-american principles of martin luther king thank you dennis mccauley the second submittal is from kathy snow good evening i was happy to hear that the june board of education meeting will be in person i was hoping the public would be allowed to attend also up to the maximum capacity allowed can this be clarified and the third submission is from dana and tom o'work dear board of education members my name is dana orwerk and i'm the outgoing president of the dhs pto as well as the outgoing president of the dhs priests club booster club for the boys lacrosse teams in both of these positions i've had the pleasure of working with the administration of danbury high school as well as some board of education members i would like to let everyone know about blue and orange week beginning 6 30 june 3rd and continuing through june 10th show us your blue and orange that week show us your hatter's pride i also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone that i've worked with mr donovan and his team have been instrumental in giving the class of 2020 and 2021 the best possibly 2020 and 21 the best year possible given the circumstances of this past year a special thank you to mr s salvastrani and mr donovan for all always entertaining our organization's ideas and for never saying no instead of being a no we can't do that administration they have been a how can we do that administration thank you for your support as well this year our youngest son will be graduating we'll be wrapping up almost 17 years as danbury public school parents thank you for educating our boys i hope that the next school year would be more of a normal year for everyone to dr sal congratulations on your retirement regards dana o'rourke and that concludes the public participation thank you so very much carol uh madam chairman if the students are here they can leave if they wish i just want to make okay can we do the consent calendar certainly i'll make a motion at the board of education to prove the items on the consent calendar exhibits 21-80 through 21-82 as recommended can i hear a second second it's show second okay uh motion has been moved and second are there any questions or discussion about the consent calendar cnn uh kate could you do the roll call please joe britton yes rachel chaleski i kate canelo hi gladys cooper yes lauren daley aye joe da silva aye catherine hodgson hi rich gianelli hi al russo hi amy spelino hi thank you the motion is so caring uh next we'll move down to our educational staff representative uh aaron ellie okay that does it leader good evening miss cooper good evening thank you so much for letting me share again in our celebration i'm gonna share my screen and part three is [Music] so do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] you good morning broadview today is monday may 24th 2021 and i hope y'all had a great weekend bringing you your morning announcements by me cabela's [Music] it just takes some time [Music] me [Music] so [Laughter] [Applause] uh thank you so much i really enjoyed being able to share these silver linings with you this year i look forward to being able to do that again next year if you'll have it i think there's been a lot that we've overcome as a district in our individual schools as humans and i'm really proud to work in a district that supports each other and i thank all of you board members for the volunteering that you do and and the hard decisions that you have to make and so it doesn't go unnoticed thank you so much thank you all right our next we're going to move to our students or in our students here tonight jake chris good evening board of ed members cabinet and community members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the alternative center for excellence next thursday will start 18th annual coffee house on june 3rd students and staff will have the opportunity to share their creativity through reading original poetry musical performances and artwork the ace graduation ceremony will take place on wednesday june 8th at broadview auditorium at 3pm the event will allow each student to bring four guests for those not in attendance the graduation ceremony will be viewable on the alternative center for excellence youtube channel the ace humanities department successfully administrate administered our humanities benchmarks the week of may 17th to may 21st a special thanks to joanne tolls daniela esposito melissa alaski kyle chicola and rob milo for all of your efforts to ensure that this endeavor was a success thank you chris the a center expo website is up and running thanks to the work of dj jimenez and the local community members of submitted career day videos the career expo website contains three to five minute career videos virtual field trips surveys and activities designed to prepare our students for life after graduation eight students ran an entrance interviews from may 18th through the 20th and then again on may 25th and 26th for 2023 incoming students thank you for the ace staff for being in the process of building the relationships with our incoming families ace would also like to publicly acknowledge and congratulate our most recent students of the week dominic perez and arianna manford keep up the great work and finish the year strong thank you all for allowing us to share the great things happening with our ace family as we approach the close of 2021 school year stay safe everyone and remain a strong thank you nicole so we're going to move on down the agenda uh action item a amy thank you um before we get to um the adopting the portrait of a graduate vote i had something that i wanted to uh bring up for for all of us um i was a part of the uh coalition for the pog for 18 months i was honored to be a part of it and our goal i was going to quickly review was to develop the skills knowledge and dispositions valued by schools and community critical for college career and community life that was actually stated in the workshop that we had last meeting all students were at the center of every action and decision and also uh included in the pog and our workshop a couple weeks ago was the equity and diversity statement and in that equity and diversity statement um and you can all read it on the presentation which is included in our agenda tonight um you know it's a anyway in the back but it was uh one of the statements was that the danbury public schools is committed to identifying and correcting practices and policies that perpetuate the achievement gap and institutional racism in all forms in order to provide for all students the opportunity to succeed that phrase institutional racism caught my attention i'd heard it probably before maybe you know in all the pog work but it really caught my attention last week and also i was very i was surprised at the presentation from the team referred to as design of the margins i had not heard this part of the pog work it could have been my own oversight i did attend most meetings maybe i missed one when this there was talk about this but when that presentation was given two weeks ago for our workshop i heard the word radical inclusion for equity so um as i expressed to kevin mr walston the next day in an email after the workshop that i said when i got involved with pog i was thinking that danbury public schools had programs that were already in place that were raising a lot of awareness and sensitivity to others i mean even just the video we saw with dr zelita of all the different programs of you know awareness and sensitivity to others i'm thinking of things like neutralities alone bridges of peace i think it's called buddy benches etc now i realize we can always improve on inclusivity but i am concerned that we may be headed in a direction that would make our children feel that they are responsible for all racism that exists in our world and that they should be ashamed um this could be very harmful and destructive i believe to our children so before we go ahead and um vote on the pog you know accepting it i would just like um kevin to explain to us like what types of practices what types of curriculums are we planning on to initiate the pog okay amy could we do the motion and then we can have a discussion within that part wants to once we it's an action on it okay well and then we have a discussion about industry about this i just got going about it okay so yeah so let's just do you know and then we will have a vote you know and then we can have a discussion on it once you make the motion okay so juice you know and i'm gonna invite board members to you know not deviate from the uh the um emotion just read this the emotion that's on on uh our script that's here to read for that particular ad and then we can have a discussion about it for your support okay okay so the motion i i make a motion that the board of education adopt the portrait of a graduate in accordance with 21-83 page 18.
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i give yourselves a round of applause this is a huge day for all of you and i also want to take a moment to also acknowledge a special guest that we have with us dr nancy nien she's our new assistant superintendent of business thank you for being here my name is dr karen dabney lieres and i am the absolute proud principal of magnolia high school and it is so wonderful to see all of you in person today our students our families everyone it's been a long road with many challenges but i want to commend our students our staff and our families for all that you did to persevere and support one another during the pandemic no matter how bad things got you continue to push forward and search for the silver lining of opportunity and growth during some very difficult times our magnolia high school community made it through those tough times together we demonstrated our resilience and we have emerged even stronger i have some special guests here with us today that i would like to acknowledge our teacher of the year miss katrina mundy who is an exceptional teacher and a natural philanthropist she together with a team of teachers at magnolia founded safe and established it as a non-profit raising thousands of dollars for our families in need of groceries and essential items the safe team has been making deliveries to families in need since the initial school closures in march of 2020 miss mundy was also named 2021's woman of the year by the 46th congressional district by congressman lou correa congratulations teacher of the year and woman of the year miss katrina mundy i also want to recognize our classified employee of the year mr kenneth flores he's our athletic facilities worker and those of you that know him our sports team would be lost without him and today he's working hard behind the scenes for graduation but he always has a smile on his face and he goes the extra mile in his position he's a true team player willing to help whenever and wherever he is needed because everything he does is for our students congratulations to our classified employee of the year mr kenny flores and last but not least i would like to recognize our retiree miss gail smith gail smith has been teaching for 36 years and 28 of those years have been at magnolia high school she's a world language teacher credentialed in both spanish and french and gayle has also served as department chair class advisor csf advisor rsp advisor school site council member and avid coordinator she also had the highest ap pass rate in spanish for 20 years we want to wish ms smith the very best as she heads out to retirement and we know that her love of teaching will not end here congratulations gail smith and to the class of 2021 i want to say this i understand that much of what you experienced in the past year was not what you envisioned for your senior year of high school but how you handle the disappointments in life and the challenges that you face will determine what you take away from this experience and the memories that accompany you all that you have experienced the good with the bad is ultimately a road map for navigating the ups and downs of life you survived a pandemic and experienced things that the majority of the previous generations never had to endure your resiliency is continuing to pursue your goals and focusing on your education all of this will lay the foundation for a successful future your ability to persevere despite adversity demonstrates that you are all battle-tested sentinels destined for greatness you're ready to go out and create the life and the future that you want for yourselves the five c's and civic engagement focused education that you have received in auhsd as a student at magnolia will lead you to greatness in the future and it's a solid foundation for anything that you choose to do and i know that you will go out there you're going to make the world a more kind and just and peaceful place in the process i hope that you know that we're proud of you that you will always be a part of our sentinel family and we will always be here for you i also want to thank our parents and our extended family members and friends for your partnership with us and the incredible support that you have given your students and to us at magnolia high school this day would not be possible without you and now i would like to recognize our graduates that have distinguished themselves over the last four years with special awards and honors please hold your applause until all the groups have been recognized seniors as i announce the award category or pathway or completion that is symbolized by a cord sash stole medallion please stand and be recognized with applause and then please be seated as the next honor recognition is read are students earning academic honors please rise you may be seated are students completing a through g requirements please rise are students completing the seal of civic engagement please rise these students will receive a seal of civic engagement on their diplomas for the work that they have done in civic engagement you may be seated students completing a cte pathway please rise these students are wearing a silver sash to signify a successful completion of the cte pathway students completing the puente pathway please rise these students are wearing a black stool representing successful completion of the puente pathway and students completing our avid program please rise congratulations for completing our four-year avid program students earning acceptance into the society hispanica please rise for our hispanic honors society these students are wearing gold and red courts signifying academic honors in spanish students accepting earning acceptance into the national honor society gold seal please rise these students are wearing blue and gold cords signifying its academic honor students earning the california scholastic federation honors please rise these students are wearing a gold cord or sash signifying honors students earning the seal by literacy please stand these students are wearing medallions symbolizing by literacy congratulations and students completing the vietnamese dual language immersion academy please rise these students are wearing red and gold cords signifying the successful completion of our vietnamese dual language immersion academy students completing the cyber security pathway please rise these students are wearing a royal blue sash signifying successful completion of our cyber security pathway and at this time i would also like to recognize our athletes of the year and scholar athletes of the year if you would please stand and be recognized these students took care of business both on and off the courts and fields working hard all year thank you and let's give a round of applause to recognize all of these students for their incredible work that they have done over the past four years [Applause] congratulations to all of you for your many accomplishments you have all worked hard to be here today and we celebrate all of you the graduating class of 2021 let's give it up all right i really want you to remember no matter how hard things get always believe in yourself and never give up on your dreams at this time i would like to invite our dignitaries and staff to present the diplomas and class of 2021 you're going to prepare to receive your diplomas i would like to once again uh invite the following board of trustees awarding the diplomas board of trustee president miss anna piercy our trustee assistant clerk mr al devar and board of trustees member miss anne-marie randall trejo and mr robin turner and miss michelle waxman will read the names of the class of 2021 out of respect for each of our graduates on this special day we ask that you please hold your applause until all of the names have been read it gave class of 20 21 please rise first row first row it gives me great honor to present this class of 2021 to the board of trustees for certification and the board of trustees certification will be done by miss anna piercy you ready i know how loud [Applause] kelly rodriguez asher ramirez [Applause] jocelyn nguyen [Applause] anthony new in angel cruz matthew christensen david sierra loyola petra martinez angel janos carl la luna needy patel colleen new in janith madrigal caitlyn new in din augustino nguyen jennifer batazar victoriano andy though marisela sanchez hernandez mai li jose baron [Music] gonzalez hernandez ruby velasco adrian yeme alicia ocampo brenda nuno lisa dim nadine benitez [Music] emily hermes tatiana rosales edward garcia linda el chicago alyssa ramirez anderson hoskins chelsea ramirez [Music] tiffany new in edward rito [Applause] adam leonardo el maso bustos crystal tran kevin gomez sebastian mendes javier perez macedo [Applause] gregorio nunez vanessa agrilar joseph chiprays [Music] ashley sanchez new in [Applause] kayla hernandez german via katya mendez vera joseph lauries isabella cervantes cindy new in andrew garcia clara abraham joshua mercado [Music] giovanni martinez joshua mendoza jesus alivers melanie romales noah martinez [Applause] italy castillo brandon new in [Applause] peter lopez candace radcliffe angel oliveira desiree flores enrique hernandez [Applause] michael mills lester lopez eric gloria james ramirez gabriella gutierrez saul castellanos chelsea contreras giovanni romero topia alelene mascara luis pena jacob estrella [Applause] bishoy adley bailey davis devin moah anthony cornejo daniel godemez [Music] greta yanez alexa gonzalez nava brandon ty [Applause] victor gomez guadalupe mendoza pedro moreno carina espana gohan martinez lopez martinez isabella gomez [Music] freddy gomez [Applause] dulce segura alex erazo [Applause] angel jimenez victor erazo [Applause] roman elizabeth cruz congratulations abraham velazquez giselle avalos daisy carino cruz eric camargo justin gonzalez ryan paredes jimmy serrano miguel and aries min koi tai hi fam erica morales tin tran and i lopez emily montes lopez [Applause] justin kenneth hella hi selina usado ivan cruz emily zaragoza jose hernandez salas [Applause] salsa oyolo jose rodriguez carbayo john sanchez cecia ramirez christian martinez leslie fernandez kimberly zavala samantha padilla emily perez chavez jose jimenez rocio hernandez noctrong david parks ii [Applause] guadalupe martinez [Applause] andy nguyen nathan wallace [Applause] james patrick lombago daisy rosales [Applause] sean darnell begonia adales salgado christopher talavera pablo hernandez jasper garrity ian gomez stephanie castillo done first andrea godinez casey barajas [Applause] island bryce rafael santos [Applause] katrina rontainen samuel butt jael martinez [Music] carol juarez angel alvarez marlene juarez [Music] joseph padilla [Applause] amarani garcia mia para [Music] yadira hymies darlene sotelo [Applause] eric herrera valeria barrios alexis barajas bernice uriostegy valeria garcia samuel zamfer jillian dao arturo hernandez vanessa blair chipman angel raya perla alvarez juan polito jasmine solis alonso [Applause] leslie flores [Applause] adrian perez angie carrillo maximiliano batista brian villegas shawna mcmanus [Music] victor villarreal [Music] it's galaraza [Music] miguel rodriguez [Applause] isaac banderas armando rodriguez raquel amido kevin velasquez [Music] melanie juerez raymond ventura daniel pineda [Applause] eduardo mardi gras norman santiago fernando ramos jr anthony garcia [Music] daniel garcia alex sanchez leslie hernandez lionel mcgothern jose perez savannah maldonado [Applause] [Music] chris kobachsen melvin rodriguez daniela camacho de jesus julissa ponce rodriguez [Music] joshua acosta andrew shoji dennis nguyen [Applause] angel diaz christopher reese nancy vasquez jose sanchez jimmy voo iris lopez alex estrada jasmine tapia isabel sanchez savannah gisele moreau matthew rodriguez verna solomon kevin hernandez aisha malik david diaz jordan rodriguez kind of thing congratulations ilham anwar [Applause] bibiano duarte [Applause] christopher ramirez romeo hernandez liliana martinez brian [Applause] patel [Applause] twee tien tran she's here thank you great job class of 2021 please rise it gives me great honor to present this class to the board of trustees for certification and the certification will be done by miss anna piercy this is the end of the year which is the most fun part for me as a trustee when i get to attend your graduations and to see the culmination of your four years of work and as a trustee for the district of anaheim union high school district it's my honor and my privilege to be the one to officially certify that all of you students here today plus the ones who were not able to be here but were on the the jumbotron from the class of 2021 you have all duly met the requirements of the state of california and you have completed all of the prescribed course of studies established by the anaheim union high school district so students you may now move your tassel from the right to the left because you graduated congratulations [Applause] [Music] class of 2021 congratulations on your achievement you are now alumni of magnolia high school sentinels for life graduates would you please remain standing for the plane of the alma mater foreign [Music] is us graduates please be seated please remain seated until directed by a staff member thank you for attending the 2021 commencement ceremony for magnolia high school families and friends please remain seated until all graduates have recessed out of the stadium and until dismissed by the security from your seating section please know that current health guidelines restrict us from gathering in large groups seniors are notified earlier to meet you at your vehicle remember to take all of your items with you as you exit the stadium and enjoy the rest of your day at this time we would like to invite our distinguished guests on stage to exit the stadium first thank you [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] so [Music] [Applause] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] so uh
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Let us share in a moment of silence together as we remember them. At this time, I would like to introduce Jonathan Nam, who will lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Jonathan will be attending the US Coast Guard Academy in the fall. After the pledge, please remain standing for the national anthem. Please stand. Put your right hand over your heart. Ready? Begin.
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thank you you're welcome that's okay all right any other questions on 3.3 all right so i'm going to move to 3.8 and again i'm always open to go backwards so here again same consistent it's the same cost as 3.1 um and that is because now we are converting the recommendation is converting valleydale to a tk8 so beyond that the cost remains the same so you have the rebranding of 50 000 um the sixth grade curriculum you have the modernization of the middle school cafeteria and then you have the upgrades to the new high school based on branding and facility same additional consideration items as well now i'll pause to see if we have any questions you have a question from mr fernandez mr fernandez i'm ready for you thank you um have there been considerations about the potential impact of upgrading wi-fi capabilities at sites as the modernization process continues no you want to know why because we're just going to make that happen regardless that's something we need to do any other questions at this time all right i'm going to move to model three up miss edna uh one more on the additional classrooms uh okay you said there would be bungalows would they be uh would they be equipped with gas and water lines everything so if you i don't know if you've ever been to ellington but it looks it actually looks like a building it doesn't even look like a bungalow so it doesn't have that um there are bungalows that look different if you go to azusa high school um those look different versus the ones at lt it looks like a building if before we leave tonight if i can find the powerpoint i will display it so you can see it okay all right sorry i have a question no problem um i i believe this model is missing the rebranding for the middle school because this this one specifically says it's going to be a new middle school know what um i overlooked that because i didn't take it as we were changing the name of the school i thought it was just the name new so i it would literally be the new branding of 50 000 so i overlooked that so i will put that on there thank you well i'm not sure if that's what the author intended but that that's just what i remembered remember i'm not certain so if the author can share that that's what it that that was the intention and then it probably more than 50 000 because here we're assuming that valley deal will keep the name valley deal but for this one is the intention was like a brand new school with a brand new name brand new logo so that would probably not be as much as the high school but it but it'd probably be somewhere in the middle there yeah i think it'll be approximate a little a little over 125 000.
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so you have vouchers those that were already paid your vouchers are in your name that is ready to be used until march 2022 and that's not already figured into this total no that's already been used so the vouchers are already paid for so if you decide to go to the now the nsba and it's been announced in december and you go ahead and book your flight for april and as long as you book that flight before march of 2022 then you're good your plane ticket is already paid for okay so that won't come out of your budget okay thank you and i apologize the motion is really long okay i have a question before we proceed with that um so i i know like it on this itemization that you provided it has my total expenses at sixty dollars um but then on the second page i have two um trainings or something or two events that i attended so one was free and one was not um what are the months i only have two things february february 12th and february 18th the bolt stream no no it's only february 12th nobody attended the february 18th there's no name there on the february 18th oh i thought that was just my section oh no no no if there's a name what are we going to do there's no name there so nobody attended the asbo legislative workshop so okay so then i'll scratch that question so the follow-up to that though is so as we attend you know trainings or have travel um and i've never traveled under the district budget but except for maybe a mileage thing one time um so do we i don't know what the communication is like do you um tell us what what the cost is oh yeah okay so i will when you when i pay for you'll know how much i'll let you know what the conference registration fee is what the airline ticket is you'll every year i try to let you know because i know i've had board members ask what is my balance how much do i have left and then i explain and give a breakdown this is exactly what was what was budgeted this is what was used um so just as a note for the new board members mileage if you're going to be traveling um and submit mileage reimbursement that does come out of your budget cost okay and i know that typically we you know it says you know appropriate board conferences and workshops and that typically is you know asba or nsba but if there were other types of education related workshops or conferences are those included in that i don't see anything that disallows it in the policy but the motion says to attend training and conferences that may include but are not limited to arizona school boards association national so whatever you okay you find in it's gonna be it's pertaining to district right business then yes okay that's the only question i had anybody else okay that is a long motion okay i am going to motion to approve travel conference related and reimbursable travel fees for individual board members to attend training and conferences that may include but are not limited to arizona school board association and national school board association events events for each board member for the 2021 2022 school year an approved amount of 4 000 is designated plus any monies remaining in an individual board member's travel allowance for the 2020 2021 school year that will be carried over and added to that individual's travel budget for the 2021-2022 school year if an individual board member exceeds the allotted travel and conference allocation the board member would need to bring the travel request to the whole board for consideration and action as part of the action discussion agenda second it was that long motion that did it motion passes okay all right next we have the request for future agenda items going once going twice i'll entertain a motion to adjourn okay i'll motion to adjourn she seconds you
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amy made the motion can i hear a second a second this is keith okay kate seconded now i will open it up for a discussion now amy you can go back you know if you wanted to uh discuss it more we can talk about that at this point and then have questions i believe amy did ask the question and was waiting for response amy is that correct that's correct okay kevin i think you're on right or right i know you're not in this he's on okay i'm here there you go kevin thank you hi amy good up good evening everyone um so so just going back to the portrait of the graduate um presentation and amy i believe part of your question is what does this mean uh for curriculum and some of our concrete next steps as a district um the the board and the community might recall uh we had identified our next steps um as a as a team and you know some of the things we're going to need to do um as a district to move the pog forward um certainly some of those things is you know communicate the portrait of the graduate vision to all stakeholders we need to make sure um our staff is is you know we've reviewed with our staff what the pog is about certainly on the constituents that were part of this process are well aware of what this is about but we need to also make sure that our teachers are aware in in our remaining danbury community um yes yes we you know uh in 20 in december i believe of 2018 uh the board approved the equity and diversity policy um that talked about um you know removing some of those obstacles on that that that contributed to the achievement gap and also removing any obstacles that that that in any way is did not allow for equity for all students and so you know we want to expand equitable learning environments and experiences for all of our students as part of this work um and this work has started in the district already um and so you know we and and some of the things that we again we outlined in a powerpoint um of course we want our curriculum to be rigorous and inclusive um career connected and culturally responsive um and so i i know this board has heard several times about um how we're going to ensure that our 912 career academy with dan barry is going to be career connected and it's going to be rigorous uh but we also need to make efforts to make sure our entire curriculum k-12 pre-k-12 is inclusive and culturally responsive and so one of the next bullets in the powerpoint for next steps was was talking about strengthening curriculum strengthening assessment professional development and systems to ensure that you know the entire curriculum is culturally relevant and provides provides ample opportunity for student growth and those pog categories um that we had that we had uh celebrated in every moment so excited about across all grade levels and so when when talking about strengthening curriculum you know we're not purchasing we're not talking about purchasing a curriculum that that means you know we're going to change the curriculum and and begin to scare you know this the the danbury community we want to make sure we are celebrating the diverse danbury community and we celebrate that by strengthening the curriculum to make sure it's representative of the community that we're serving and so you know i think we've gone to great lengths to talk about finding ways to celebrate on the diversity in the danbury community and we have started a process in which and amy i know you know an example and an analogy i had provided for you not an analogy but an example i provided for you all of our k-5 students throughout all of our elementary schools we have what we call classroom libraries and all of our elementary schools and all of our kids they have you know they have leveled books that they read as young learners in our school system and so when our when our kids pick up books every day we want to make sure that those books are representatives not only representatives of their community um they that they see characters and and and students and young people in those books that look like them that are reminiscent of their own culture um and and background um and we think this is important and again if if our if we are committed to celebrating diversity in our community then this is going to be you know something that's going to help strengthen our curriculum um and and we believe strongly that this this helps all kids right and so making sure that we're not seeing characters from one background helps all students and all families that we can all celebrate each other's cultures as we continue to develop and and experience the the danbury school system um and then one of the last things we talked about as part of the next steps was brandon the portrait of the graduate and developing the connections not only the academies but you know to everything that we do um in the danbury in the denmary school district uh so so i hope that helps a little bit um i know that you may have some more um more specific questions for me but in terms of the curriculum adjustments it's about strengthening the curriculum and that's an example for k5 uh certainly of what it could look like um but you know some of those other strengthening curriculum means you know we if we're going to make make um we want to make those experiences relevant for our kids and so those relevant experiences has been highlighted by you know cara melissa and her tea and that team we're talking about what we're trying to do at danbury you know the danbury career academy for 9 12.
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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 justice for all. [Music] Where do you go? [Music] Here Happy Christmas. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Thank you. And you may be seated. I would like to begin this ceremony by introducing our distinguished guests this morning. We welcome Mrs. Anna Piery, president of the Anaheim Union High School District Board of Trustees, and Miss Anarie Randall Trejo, member of the board of trustees. Additionally, we would like to welcome our Anaheim Union High School District superintendent who are joining us this evening. Mr. Michael Matsuda, superintendent, and Dr. Jiren Frerieded, assistant superintendent, educational services. We would now like to take the time to thank our principal, Dr. Kevin Hodgson and our assistant principles, Miss Michelle Surface, Mr. Sha Feifer, and Mrs.
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so what i'm i'm going to do this just so we can see it in real time and i'm also going to validate the numbers but i just want to go here so we can see the cost put the formula in [Music] fancy girl there we go 2.6 and i will still validate those numbers but this is just approximate uh miss jamal you have a question from the chat from mr contreras if lee and dalton are still in the model is the cost reflected here [Music] i don't understand that question what do you mean it's the cost reflected here because there's no cause we're not on the finished modernized list i would assume there would be some additional cost to keep certain sites in in certain models so no so um the going to say my philosophy i'm not going to say it's the philosophy of the team my philosophy is is that we know that all of our sites need to be upgraded and so the only things that was remaining for these sites was the interior modernization and i'm acknowledging that all the sites will need this so we will take the budget that's currently allocated to those sites to help with these sites if these are the sites that were selected okay i mean i misunderstood i thought you had said lee was not done with their underground the underground yes but the budget amount still includes the now i see where you're going so yes um i i don't see it's different but if you would like for me to put the cost of the underground utilities i could but i don't see that i was just yeah i just didn't see anything there and i wasn't sure if it was reflected in those costs so i i understand your philosophy or your thoughts but i just didn't see it here on a line or in a cell so no problem any other questions on model 3.8 just to clarify um ms latasha isn't that because um that funding has already been like allocated because of measure k all of the projects that originally were uh set aside yes so lee was already included in that but as by us pausing those funds are just being on hold till we decide what we're going to continue with right but it wouldn't be an additional cost to this right because isn't it already allocated yes yes okay thank you but just just to to bring home uh latasha's point um so um go back to 3.1 um for instance let's pretend this one right here if this were to be the one that quote unquote right the team rallies against i'm sorry rally's four then that modernization number for lee underground is not needed anymore right because in this model lee is going to eventually close so then those dollars that we're going to be quote unquote for lee then obviously can be employed uh for other um for other projects um in if this were the model that's kind of what would happen right so it wouldn't be like well too bad we have to still do underground and lee and we're going to waste all that money that would be that wouldn't be um good yeah and miss jamal i see another question in the chat from ms valdez so then there would not be any additional expenses to modify slauson or any other schools who have not been modified going to rephrase a statement or question what i'm hearing you say is that because those schools are being closed there will be no additional expenditures and that is correct if that's what your question is well i was actually um referring to for example let's say lee if that school i guess i'm piggyback piggybacking off of what mr contreras and um mrs rojas were asking that those specific schools that haven't been remodeled or modernized um there wouldn't be actually an additional expense because those funds to modernize them have already been allocated through for example measure k so the only expenses that we would see here for those specific schools are to adapt them to whatever the model specifies so for changing the k8 or for example making it um 712 for example right is that correct that's correct okay because my concern in the previous meetings were that we were going to choose models or eliminate models or eliminate schools based on the idea that we thought it was going to cost extra to not only adapt these schools but modernize them and that's not the case correct that is correct that is not the case thank you for that clarification oh thank you for the question can i ask that in a different way so that i'm really funny so it's not going to cost extra but if a non-modernized school closes then it's a savings yes okay so not costing extra but it could be a savings whereby that money could use you used somewhere else yes okay thank you all right any other questions well is it not i would say is it a savings or is it just a transferring of funds to somewhere else it would be a transfer fund to another project which would be a savings meaning we wouldn't have to take from another pot to pay for because we can transfer it to somewhere else we can allocate it to another project because it can't go to something else besides a project okay all right i'm going to go to model 3.310 i'm sorry so this again we still have the rebranding because valley dale is going to a tk8 as per the author we still have the sixth grade curriculum um we still have the model modernization of the cafeteria and then we have the same six line items for the new high school so it has the same cost as 3.1 whereas 3.8 has the new middle school so that's why it's slightly more any questions here miss latasha is this 3.10 yes it is am i missing something okay no i just couldn't see the model number at the bottom like that oh i'm sorry okay all right any questions here miss patricia hello um so in regard to the question of well it's all within the same um the transfer of funds to another project is that project within the agreed schools that are on the list of modernizing does it go to transfer to those school sites or these funds you could use them at any school site um as long as the measure k group agrees or goes along with it because i know you guys have the committee has to need and all that other stuff that goes on so when we passed the bond it was not passed listing schools it was passed for modernization and then the district and the committee came up with the schools that hey we're going to focus on these first five and then um deal with the other items so it wasn't that the bond language states that it only can go to these schools so we would not have to go back out for approval or anything for that if that's the question okay thank you you're welcome and mr mall you have a um statement from miss davison boston would require more work slash money because of the wi-fi issues okay thank you any other questions we are going to jump to 4.4 i'm so excited so we see 4.4 tk6 no tk8 so no um we do have a rebranding because we will be converting ellington back to a tk6 so that's why we could have consistent rebranding but still the same with the sixth grade curriculum now you see we do not have the middle school modernization of the cafeteria but we do have more costs associated um with converting our two seven our two high schools to seven twelve so again we are going to rebrand we're going to modernize the kitchen to make it larger we are going to add two uh 72 by 40 modulars which will give four classrooms each um and what that idea was for the seventh and eighth graders to have their own wing on campus so that way it's not that they're going to be gated off but literally we would build four modulars on one part of the campus so they'll have their own little wing for part of the campus and then they would only have to divert out if it came the pe or any other elective whatever the decision was we would need up to upgrade our bell schedule and we would consistently need to upgrade our locker rooms so to make model 4.4 happen the projection is 11 million dollars and i have the same additional consideration items mr gabriel would those uh i'm sorry i'm not an architect but the the new modular rooms where they include restrooms for that wing yes it would include two to four restrooms depending on the size but yes and these are also using the same ellington model and i'm sorry i'm going to find the picture but i just make the assumption and i'm wrong for that that everyone's seen the beautiful modulars at ellington so i apologize but i will um get that picture so i can show you and and does that model and their branding or within one of those items potentially include revamping potential interior fencing or something in terms of restructuring how the campus is laid out and things like that so not revamping um fencing inside the campus but it's just revamping to the point of having a wing just for the seventh eighth graders and then figuring out where on campus that can go so it can seem like it's uh their own little area but we didn't i didn't have the there was no vision of getting them off okay thank you you had a question from miss uh wilson perkins miss wilson perkins i'm so sorry i think i missed um 3.8 when i was thinking about the new middle school that that one also listed a new middle school i think i'm going to go back so i have it on 3.8 um is there another camp yeah and then 3.3 you are correct so i need to update that give me one second i didn't catch that as well and then also with the totals were for obviously um that a lot of money will be saved with the model 4 because of the rebranding but the rebranding of the high school is a option to be presented not necessarily i mean i in the models of that model that i authored i included as an option to be like voted on by the community whether or not it was worth the amount of money that it would cost yes and all these are just options based on what the model the author requested so i'm giving the cost of what that would be not saying that we have to do any of this okay okay so i'm going to go back to 4.4 okay all right so here again we will be rebranding ellington we'll have the same sixth grade curriculum we will be rebranding um two of our current high school facilities uh modernization of the cafeterias adding the four additional wings rooms for the seventh and eighth grade classrooms upgrading the bill schedules and the locker rooms any questions here yes ms meg okay so um i know you're just i'm giving options right and this is not set in stone but i'm gonna go back to um costs because it seems like such a drastic difference between your your model 4 and your model 3 options and so i'm trying to think back to that very first slide that you gave us that talked about the modernization designation amount and if i remember correctly for middle school it was about 10 million dollars right for to to do say slauson and so if we're not doing slauson that 10 million dollars that would have been spent there could cover this amount of money just hypothetically if this one yes ma'am or something similar to that so there is money there it's not like if that's yes yes no i'm i'm asking i'm asking if that's the thought process of the bond using utilizing the bond funds that yes like because here it just happens that all three of the middle schools are on this list and so that 30 it's not 30 because because already moderate watson and center that's 20 million dollars that would cover yes ma'am okay and that is our philosophy miss natasha just to just to clarify a little bit more to meg's question um of course when it's appropriate and uh to use bond funding right and so yes a lot of stuff here looks like it would be but there are some things here and there that that would not but i mean that's not the bulk of it but to to to that point yeah so for example sixth grade curriculum we could not buy the bond funds yeah so yes that is a perfect example thank you so much for clarifying that you have uh a couple more the questions is could could the potential savings between model 3 and model 4 be used to fix the swimming pools at the high schools if that could be a recommendation and a desire yes uh looks like there's a question but it looks like one of our panelists already answered it how much is left in measure k bond budget and anthony said about 35 million dollars which is absolutely correct okay and miss patricia your hands up yes it was just really quick it was in regard to 35 million so even with these totals that is we still have a remaining that could still be utilized on other sites when needed yeah uh okay awesome thank you thank you yes so i make sure i'm on track because this is like yeah yeah so yes um so the goal would be is that um if or when we ever came to recommendation the board approved and said hey we're going with this model um we would figure out the uh costs based on the product the items that we're agreeing to here um we will upgrade the facilities if there's anything left then we have a wish list and that'll be between the board and the clc to say hey we still have this left in the bond how we like to allocate this awesome thank you you're welcome any more questions right now yes a question from miss yvette valdez is it not already planned to modernize our pools or measure k funds that is not a current project that i have but i am not i'm not going to say that i'm not aware that i'm aware of every plan that's there but based on the list that i have that i did the last board update on the pool was not one of the items i can expand a little bit on that um to the tasha's point when the bond was passed yes there are pools mentioned you know as possibilities uh but but yes to natasha's point right now that is not a project um knowing that we're we're we're at 35 million dollars now down to 35 million dollars that is not a current project that was uh on the list not saying that it can't be just saying that that currently was not there thank you any more questions at this time all right i'm going to go to 4.5 and so 4.5 has more increase of a cost for the tk6 because here we are converting a middle school to a tk6 model so now we would need to add a kinder wing which would cover preschool tk and kinder add-on plus their restrooms we would also need to do the rebranding from changing from center middle to center tk six um again the same sixth grade curriculum but we will also need to purchase furniture for um the preschool and tk kinder as well as implement a playground area for that age group then for the two high schools converting to the 712 those expenditures remain consistent with model 4.4 so the only large difference is because we're converting a middle school to a tk6 so now we would have to add the preschool tk kinder wing to the middle school campus any questions here all right hearing and seeing none thank you mr mall you're welcome um again just uh just to to kind of just summarize here um we tried to look at every nook and cranny these some of these are possibilities these are not set in stone uh but again just try to think of everything that that might possibly uh be needed of course some of these things can be uh too much and it gets scaled down some of those things like oh my gosh we forgot about xyz and then that has to be there but again we try to put our heads together and really think about what might be needed uh in terms of the the budget uh implications so so thank you latasha for walking us through that thank you um we are now going to turn it over to mr jorgen rocchio to walk us through uh staffing thank you mr ortega um great job miss jamal uh great job uh team um you've all just continued to demonstrate how important this process is by not only your attention and your questions i'm going to go ahead and present my screen which is a presentation zoom in presentation in me don't always work so if i get a thumbs up saying that jsc all right um so you should be seeing my presentation thank you uh so i we we heard as mr ortega uh mentioned earlier that the team wanted us to rethink um staffing and i hope that we're we demonstrate that we're listening to to what the team has been asking for what has transpired between the last time i presented at this to this team and and today is multiple meetings with principles um individual principles as we talked about staffing um i i was getting their sense of of where um what their thoughts were i talked about i talked to principals in small groups and then i circled back to principles again really wanted to get a sense of what what their thoughts were and of course uh along the way um i heard comments from this team comments from just my own interactions with other employees and then comments of course from cabinet so um i'm going to go ahead and start off the presentation is um organized into two umbrella groups of certified classified support staff and then i will get into certificated support staff uh we did some homework um to to come up with this we reviewed um staffing formulas that had previously existed and i used that as our kind of our basis and then uh in the conversation with principals i also looked at what our current staffing is right now because in many cases uh we were not necessarily adhering to what those staffing formulas were from um five to uh five and more years ago um and so um as we get into these pieces i wanna to just also share with the group and i've said this before that we're talking about positions and we're talking about people um and we take this with a lot of care and concern because we have we're talking about positions that um um are are um in the balance with some of the decisions that we make um a lot of the decisions that we make require um an input from multiple parties and some of them do require negotiations uh from our uh with our bargaining unit members so um none of this is final um and i want to just emphasize that um as we as we go into the presentation so with that um the first uh table you'll see is um the alimentary uh classified support staff um this is a table that lists um positions on the column on the left uh the um there are uh enrollment bands so the um top band that is the title uh says floor equal to or less than um 400 uh so that that's essentially where that's where we're working off of so that's that is our floor so if we have any schools in them any of the models that we choose that are less than 400 um they will all have the the um positions that are listed here i'll get into each position in just a second i want to first disorientate you with the table um for going on to the next column from 401 to students if a school is in this enrollment ban then they will obviously grow in the positions listed at the bottom the boxes on that are grayed out uh represent that these are these positions are essentially going to be um set regardless of the movement on the table the next column is 501 to 600 students and then you'll see some more positions towards the bottom and then the last band is from 601 and up so if we have any elementaries with 601 and up you'll see that they would have an allocation of staffing that includes um that includes these positions uh so for secretary every site will have a secretary uh an eight-hour position uh every site will have a um three hour uh outfit uh library aid again every site will have a one hour i'm sorry three hour uh library aid and then i'm gonna start highlighting some of the pieces that are different so currently we have um custodians um our sites have one custodian and custodian that's assigned to the day and another custodian that's assigned to the night regardless our new with our floor and our staffing we will we are saying that our custodians uh we will have one custodian in during the day and two regardless of the size of the school at night so that would be an increase of an of a custodian position per site we are also adding a computer tech position that each site will have four hours of a computer tech position um that uh that um will will be um that would be assigned to that school site every day and then you also have um here our floor at 400 our school clerk this is the uh the position that we actually did leverage uh and went back to our staffing formulas so for school is less than at 400 or less then we um we will be staffing that school site with uh one for our clerk we have a community liaison another change as well uh so currently we have our sites have three hours of community liaison um and as you see um actually let me go up i'm sorry school clerk and if we have one at the lowest band you have one four hour clerk but as i referenced earlier as the enrollment increases from 401 to 500 then we increased by two hours the uh amount of the clerk hours for that site so it goes from four hours at our floor to six hours and then that continues um to increase by one hour for the next band 501 students to 600 sudden that school would have a a school clerk for seven hours and then from 601 and up the site will have a eight hour clerk we also wanted to kind of apply that same [Music] rule as an enrollment increase for community liaison the floor would increase as well uh capping off at six hours for a community liaison and you and those increases are in line with the um with the enrollment bans and then noon supervision this is one where we have increased noon supervision uh considerably uh and uh we are allocating 40 hours uh which again is is far more than what our current staffing formula contemplates but there has been changes that would necessitate this this need for a change and so the increase in noon supervision hours assigned to the site will increase in increments of four uh per 100 students uh uh topping off at 52 hours and i want to just uh highlight that it's uh the sites um have varying needs as far as the number of gates that they have to assign um new supervisors to so the the allocation of hours is really essentially given to the principal to determine how many individuals that they want to and need to hire for for their site it could be a four 10 hour positions or it could be 20 um five hour positions okay whatever the the site needs um all right i'm good i think i did the math wrong um eight to five hour position okay i'm going to move on to the uh i know this table kind of has quite a bit of information on it so i wanted just to identify this by um by individual sites so for the floor for sites that are 400 uh and and less and um i as we i reviewed the different models that were selected uh one site does fall um into this i their allocation would essentially be one eight hour uh uh one eight hours like one three hour uh half aid one three hour um library aid again uh one day and two night custodians one four hour clerk i'm sorry tech uh one four hour school clerk one three hour uh committee liaison and then 40 hours of noon supervision for the site and then as i go through uh you'll see that these uh hours are essentially reflected um aligned to what we described in the uh what i described in the earlier table and it's pretty consistent um that we're gonna have uh more nights supervision for custodians uh the sites will have four hours of computer tech uh service um and then six hours of school clerk for this band four hours of community liaison and then again aligned to the table 44 hours of noon supervision uh this is again similarly the only change is now you're at seven hours of school clerk five hours of community liaison and 48 hours of a noon supervision and then for the last band of elementary schools uh now you're at the furthest bound where you start seeing eight hours of a school clerk six hours of community liaison and 52 hours of the noon supervision uh i will pause right here to see if there are any questions i have a question jorge um uh mr rankill i'm sorry oh so um so noon supervisors i'm seeing 52 hours for example that is is that like some kind of budgetary limit and then the number of employees that they have is based dividing those hours is based on the school site and the size of the school site correct correct so it tops off at 52 hours so a school could choose to hire a 26 two hours positions or they could do five and then kind of divided a little bit more than 10 hours uh per so it really depends on the school um and and we really do have different makeups in in the way the schools are arranged some of them have lots of gates lots of exit points um some that have multiple lunches that need additional folks uh to cover during the noontime part of the supervision so so there was some thought around about some flexibility thank you all right i'm going to go forward and talk about middle school very similarly on the table from the top looks very very like the elementary uh the gray boxes means that essentially it taps it caps off on the the lineup here so every site would have an eight-hour uh secretary every site would have a three-hour um health aide a site would have a three-hour library aid and again uh each site will have one day and two night custodians um this is where where i may need to provide some explanation each site will have very similar to the uh to the elementary will have a computer text assigned to the site and it's going to be uh what will work out to 6.4 hours per week but in reality it would be four days a week on that other day of the week what you'll see will be allocated to the high school so that they have additional support at the high school level with for computer techs clerical the floor for middle school will be eight hours um and then it will increase by increments of four in accordance to the uh bands um of enrollment that are listed above so uh 12 hours for a the band of enrollment from 601 to 700 um 14 hours for the band of students between 700 and 1 and 800 and then for 801 and up you have 16 hours of school clerk uh assignments committee liaison also isn't uh also has increases where we have a floor uh of six hours but that as we get into the bands those those hours increase in accordance to the student enrollment and then uh similar to the elementary we have a floor of 40 hours for the site to determine how to organize their supervision but as their students increase they cap off at 52 hours for those sites that are 801 and up jorge we have a few questions yes okay i'm going to start with miss yvette said is there a particular reason why the health aids hours do not increase with the number of students i wouldn't say there was a particular reason um no okay and next um we have a question from meg anthony and then a statement from jen meg um i'm wondering why um we we have this chart in particular because in all the model 3 options there's one mega middle school and then in option four options i mean in the model four options both of them are 7 12 so is the idea here that you know 712 is going to be a 7th and 8th grade village and they're going to get their own stuff allotted to them i'm wondering why why we have this chart essentially if we're gonna have one middle school in one of the options and also you know in in each of the models we're projected at having over 800 kids at that one school so why i'm sorry good no it's a it's an excellent question um more than anything i wanted to demonstrate to the team our thinking um and uh how we're landing on these different staffing uh so that it's it's aligned to a formula there's some logic here you actually are foreshadowing the next slide actually is just for the 801 middle school so you'll see in a second that it's only going to be you're only going to see the allocation for one middle school so also just to add to to that and to to be super clear on meg's question you are correct this right here is for the one mega middle school in model three and that's it um but we don't know right five ten fifteen twenty years from now and of course there'll be different people in the room and doing different things but this is just to set it up so that again for for the cases and the scenarios that that may exist in the super far future and i just wanna and i think it was mrs perkins um i'm not positive so i hope i didn't insult anybody that that said why or maybe it was a vet why do we only have a three-hour health aide at a middle school especially if it's a mega middle school that's going to have over 800 kids i mean you know right now there's a three hour health aid at all three of the middle schools that are open and have 200 kids each 400 it's less than um i i guess like we talked about with the counselors what you know i i want to reiterate that i think that she's absolutely right that that needs to be something that should be reconsidered 800 students with one health aide only there in the morning or whatever mr ant mr anthony i think my question was almost answered that was literally there i i wasn't sure if this was the mega middle score 712 with the middle school portion um i i would concur in terms of we hit 800 and having a three-hour health day that would be interesting maybe two split up in a.m and p.m and the only thing i may offer to the group under the custodial questions was a possibility of having three custodians but one being on a split shift um kind of kind of that hybrid in between just something to consider um moving forward so they can catch with the cleaning but maybe help with the end of the day activities as well that was it but that that answered my my major question okay thank you and was there another um no it looks like dr mitchell took care of the last one okay straight i can't see any of the um questions that comes i i and so here's the mega middle school meg that we were talking about and so the um the allocation of staff is listed as listed here okay um i have a question about the library aid um at middle school the library is handled through language arts classes so this would be an impossibility for language arts teachers to take them since there would be length uh language arts classes from first through throughout six periods of the day so that is a concern that i would have for middle school okay all right now going to high school um here we have a high school that is um with the floor that's less than 1200 um and it follows similar model this time the bands are we just have um fans that are a little different um and the high school second band is from 12 uh 1200 401 to 1600 and then the high school where it's greater than 1600.
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um so that's you know another example of strengthening curriculum and strengthening the activities and experiences for kids um in the school system so i hope that's a start for you and i'm also available to answer any of the questions you might have uh mr washington could i just ask a question um we when i say we you are not taking anything away from the uh kirk curriculum you are adding into the curriculum uh to sort of look more like our community is is this what you're saying yes inclusion i guess that was the word that i was looking for conclusion okay i don't know if anyone else has any question and i i just you know i i'm just thinking about people thinking that we are taken away from the curriculum that's already in place it's just to add uh into the curriculum of the diversity of being there and uh you know your team and group has been working on that for a while so i i don't know if anyone else have any questions thank you yes thank you just to um our um public comment um there's there's a real concern out there as we see you know certain movements sweep the country so could anyone speak to um mr mccauley's uh comment please i think that's relevant to this well dr there was a there was a note that i think went out there i did not respond to him because i was trying to get some type of uh i was i was trying to really figure out in my head exactly uh where it was coming from and i you know to me i felt like it was not appropriate to read tonight okay and i think that could have been a different way to handle that but again you know uh we spoke to the lawyers and i guess starting to sell and everything was okay i i just i just thought i should have came on a different heading to the board but that's just me so um miss coop if i if i can just also add um this the team that the the portrait of the graduate committee um and then i i remember sharing the excitement uh from our last meeting from the workshop and you know the last thing i want want to happen is just to dampen that excitement in any way um because a lot of work has been put into this and so you know typically as part of the um superintendent reporting mechanisms um you know there are port outs you know three times a year four times a year and and frankly this work is too important not to be continued um and not to be shared with the public uh and so if you know we we celebrated this as a community portrait of the graduate we would be more than happy to share the progress um as we continue to move forward we already have an action plan as a group on how we're moving forward that this is not this this is only an effort to continue to strengthen this school system and celebrate the things that we've said is important uh so we we're happy to if the board is is would like um to commit to providing quarterly updates for the board in the community um to talk about what this means for professional development for the district what this means for you know curriculum purchases for the district and what this means for student experiences across the great levels for the district mrs cooper i have a question if yes yes uh kevin and dr sal to the the point that amy made with regard to reading the language if the the the language required an explanation is there a way that you feel you could adjust the language so it states what you explained and doesn't lead to [Music] controversial thinking that is my question number one number two has the the staff itself in danbury been briefed on this and and what is their general acceptance and approval of this particular project i know we have the authority to make policy and it gets followed but this is a two-year work and like you said it's very important and to me i'd like to know that the people that are doing the teaching really are committed to this and buying into this and then thirdly is there a logo and i liked your idea of the north star last week that can depict what this particular project is so when you do correspondence or presentations there's a particular logo that represents it that's basically it thank you so so mr genelli i'll i'll take the last two and i'll start there first um the the logo piece the branding has not been determined yet um the the entire team has not gotten back together we were trying to get through this process first and uh we wanted to find a way to engage the school community before we determine the branding the branding and we wanted to find a way to kind of include the school community as part of that process um the as part of the next steps uh because i if i heard your question correctly you're asking has the entire staff bought into this um the entire the entire staff and this is part of our presentation last week um has informed the portrait of the graduate but but but we've had representation of our staff to help put together to graduate the characteristics of the portrait but now that it's been you know now that we're on the steps of approval then we would go back to the entire staff and then begin to share with them what this means for them walk them through what this means for them in terms of professional development strengthen the curriculum student experiences um and walk them through that process um and then and then start to work with them but we we we had tr we have chosen representatives from teachers administrators parents students across the system to help develop it um once approved then we would go back to the staff to help to then build and build capacity throughout the system and to my first question i'm sorry mr jan i don't remember that yeah and the first question i asked was with regard to amy's point about the language that she read i mentioned is there a way that that language can be polished so that it it depicts your explanation and avoids perhaps having somebody have a misinterpretation of it right and is this the language from our policy that we approved or language from the pog i'm not sure which language right from pog amy had read a segment that she said had bothered her um i don't call the exact quote on it but she could if she's there she could because i'm here i'm here it was from the equity and diversity statement um correcting practices and policies that perpetuate the achievement gap and institutional racism in all forms the other part of what i was trying to get across also was about the design of margins kevin like i said i hadn't really heard of that maybe that was my oversight um and i also just want to state right now in front of everyone that it was an honor to be on the pog coalition and i was excited about i'm excited about it um you know i think it's it's only going to push danbury to an even higher level in all in all ways um but like i said about design of the margins i hadn't heard of that that evening and there was some more of that radical include that kind of language just what mr janelle is talking about right now the language leading to controversial thinking and i just uh we know we have one particular person parent who uh you know the uh dennis mccauley email that we heard tonight um and i just would like um i like that i love this idea of um the quarterly updates i think that's that's awesome that's excellent but i think that you know it seems like nobody wants to talk about it here tonight but i think that there is this feeling throughout our whole country there's like a movement going on and parents in the community are concerned about it so um i'm not trying to take away anything away from the portrait of the graduate i'm just trying to uh kind of give us a you know a heads up of what i felt after the workshop last two weeks ago and um and as mr jelly just said the language leading to controversial thinking right so so so mr gennelly and amy the the statement is pulled from the board's approved policy so if that that statement is is pulled from the board's policy so if if there's language in that statement then we would have to revisit the policy to massage it for for the board to be comfortable with the state about radical um and i believe the the statement you're referring to amy was a statement made by one of the teachers um so that that that's not something that's you know in writing as part of the pog work uh but the statement itself is pulled from the board policy so you know i was sitting here an elephant in the room the critical race theory you all talking about and what the gentleman's speaking to you know we're not in the political forum here you're looking at you know what we've been doing over years and i think this board i am so proud of you've gone through and you've looked at areas that were impediments to youngsters whether they were hispanic blacks whites socially unable to because of the economic and we put it in positions to achieve and i think this portion of the graduate you know just systemizes that we're not looking at creating a um a system here of of of infusing that radical thinking i think the board here is looking at having a graduate leave here with a perspective of the world and you know to talk about the gentleman's letter today that's another issue i think that's a political one and you could have you know seminars on it but that is not our course of action um that is not our priority and uh we've been moving along uh this pilot working towards an equitable and access policy and that's what richard's talking about that's what kevin's talking about and i think sometimes these statements make it uncomfortable maybe uh four months ago five months ago it might not have and you know um you know it's politically charged amy is exactly right i don't think i think it is the elephant in the room but it doesn't read well with me only because that is not the intent within our curriculum um at all it is to follow a course of action that the board has been on for a number of years towards that kevin's north star to get everybody um to aurora borealis and and make sure that um that they're able to succeed so um you know maybe some future meeting amy rich conversation somebody could sponsor something but um i i don't believe that this our statement here um you know um should be um what's the word you know should be married with what you heard this evening necessarily although i understand the political um atmosphere as was just pointed out by um by the new board members so that's the best thank you sale kevin when i may um gentlemen the other way i do a lot of great work a lot of great work in that project uh there are also to uh resonate mr jannelli's statement yes there are some things that need to be massaged that fight kind of make me uncomfortable i've read the document i attended the workshop and uh uh the workshop one of the one of the speakers said there's uh anti-blackness in our curriculum and marginalized students so i i would suggest that this whole this be massaged before we approve it a lot of good work uh just needs a little a few a few little tweaks to it before we go ahead thank you you know i'd like to make a comment it's my understanding that pog is to me i call it a living document it's always going to be amended as time evolves so we're not cementing something right now as kevin says there's additional work to be to be done i think based on the comments that we have right now and that we've discussed at this particular point can always be discussed further on and adjusted to the process and and the project as we make changes to it to improve it i i i would hate after two years to hold it up because of a linguistic type type of thing here i think it's been explained publicly you know at least to my satisfaction there's a phenomenal amount of work here and as i said this is a living document that's going to continue to be changed we could always go back to the policies etc make recommendations uh i i would not like to see it hung up after all this time at this particular point no disrespect dow but we're not always going to agree rich these are tweaks and changes that we could always make to things going forward right but won't this this document will be that sort of rule of law if you allow me to expand on that a little bit and uh the opinion is expressed by by the the presenters during the workshop kind of gives it the slant that it could be confrontation thank you but then that then mr watson stated that in order to go back and change certain language we would have to take that back to the policy committee and then if we're going to change that length of language we can bring it back and have that language inserted yeah would it be maybe i'm not understanding would it be easier to change one rather than have to change too and and i'm gonna say this i've been in danbury a long time i've been on this board a long time i've been around a lot of different people and you might not like to hear this whenever we use the word radical racism bringing things up we sort of get uptight and whether it's political or an individual person uh making a statement or saying whatever they have to say our goal as elected officials is to work with our superintendent and those in charge to make sure that the education that our children are getting is the education that we should be providing for them for them amen okay i don't argue with that gladys okay no i i know i'm not arguing it's just a statement you know okay and i think rachel and kevin who are policy committee members you know could look at the issues we discussed tonight and and you know bring it forward a future date and give us their thinking on on what to do which i think maybe god has said maybe you're pro if you decide you could approve the uh the portrait of a graduate with a provider that it stays in constant with board policy so when they reflect on the board policy if there's a change because there's a nexus between what was included in current board policy uh and if you're going to change the board policy that would change this so exactly that might be a way of doing it yep exactly thank you my own sheriff of me yes um just very briefly and it it seems i don't want to get down too far into the weeds i'm trying to look at this as a as a it's a 70 odd page report um this is a it's it's aspirational it's a guideline it's a it's a set of goals and aspirations it's not necessarily uh it's not a script it's not a checklist it's not necessarily a paint by numbers or or connect the dots it's not we have to do these things it's not a set of criteria it's it's a set of goals and aspirations on things we want our we want to teach that we want to inculcate in kids that we want kids to learn and take away um i don't think any individual component part of this in of itself is necessarily overwhelmingly individually important i think it's the collective aspiration of the whole document um i i think as dr sal just suggested i do think it's it it's good that we're cognizant of the fact that this is consistent when in constant with existing board policy it can't contravene existing board policy because we're obviously not going to adopt two contradictory things and if we're adopting something now it's obviously our intention to make it consistent with the policy we already have so um obviously and we're slowly reviewing all of our policies thank you rachel for guiding us through that morass um but i i i don't know that we we need to get hung up on any one individual component part it seems like this is all it's a whole and as a whole it's as amy said it's it's a big document a lot of work went into it a lot of work went into trying to figure out what we think we need to we want our kids to take away and it's not any one part of this it's all of this or a piece of all of this that's all i have miss cooper if miss cooper if i may um and joe thanks for saying that um and just just thinking back to the presentation and the powerpoint itself and um all of the work that went into this you know there there are five characteristics that that that the coalition and and the danbury community landed on and and we're asking the board to approve um the characteristics that we identified um danbury graduates will be advocates collaborators communicators innovators and learners and so if we approve that direction as a board what what i'm committing to on behalf of the coalition is quarterly come back to the board in the community and report out through the action plan how we plan to move forward how that impacts trent uh professional development how that impacts curriculum how that impacts student experiences so that the board and the community can have some confidence and comfort in how we're moving forward but we're we're not asking really to approval on anything else other than the characteristics and the aspirational nature of the power of the power the the portrait of the graduate that that that's the approval that we need tonight so that we can continue on with that work and then have the action plan available for the board in the community uh because again as as we have presented at the workshop that we you know we're positioning this as a danbury portrait of the graduate um and we'd be happy to continue to update the board in the community on how this work is will continue to unfold yes i just want to say i just want to say one more thing please yes kevin thank you so much dr sal thank you so much i i just think it's important that you know when when something hits us and feels funny or not right and and we speak up about it but um i think with the quarterly updates i think um with what exactly we're talking about we're approving the the attributes that we all decide upon over all those months and with all that work um i also like what dr sal said about that you know it's been a work in progress for even beyond the 18 months it's something that um rachel had told me that she and dr sal talked about four years ago or three years ago you know this this portrait of a graduate in this direction and what that we needed a more clear mission than dan barry and so on so um i'm satisfied that uh as long as we're going to do the quarterly updates and it's really not you know maybe i got off in the weeds about it but it it did something to me you know and like i said to kevin in my conversation with him afterwards i don't watch a lot of news i mean but you can't help but know what's what's going on you know even if you watch 10 minutes five minutes a day so i'm just um glad that we were able to discuss it tonight and bring it up um um i'm you know i i do believe that there's some parents that may be concerned about it and i'm just really glad that we've got quarterly updates it is an awesome piece of work the portrait of a graduate and um i just thank you all for you know joining in the discussion and getting it out in the open thank you amy we thank you for being on that committee and putting the time in and thank you for bringing up your questions that you had um are there any other questions that motion has been moved and seconded okay kate would you do roll call please joe britton hi rachel celesti hi kate connetta aye gladys cooper aye lauren daly um joe da silva aye catherine hodgson abstain rich ginelli i alrusa abstain amy hi thank you all the motion is so careful rachel would you do action item b please sure i move that the board of education except for second reading and adoption policy 9326 taping recording of board of ed meetings as recommended by the policy committee 21-84 motion made by rachel did i hear a second second segment by joe britton okay do the roll call are there any questions i'm sorry are there any questions or discussion about this policy it's in our package okay now you can do the roll call okay i'm sorry no problem joe britton hi richard celeste aye kate canetta aye gladys cooper i lauren daly aye joe da silva aye catherine hodgeson aye rich gianelli aye al russo i am hi motion soap care joe britton would you do action item c certainly i move that the board of education approved the submission of a request for proposals to the state department of education for program enhancement projects for adult education in accordance with 21-85 second there was joe i've been made by joe seconded by joe de silva and a question concerning the motion seeing none kate could you do the roll call jill britton aye richard celeski hi kate canetta i vladis cooper aye lauren daly aye joe da silva aye catherine hodgson hi rich genelli hi el russo hi amy spolina hi thank you the motion so carry catherine hutchinson would you do action item d please i make a motion that the board of education accept the april 2021 operating results and analysis general fund grant projects in accordance with 21-86 motion made by catherine did i hear a second i'll second it seconded by amy in a discussion on the motion courtney do you have anything that you would like to add to the motion um i would just like to say we're on track with um um spending our full general funds courtney you might want to speak up okay sorry let me just turn up thank you dr sal i'm sorry we're on track to spend down our full general fund budget this year um we're in the process of uh prioritizing and maximizing our grant spending um and so what we what we hope that we're able to do is you do a little bit of spend down because of the fact that we had the alliance carryover um as well as some title carryover funding which will help us with next year's budget in addition um we're looking at maybe having more additional cares money which was the ester one to roll over into next year and we'll have a more definitive presentation on that to the board in about a month but right now we're marrying the two systems together and with the process of putting the detail reports into the new financial system and so we're able for the first time ever to do one full report that has all funding streams and funding sources all together at one point in time so really excited about that and we're excited about bringing that to you in the next board meeting um officially so you'll see on your grant report there's a few funds that look as though they're over 100 expended and you might have questions about that that's because we've got a right size you know there's just a little bit more shifting that we have to do now that we have the two grants sources together so for example primary mental health there's a little bit of expended money that needs to move the bottom line though the theoretical rate of the grant is about 83 when we take our cares grant carryover and our alliance construction get carryover after we're in that theoretical spend point where we should be with our grants for this point in time overall so in the next report you'll see the percent expended will be low 100 for each of those grants we just haven't had them all in one place like this so um you know and it looks like a big number so for example health and welfare we we truly did overspend that and the medicaid we didn't draw down as much medicaid so that's going to shift into the general fund but we're accounting for that and so so the next time you see this report those numbers that are above 100 will be you know below 100 because the final shifts will have happened the bottom line is we're in a good place to spend on our full general fund budget maximize the coronavirus release funds we actually might even be able to utilize some of the chronovascularly funds to offset some costs from last year and give back additional funds to the city to the tune of maybe five or six hundred thousand dollars to shore up our reserve funds so we'll know more once we um right size all of those grants and submit all of our um revisions for the alliance carry over the alliance and coronavirus relief as well as cares one so we're in a decent position um does anybody have questions and that's a little bit unique look at it but yeah um courtney no thank you for that because i noticed you know well over a hundred percent you know almost you know 400 percent but what about you know some other lines where where there was nothing budgeted and then there's something and then maybe you know there's there's just blank like for elp and family literacy center yeah so elp grant 36 they usually would roll that into extended hours so in the next time you see that it'll be rolled back up in a summary but i wanted to be able to show every grant source because of the fact that we're now cross walking to a new chart of accounts but the bottom the bottom line is that we're at 65 year-to-date expended and encumbered and that our projected encumbrances are i'm sorry 65 expanded and our projected is about 83 when you include both and that's the picture where we would be expect to be at this point in time it's just that because this year was unique in that we had you know increase in priority school district grant alliance carryover you know cares clear virus and esser we're cleaning all the grants for that we maximize everything so you'll see it a much prettier picture the next time we report out on this that's exciting thank you [Laughter] thank you rachel yeah thank you are you rich are there any other questions for courtney okay the motion has been moved and uh kate could you do the roll call joe britton hi richard celeski i kate canetta aye gladys cooper yes lauren daley yes joja silva hi catherine hodgson hi rich genelli aye al russo aye amy spolina hi thank you the motion is so carrick uh next is the presentation new graduate requirements dr sale yes thank you um as you know board um our graduation requirements are increasing to 25 that you know your board policy permits us to get to the 25 there's different ways of doing it and as you know as the academies come up of six seven of them there's going to have to be some discussion on that and um like anything else i think it's good we all feel start thinking now even though we're thinking two years down the road some respects so cara has worked this out with her group and she'll be taking us to cara actually uh dr martens and dan donovan are going to walk us through the graduation requirements and this uh has a amalgamation of work and collaboration with the curriculum administrators special education esl departments and our guidance department as well so that we have a really informed conversation as we move through uh making recommendations for the new requirements take advantage of our the flexibilities and in line with new exciting things happening in danbury for 2024.
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Mary Joe Durkin. We would also like to thank our teachers and our counseling staff, which includes Miss Carrie Vaughn, Miss Mary Benford, Mrs. Anita Gaston, Mr. girls Herado and of course our senior class counselor, Mrs. Sharon Hughes, all who have worked so hard to help us make it to this moment today. Our first speaker today is Jared Ortiz Louise. [Applause] Jared Ortiz Louise has been actively involved at Cypress since his freshman year and has been a part of Cypress's ASB for three years. He's also played an active role as secretary of the science national honor society at Cypress and has given lectures on neuroendocrinology and human DNA. Jared will be attending Cal State Fullerton in the fall where he'll be studying cellular and developmental biology in hopes of entering the medical field and offering his services to communities that are often overlooked and neglected. He would finally like to thank his mother and sister for being such great role models and always inspiring him to pursue his ambitions.
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uh similarly uh the secretary position uh we would have four eight hour secretaries um and um the health days uh would be one eight hour update for the um high school for library aid is one eight hour uh library aid a community liaison one eight hour and uh and then the computer tax position again that's the new position um and it it would be uh the sites would have uh the their own uh eight hours of computer tech um and the if you recall when we had the middle school um they had the four days of computer tech while that fifth day would actually be assigned to a high school so that the um on the days that the computer tech from the high school needed a second person to to complete a a particular task they would have a designated day for those two people tests uh so those are so that was the thinking around that uh currently our custodians our high schools have five uh custodians uh they have different different titles but they're essentially five uh custodians um and then as they increase in the number of students they will increase by one uh eight hour custodian uh school clerk they uh go from the floor of three eight hour uh school clerks to adding one per band so it'll be four school clerks uh for the bands 1201 to 1600 and then the band from uh 1600 and up uh you'll get two additional clerks to the base and then campus aids that the current uh high schools currently have 25 hours of campus aids this will increase as well to 32 hours and very similar to the elementary and middle schools the um logic is the same this site would uh determine how those um hours would be allocated so going to 32 hours for 200 to 1201 to 1600 and then above 1600 and we have 40 hours of campus aid for the site i have a couple of questions um i'm going to start with miss rojas um with the would that be part of the computer tech duties in the innovation lab uh would that be part the computer tech position yes if there's technology that's that would require um some uh support from the uh computer tech then then it would be part of their their task dr mitchell do you want to add anything to that um sure i can add something to that um so for example in the innovation lab there are they're printers right so um and the text uh will you know help with any if there's any you know troubleshooting or anything with any printers that would be something that they would um they would support with in the innovation labs there are also ipad carts and so um that's just another example of you know some of the uh uh equipment that we have in the in the lab is it is it um safe to assume that the computer techs are supporting the innovation lab just like they would support a teacher if their printer is not working just like they would support a clerk if their computer is not turning on it's not that the computer techs are running the innovation map that's correct and then the innovation labs are more um spaces where teachers can go uh and use some of this technology apart from or aside from the classroom which may not be designed you know with tables like you know to really get roll up our sleeves and do but it's not really it's not really a place where it needs to be quote unquote staffed is that correct as well that is correct jorge we have a question from miss melissa and mr gabriel has his hand up it says if we are closing two middle schools why isn't this mega middle school with potentially three times the number of students this um getting at least two times the number of staffing so let me see if i understand the question so um i'm making the um ratios exactly uh proportionate to what they have right now so is that what we're what the if we're just looking at like the two pieces we were just talking about with the health aide and the library i presume currently that's what foothill has and now foothill is going to have our entire middle school it's going to absorb two campuses how has it not absorbed at least three more hours of health aid and three more hours of a library aid per day for before mr romkio answers that question just one quick reminder right now we are in model three so in model three there's a tk8 so a school uh would be taking uh seventh and eighth graders uh as well so just a reminder that we're right now we're still in the model three go ahead mr okay i'm sorry yes and so and and with staffing um it's not always a one-to-one uh match where we started looking at the exact number of students and then just multiply that that out similar to how we have one secretary regardless of the number of the number of um students that are um that the site has uh when we do have health issues where we have a student who needs some attention um the um additional office app uh usually jumps into support with those with those matters um and as you can see we have increased the um number of office staff and a lot of different positions uh so you so it's not just um the the health aide that that that would be there you'll also have additional hours for the community liaison additional hours for school clerk uh so so it's it's in when we're when we look at staffing it's not always a one-to-one match but we we are we are looking at what the the needs of the school are and the additional staff that the site would also have but shouldn't for example like the library be open for the entire duration that the campus is open um obviously six hours would be too much school isn't that long but um we could certainly look at that um a little further to review um how how the library aid hours could work at a site um of the mega middle school size uh and so so we could study that further so we have gabriel then patricia then margie there are a few positions classified at the high school that are not listed here um the college and career person our data registrar type person in the guidance office as well as pe aids are they in the equation somewhere they are they will continue to be positions that we have um in at the high schools uh we we looked at what the team was requesting for support staff and these were the positions and we added a couple more positions that we thought that the sites would need as additional support um namely custodians and computer values we call those out because there's going to be either more of them or more hours of them there's patricia uh okay so in regard i'm listening to everything that's going on i know all of this has to be negotiated with um csta before we put like you said nothing is in stone but i just to make clarification uh in regards to librarian uh the library it's you know um being open that is something that um is not i know that is not possible uh when it comes to that because of cross you know we we don't uh do others like teachers wouldn't do ours we don't do their kind of situation so hopefully that answers the one individual i apologize but um but the other situation is that i'm looking at the high school and how you're speaking about covering when looking at the elementary you know it it i even though there's more students at a high school it it is really busy at an elementary and like meg said you know there's one eight hour person in that front office we have the smallest staff of course like you said according to the numbers but you have a four-hour uh clerk uh there's four hours of nobody else there you have a three hour health aide the the kids are there for six hours and who takes care of of the kids when the health aid isn't there a community liaison is only there for three hours but they're dedicated to parents um so i i'm looking at it i'm like this is not working out because it doesn't matter how big the school is the need is there the need is there across the board from the morning it begins to the end of the day the need is there so you do kind of put a lot on one individual and if that individual god forbid something happens they're not available then that front office is left to fail so i'm just kind of questioning the mentality of from it and i apologize if i'm offending anyone but i am like looking from elementary to high school and it is needed across the board and parents expect that somebody will be there to provide support for their student when they're sent to the office or a parent is going to need support when they come to the front door the principal is going to need somebody always there the teacher is always going to need somebody there it is a constant revolving door that is going always and there's a lot put really on a short amount of time for the individuals that are part-time and then the one person that's there all day and um i like again i believe this needs to be negotiated um because i'm just uh i apologize but i'm just watching and i'm just like it doesn't matter how big the school is it's the need and we always say student first family community and everything so again i know this is not in stone but i just needed to say something okay miss margie and i'm just going to echo what patty was just saying as a teacher at a middle school our community liaison is invaluable she um calls our parents does the spanish speaking phone calls if you her hours just at one site would be three hours she can't do all of those things that are the extras and helping and coordinating and working with the different programs because she's part of all those programs so having a community so one hour community liaison is great having those hours however community liaison most often is supporting and all those other areas and i would say that you need to really rethink the health aide as a three-hour position and the library eight is a three hour position those need to be beefed up to eight hours and i see the clerical super attendance because at a middle school everybody is filling in for everybody else and covering but when you you're bumping back the library age of just three hours and then not increasing the health fade with the um um a greater number there is a need for a um an eight hour health aid or a six hour health aid so i would suggest looking at those numbers again as well as at the elementary okay we'll take a look at the hours but i just want to clarify this we're not talking about three hour community liaison positions right because i was i my mind was on the first one for the lower level that was the three hour which is what we currently yes missy missy um yes i had i put a question in the chat but um i had a question about um the the numbers based on the hours the number of students and how the hours of these employees are increasing because in the projections for capacity of our schools the projection is that enrollment is decreasing so if our capacity if could we look at this chart but with the projected capacity enrollment slash enrollment numbers so that we could see what would happen if the capacity drops would then the staff drop with the hours drop because again these numbers show an increase of student count but and all our past capacity numbers the student count is dropping so i i see that you know we would add an extra hour here an extra employee here and there but if we're looking at the enrollment numbers decreasing what would that look like uh so what this aims to to address is both the uh what the schools would be allocated once we reorganize and once we land on the decision so if we land on the decision and the enrollment of the in this case what are projected now the high school is between 1200 and it says 1400 students then they would get this this allocation of staff um and then if over time uh and that mr ortega mentioned this in the in hopefully the very distant future if we start going from that 1400 number to less than 1200 then we would refer to this uh staffing formula that that is listed here uh so it this table aims to address what this what the allocation of staff will look like under a newly reorganized school uh and uh or rather district and then it with time with decreases uh you'll start seeing how this could affect individual campuses jen you know i'm looking at all of this and i i know that this is a challenge because we're literally cutting the number of schools that we have on in some of these models by half and so looking at how the the staffing is is is reallocated under those models is challenging but i think we also have a real opportunity to fix some things that have never worked and so why not do that now instead of just relying on a formula that has never been successful in the first place let's fix some things that don't work and i i i mean i can't tell you in the decades that i've been working in this district a three-hour health aide i mean the running joke is make sure you get sick by 11 o'clock right and so because otherwise there's nobody there to take care of a child if they are sick and it's around that time when the health aide goes home that we have once recess and with hundreds of kids even if it's just two or three or four hundred kids there are kids that start coming into the office who get hurt at recess and then the school secretary is having to deal with that because the clerk is gone this is kind of like what patricia was saying and then parents are coming in with things that they have to take care of at lunch and the phone is ringing off the book because they're at lunch and all of these things are happening all at once and in the meantime we're putting our kids at risk because for the rest of the school day there is no trained health aide somebody who is actually aware of how to take care of all of these injuries that is there to take care of people's children and i think that it just makes sense that we have a health aide as long as there are children present we are in charge of their care and so we should have somebody that can deal with their health issues the other thing i want to make a point about is library aids at the elementary school also need to be full-time because at this point teachers don't have enough time in three hours to get their library time in over the course of the week and so they just don't go to the library either that or the teachers try and take them and then that isn't necessarily something that works in the library is disorganized and the teacher is trying to help the kids and also check out books on the librarian system so it doesn't really matter what the enrollment of the school is it matters um that these kids have their needs met and if we are going to be reallocating the way we use our staff let's fix some of the things that don't work and not just rely on a formula that isn't adequate to our needs thank you jen um we definitely have heard right about the healthy in the library aid hopefully it doesn't go without notice that in other areas we have reimagined and redreamed and fixed so hopefully that doesn't go unnoticed that there are things where we have definitely increased some of these pieces to support our schools and support our staff but thank you for the feedback on the health aide uh and the and the library to everyone appreciate that were there any more questions around a classified staff for mr rokio okay scene none we we are up against our timing and so we're gonna have to uh uh end at this point in time uh so i want to kind of uh give you a preview of uh next next week uh so next week we will open up uh right away with mr ronquillo again and we would and we will shift though to certificated staff so same kind of um same kind of rhythm and role that we had today so certificated positions um for the different models and the different levels and what those may be like um and that's where we will that's where we will open up what is going to be important is then determining next steps so we're going to go through the certificated um and again like today uh take questions have conversation uh we'll take in you know how that how that happened happens and how that goes uh but then the question is going to be now what um so i want to i want to plant this seed in your head as you take a week to consider um you know different options of what of now what uh so uh one option could be okay the next step is we gotta further we gotta we gotta choose a model three and we have to choose a model for that could be like a next step a next step could be um nope don't want to choose one model three one model four uh we are ready to just choose a model and so let's just throw all the four models up there the two models up there and let's just now combine them and say okay what is my favorite and rank it that way and move forward in that direction that's another option another option is um you have some other uh topic or some other uh uh point or something uh that needs to be uh discussed or talked about that the team needs to um bring uh your way um so those are three in my head obviously there could be four five six seven eight nine ten more options um but those are three that seem realistic to me again i'm not advocating for one but we will have to answer that question and that question what was going to be um you know now what or or where where do we go uh where do we go from uh where do we go from here um we have a question yes ma'am will we get the responses from the survey that was emailed out to staff yeah we can share uh that hasn't closed yet uh so we can definitely share that out when that has when that closes uh-huh and miss meg would like to know when will the town hall be when will the townhall be the town hall is thursday june 24th so depending on depending on where we are as a school reorganization team uh again i don't know if we if we went with option one as an example one model three and one model four maybe that's another opportunity to go out to to seek some some feedback i don't know if it's we're gonna combine them uh then again maybe that's another opportunity to go you guys are ahead of the rest of the staff and you guys are ahead of the rest of the parents in the community unless people are you know chiming in uh or tuning in um so again this all depends on you know where we go this is this is a live uh or a living organism right and so we are facilitating pivoting changing uh adapting to uh to the things that that this team is uh speaking about and uh talking about uh no matter how we cut it slice it or dice it there will be no school reorganization team uh on june 9th that is graduation and promotion week and then that that will only leave uh that will only leave um two possible more meetings uh in june um so um i know that you guys have given so much of your time uh so much of your focus and energy and ideas and we super appreciate that um but again that doesn't have to be decided today but as you as you take the time and to ponder about this again we have we have certificated staff next week i don't foresee that taking an hour and a half so then again a robust question around you know what's next and so as we start to think about getting close to our original purpose which is to land a recommendation or recommendations to the board of education okay false last question will we will we be meeting after the school year ends um i foresee again if if needed i foresee next week and then there are two more times that we can meet in june uh but but past those two times in june uh we have to respect also uh everyone's time in in this room um and so again we can talk about it as a team but i also want to be respectful of your time and summer and you know taking breaks and you know those kinds of things as well but again i will leave that up to the team to discuss and to talk about but right now um i next week and then i see two additional times in june and then past that then it would be taking us into into the next school year but again we are amenable and we are flexible to to the needs of the of the team uh once again uh thank you so much today was uh you had again super great questions uh super great input and we appreciate it uh very very much uh have have a an awesome rest of your night and rest of your week thank you everyone thank you
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so i'll leave it over yeah dr martins will start all right dr martins actually i'm going to start first jesus are we going to get this right here or what who's going next you've got it right yeah we know what we're doing thanks for having us this uh we'll try to keep this to about an hour an hour and a half presentation uh you know not much longer than that now we've uh thanks for having us we've been here before to talk about graduation requirements to the board uh there's been some changing there's been some uh additions and subtractions from the state which we had to respond to so we're just gonna kind of go through this and uh give you an update on where we're going as you're aware the class of 2023 which is now our sophomores we're going to be juniors very shortly are the first class that hit this and now we're responding to some other changes that have come through now with the danbury career academies and other ways that we think in the recent you know years uh we need to respond for our pog stuff and how we can make the requirements nearer what's expected there so are this works so off our agenda we're gonna talk a little bit about the mission vision equity statement the rationale why we're making and asking for some of these changes uh the timeline of what we've done since we've been here like i said we've been here before what connecticut has for requirements what our current requirements are basically just the summary of the revision so you have the talking points that you need and a real concise idea of what we're doing the future implications of it if there's any questions you have for us at that point we'll be more than happy to answer them we are going to try to move rather quickly just to talk about uh to get through this kind of a little bit quicker so meg you're going to take it over on the vision and mission statement yes thank you dan um so the vision and mission um we're all very familiar with so i'm certainly not going to belabor the point i did want to highlight that um in this mission we're talking about providing transformational learning experiences um for our graduates and in order to to do that some some shifts need to happen to make sure that our requirements are in alignment with um the academy model that we are all very excited to move towards with everything that we've done graduation requirements for the graduate it has been in an effort to ensure that we have equitable learning opportunities for all of our students and so some of the suggestions that we're going to be making are to that end to make sure that all of our students are fully aware of the career options that they have and ways that they can fulfill their dreams by making good selections of choices and certifications and the academy ultimately that they would like to attend and so in order for us to make sure that we have space in the schedule for students to do some of these things we will be making some suggestions that reflect that in doing so we start talking about the rationale for why we're doing this as meg mentioned you know it's for positioning our students for the transformational experience that reflect back to the mission and vision we need to create opportunities as many of you know we ran are currently running a seven period schedule where we need to move to an eight period schedule to allow our students to have more opportunities take classes and with the academies coming that extra period and block will have a lot of time and benefit for our students and we're going to ensure that all students have equitable access realizing the portrait of the graduate making sure that all of our students all through k all the way out through these academies which is a changing experience in education will have the growth that they need to be able to produce when they leave danbury high school whether it's career whether it's college or the military they can thrive in those situations so in our timeline back in june 2010 revised the graduation requirements uh from passing with the class of 2015 to 21.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
[Applause] The notable evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin once said, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change." Change is often unexpected. While some embrace change, others struggle with it. However, regardless of our attitudes towards change, it is inevitable. Our world is constantly changing, but we adapt and move forward as a species. This global pandemic has affected millions of lives across the globe. Has affected us physically, mentally, and emotionally. However, it has also shown us the importance of community and the power we hold when we work together to address a global issue. Last spring, we're all separated. Yet, we learned how to adapt. And by navigating through various online conference systems, we were reunited and filled with that familiar sense of community. In the summer, we witnessed great strides towards progress for racial and social equality.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
in july of 17 we revised that to 25 credits because of the general statute uh that came out it was also postponed for a couple of years uh we came back to you in march of 2018 uh revised the graduation requirements again in response to the general statute beginning with the class currently of 2023 and a big one for us was in 2019 the state department announced teacher certification flexibility and now that's driving our academy planning it allows a little bit more freedoms it takes into account the personal uh experiences of teachers which is very helpful for us especially in hard to find subjects like the cte areas which would be the tech ed's and engineering pathways and things like that here's our current high school graduation requirements for the class of 2023 and beyond nine credits in humanities broken down into all of those uh us history and civics are still mandatory uh all students need to take that danbury high school in order to graduate stem is nine credits uh you know technology engineering and the math things um even with math algebra 1 geometry and algebra 2 are still required to take that wellness is is one credit health and safety one credit the capstone project which for the time being uh is going to be put into our civics course at the high school while we develop these academies and then once the academies are developed it will fit into each academy with probably about 90 85 90 of the structure being the same across academies but tailoring each project to the specific academy that they would be there and then student choices three credits which requires you uh the total of 25 credits it's important to understand that right now the the class of 2021 that's graduating only needed 21 credits so there's still going to be a need for staff because about half of our students graduate with 25 or more now but half don't so it's about 400 students that would need extra credits whether it's just one more credit or three more credits each one of those takes up a seat so there is a need for more staff members is this still me meg yeah okay uh humanities nine and a half credits english one two three and four advanced places replaces those three and a half three and one half of social studies as we talked about including world studies this is the current one modern world us history and advanced placements also can be taken there fine arts and one credit of humanities stem this is the listings of all the courses three credits in science you need to take the bio and the chem we have electives you could take after that but bio and chemistry are needed and then you can take two more credits into science technology engineering or math elective also one credit in health one credit in physical education career and life skills which is a business class and one half credit in personal finance that we've came to the board early on and said that everyone we spoke to in the business community from students to parents believed that having students aware of their own personal finance simply from a checking book to what a 28 credit card can do to you when you try to buy something and it's at 28 uh finance charge how that affects you so we felt that putting in that half credit of personal finance is uh necessary uh one world language credit mastery place diploma which is referred to as the capstone which is changed a little and then another one of student choice so this is how it the class of 23 and beyond has to see it meg is going to go over the uh or the current ones continued right and here comes meg with what's going to be for the class of 25 and beyond and so in addition to the teacher certification flexibility the state also changed some of the language there used to be a career in life skills category in addition to humanities them that no longer is required and so what we are suggesting is to retain four years of english instead of english four as a required class we would like to develop english courses in line with the certification pathways engineers write differently than poets and so we think it's important that students um have an opportunity to learn about uh communicating in the area that they are planning to pursue we are looking to reduce the required prescribed number of courses in social studies from three and a half to two and a half which includes modern world us and civics as dan already indicated the latter two are required by the state of connecticut we want to retain a fine arts credit we do think it's important for students to continue to grow and develop in areas that they may not necessarily realize that they have an interest or talent in until we request they take the class and then that leaves us with a credit and a half of student choice humanities in in that in that area those areas english fine arts and social studies that does not mean that students only get to choose one and a half credits of their own you'll see that there are a lot of opportunities for students to make some determinations about how to satisfy on these credit requirements in the stem areas which includes science business family consumer science math and technology education we are still recommending three credits of math algebra 1 algebra 2 in geometry they are commonly required for college admissions we are looking to continue to require two years of science including biology and chemistry and opening up the stem credits to address any of these areas as we are now committed to with the certification flexibility as dan indicated we'll be better able to identify teachers who can help students learn math in a particular area as an example we do think personal finance should continue to be required that certainly came out very loudly to me as i conducted countless focus groups with students as we work to develop the portrait of the graduate outcomes fly thanks um just continuing the the pe and health credits remain the same i spoke earlier about the need to make sure that all of our students have a good understanding of the options that they are you know that they can avail themselves to and so the exploration seminar will focus on career exploration workplace habits and give students an opportunity to learn more about different ways they can explore careers and as they pursue their high school career we are recommending two years of a world language which is more in line with college admission requirements but does not necessarily satisfy them uh we do think that um in our multicultural society it's important for students to explore another language and then they students will be able to identify one and a half credits in any of these categories in addition to the earlier ones that are prescribed in the particular areas of stem or humanities so just in summary the slide really sort of encapsulates the the suggestions that we are making um eliminating english four not the fourth credit but um that class is a requirement so students are able to take a writing course um in the pathway that they choose eliminating world studies so students have more choice in the humanities areas we do think it's important for students to participate in one blended learning class we are certainly not suggesting that this last year of hybrid and distance learning should be repeated but i think that we have all learned that virtual tools are not going away whether it's in college or in a job and so we think it's important that students have some guided practice in high school and how to navigate that we want to streamline the requirements in math and science we can capitalize on the flexibility um afforded to us now by the state increasing your language to two years from one year adding the exploration seminar so students are well informed and connecting the capstone credit to pathway completion so a few things are still hanging out there but they're not items that we are ready to make any recommendations on at this point what some places are doing is granting credit for middle school courses that are also offered at the high school level such as algebra one in the world language so there may be room towards the future to look at how we can give students potentially credit for courses that they're taking in middle school which would give them the opportunity to take more advanced level classes at the high school we'd like to expand what we're currently doing with blended and virtual learning many of our students are looking to be duly enrolled in summer programs and college classes over the summer and so we want to grow that we don't want to have regulations that limit students availing themselves of learning opportunities outside of the high school and then there are a number of potential capstone possibilities industry credentials the sealed by literacy and so as we continue planning we'll continue learning about other ways students can demonstrate their knowledge via a capstone possibility well if anybody has any questions for us or if we didn't explain something right go right ahead i i have just dan it's joe dasola how are you um freely admit this is probably my own personal biases as somebody who has a bachelor's and masters in history and is horrified to remember the summer school i spent with mr picaccio having him try to cram algebra 2 into my head what's the rationale for reducing a social studies and humanities requirement in a world where we're talking about the need for for people to be better educated about civics better educated about the world and more participatory citizens it seems like the wrong direction or am i missing something i may be missing something uh it's not that it's eliminated it's more that allows student choice if they want to go into a different direction and this is probably the number one thing that we struggled with and we started talking about taking courses as dr martins and dr casamaro are both ex-social studies teachers back in the day we went round and round with this uh we felt and i know cara is going to jump in in two seconds but we're gonna talk about how we wanted student choice as important in engaging students uh and the weight of that verse world history u.s history and civics today have to stay and we expected them to stay but we had to make room for other choices to go through okay thank you i could just just to add to that just a little bit dan and dan did a great job with that you know we um in social studies classes regardless of the class we teach discipline specific thinking um conversations and the framework for social studies will be found in all of those classes but with students um having a little bit more choice for students to pick the content areas that they want to engage in based on interest we thought was very important there's also some redundancy in the world studies curriculum at the middle school as well so we felt felt felt that there was some coverage there in that area and so that that was a place natural place to go to open things up for students so that they can explore some of the electives and the humanities thank you okay uh just a quick question i noticed that you recommend in the proposed version um one blended learning course and you're recommending personal finance for that what other options are available to students in that category we haven't decided yet on what we're going to offer for those because there's a lot of impacts via the union and what courses we have but through edge annuity we used to use a course called credit recovery so for somewhat of it acceleration but edgenuity has replaced that and offers a whole plethora of courses that we didn't have so to just introduce them to this course personal finance is a semester-based course so we feel also might be a nice course just to introduce them into a blended learning uh we are looking at schoology and other things for the district through cara uh so with those you know we're most colleges have some sort of online course so we're trying to prepare them for that right now as we go through as dr martin said we're looking to expand you know get out of the brick and mortar of the high school we have a lot of students that go to work we've noticed that now more than ever and what's to say that they can't take chemistry at night you know what's to say that it couldn't be two weeks two days in three days online uh things like that so as we get better at this online learning part and the more tools become available to us at the high school we're looking to expand but we thought personal finance for this group online was just the starting point okay is it only going to be um offered through that that method or are you going to have like a standard said again kate that was i guess i'm just wondering if there's going to be like a standard classroom uh version of that course as well or if it's just going to be offered through through like a blended learning you talking about the personal finance course yeah we could do both right now we run personal finance we have the the curriculum for it we're all set and we run many many many sections of it uh you know so but just uh we're going to recommend that that one goes to online but if students don't want to take it online we can certainly run courses thank you that blended learning you know is is a is a wide term and so it doesn't necessarily have to mean students are only on a computer and never interface with a with a staff member in the building we have a lot of flexibility with how we would um enact that as dan said it's a semester class and there are a lot of technological tools that lend themselves to this particular content and so we thought that this was a good seed to to start with uh but there are also you know as stan indicated potential contractual implications so we need to you know sort of get get what's does everybody think this is a good idea and then you know work that piece out i think you know the term that we used to use that the you know the learning needs to be constant not the time so you could uh be on the brick and mortar you could have as this year some of our teachers who will teach two seminars and then three classes meg as you said from four to five o'clock you know in turn with small groups so i think there's a lot of opportunities technologically and i think the expectation is given that we're in the world with this pandemic what have we learned um i'm proud that we're taking this step i think it's going to be helpful and we are working with our um we'll have to work with our union obviously but that doesn't indicate that our own people just doing the plenty they probably will in cases right mate probably no yes certainly to start off with i think that would be our recommendation yeah thank you um i think the board interesting there are schools that have done it and um you know i'm a proponent of it if the youngsters have taken the same standards in eighth grade whether it's the algebra or another course or a language course and they're able of you know meeting those standards then giving them the credit in middle school as meg said opens up opportunities uh when they enter high school so that's that's uh something that we should seriously seriously uh consider i know we've talked about this in the past and we're feeling better about the rigor now at the middle school where this can actually be discussed at another level i just want to thank um the curricular administrators as well who are on this um this call tonight uh trish vino hall melissa de duo gusto um gomes uh vicky carlson was involved in this kelly trouches of course the dhs high school staff dan and megan there's a lot of research that went into the back end of making sure that our we're in alignment with what colleges would accept and um and examining um a tremendous amount of data to get to where these this landed today so i just want to thank the the group for their tremendous effort and tenaciousness with getting this done and getting it done in a year that was just full of challenge thank you now thank you all right dr sam uh superintendent's report you're on mute doctor so that's just how you're on you you're on mute well i was just testing everybody um if you could read my lips right now um courtney brought up a little bit about the budget there um i was sort of hoping we'd be able to get to it soon and then i know you rescheduled that workshop we're already looking at how we're going to balance this thing and we have to hire guys you heard what dan just talked to you about the eighth year a day um you know we can't be waiting on this so we are going to coalesce the money uh it will um be the term that we use now to parade it now we i did we did write um ryan today big um um he said things are going well but he thinks next week i think we ought to have something finalized with the budget because we are assuming that two and a half million dollars into our budget uh as we get to what we need for this coming school year you know and with the efforts of the finance committee and courtney we have kind of that three-year peak which is a good thing to lay out as we look at these things moving things around but really that's all i have on that budget other than to say um maybe next week we'd have some final numbers relative what we're receiving from the state for you all to consider at um the board workshop on on the adjusted budget going forward um so but courtney i know if you want to add to that no no just i guess just to say yes we submitted our sr2 application so we are rolling forward with some of the plans sr3 is due august 16th so we look forward to talking to you about the overall budget when we talk on june 8th at the workshop meeting um so we did apply for esther to which it was for about 11 million of which six million are dedicated to next year and then the sr3 in our current plan it's about 25 million of which eight would be dedicated to next year and as dr sal mentioned the alliance funding our current plan is projecting that we would get two and a half million which we do expect from the state state for next year as well as the 1.25 million that we got from the city which means that our city money is about million this upcoming year and then the total funding we're looking at amongst the sources we just talked about would be 171 million again we look forward to talking to you about that multi-year that dr sal mentioned so that we can we could talk about what that means for next year and then up to 2025 when the ester funds were anticipated are no longer available to us so thank you thank you i have another in my report at this time thank you uh next we have the discussion item a parent square communication system and after that we will have sta bus contract okay uh kevin do you wanna i know this came up at the pto meeting and it was like some board members how come we're just hearing about it now um you know that's probably an oops on my part so i do apologize that's something that's been working on in terms of the enhanced communication it's a program so um kevin maybe you could kind of talk about it with everyone for me sure my my pleasure dr sal um and and and as you had alluded to and and and partly my fault as well dr sal i appreciate that um we we were really hoping to get some feedback uh from some of our family members i know some board members are on the call at our citywide pteo uh but we have adopted a um a platform that we're really hoping is going to be a great opportunity for us to streamline communication throughout the district and so the district has partnered with parent square which parent square is a platform it's you know somewhat of a school social media platform which provide an opportunity for two-way communication with our schools and families um and there'll be over a hundred languages for our families to choose from um there will be initial training for our staff and then also for our families training modules and trainings trainings will be available for teachers and staff the company has made us aware it would take about an hour with our teachers in the fall and then our families 30 to 30 minutes to an hour also for families um it's really user friendly and and not very different from some tools that our families already use it now uh such as classroom dojo and some of our elementary schools that they're using currently families will also be able to decide on how to receive their communication which is very unlike uh we can we communicate with our families now so for example my families can can select one way to receive messages and that could be in real time uh from one school or multiple schools um if they have children in multiple schools and they can receive that information in in in real time or they can receive all of those messages and it can and sort of a nightly digest that organizes all the different communications into one position um and again both in in both instances it could be received in the family's native language some of the highlights for the administrators in the district it will inform our administrators of new contact numbers because the families write in those documents can update their their their phone numbers it also enables administrators to see the rate in which families are receiving communication and then our our student management system um parent square updates information nightly and syncs nightly with our district student management system so as we continue to get new families registered in the district um or as families change their information every night uh parent square will update that information to help us continue to communicate with people um it also um it's also an opportunity for us to incorporate tools such as volunteer sign ups and rsvps and calendar in one place for pto meetings and other school activities um so so so it really is a great opportunity to communicate with our families in one space the platform also meets ferpa and hipaa requirements i know those are some of the questions that came up in our meeting we were really hoping to elicit some feedback and it really helped us um kind of strengthen what we're hoping is going to be a great program great platform for us but the platform also meets ferpa and hipaa requirements for confidentiality and privacy and securely delivers report cards um into our family's inboxes um in the platform as well um but again right right right now we have various forms of platforms on how we communicate with families currently as as most of us on this call know you know the majority of those communications are one-way communications parent square in there's a number of districts throughout the state of connecticut that have adopted parent square um and and we wanted to be part of that wave um as as part of our um as part of our monies from the essa funds uh we are also looking to bring on family liaisons and we see this as also a way to connect with our families the liaisons can help families get onboarded and continue to provide support for families to make sure that they're connected um we want to capitalize on the progress that we've made this past school year we feel like we have connected with more families this past year and a half um than than probably the last decade and we want to capitalize on that when we feel strongly that the parents parents gray as a platform will help us do that currently we use remind to communicate with families we use school messenger to communicate with families in real time this will provide an opportunity for us to communicate with everyone with the press of a button so this could be about school closures this could be about emergency closure emergency closures um this this could be anything all of those updates can be provided for our community and once and i think our community is going to really benefit uh for the for the improved communication the opportunity for improved communication i'm sure there might be some questions i'm happy to answer them this is lauren um just real quick will we be getting rid of all the other platforms and just going to this one singularly i actually happen to love parent square because my child my older mom uses it at his school and i think it's amazing so just curious if we're going to get rid of everything else hi hi hi lauren thanks for the question so the the plan is to do that very thing and to have one platform to communicate with our families um and so school messenger uh we'll you know we'll will soon go by the wayside and remind we will not need because this platform will handle those kind of communications thank you for the thank you for the question and in the endorsement great thank you um one of the challenges we're having everybody knows that in terms of trying to support these things and everybody running their own way you can imagine and create havoc this thing came along and if we could utilize it district-wide we can then better support it so we can keep it uh running and keep it up and running and support so that would help us tremendously as well thanks kevin thanks dr sir uh could i ask a question so when would it be implemented in all our schools or is it just right now in one school yes thank you ms cooper so the the plan would be to implement this district-wide uh starting in the fall and and and so uh you know first there there has to be part of kind of a a technology kind of sync if you will with parent square um uh to implement this at full capacity is going to require training with staff and comfort level for my parents and so we will probably move slow as a school district until our district kind of we kind of build capacity uh but the plan is miss cooper to open up the school year uh with parents square uh train our staff and our administrators as we open up the school year uh leverage our new family liaisons and help support our families get on board with the process provide these modules and um easy sign up sign sign up on capabilities with parent square and kind of in stages kind of continue to implement this um district-wide thank you mr watson any other questions to mr washington um thank you again mr williams thank you looking forward to that so the next thing is something we got to deal with tonight in information background i think um finance committee we have mentioned it and then we got to look at it so we've done this a few years ago in terms of um our bus contract uh when we were able to extend it we have one year left i believe in our current contract and we have an offer extended and there's a process that one has to go through another do it you can imagine courtney um you want to update the board about that and then we could think about next steps sure yeah thanks dr sal um so dr sal asked that i go out and look at possibilities for expanding our bus fleet given a few challenges um we were really crowded on our buses some of the kids are sitting three to a seat in elementary schools um and as you know we add two to three and get with our given um enrollment growth we've been adding two to three buses per year over the last few years and with the extra need for the brookfield site and to maintain the um from home to school time frame for these little kindergarteners we've projected that we need to add about 10 additional buses next year which we did account for in the sr2 grant that cost is about seven hundred thousand dollars a year um in order to do that we started conversations with our current bus company and um they submitted a proposal to us and i'm gonna i'm gonna talk to you about it and then talk to you about next steps um um one of so in a in a normal world we would be rfping um our bus contract next year when this contract comes to end we're at the end of the five year cycle um and we have done a renewal in the past on the five year cycle with this particular contractor um they've offered us conditions that i'm going to present to you that are favorable um that basically would freeze our current contract has three and a half percent increases built in every year um over the last five years and including into this year what they've proposed is if we would like to renew with them for a four-year renewal and i'll send this to you in writing as well um they would freeze that three and a half percent increase for this year and keep our rates flat um um for the full fleet of ten additional buses at this year's rate um and then in addition they would keep it flat for two summers for some years which would save us about 2.1 million dollars over the four year term so that is their proposal um now we did reach out to mooney or to chris tracy at mooney and we have a current purchasing policy that does not allow us to waive the bidding requirement unless the board opts to suspend the policy temporarily for the specified purpose of permitting a second term for the transportation contract by law board bylaw 3-5 permits the suspension provided that a two-thirds of the board members in attendance vote in support a and then b prior notification of such proposed suspension has been described in writing one of the reasons it's also favorable it's challenging for us to get 10 buses in this climate a lot of people are looking to expand their bus fleet to be able to you know spread the kids out appropriately and they've also offered to buy the buses propane buses which are more affordable for us for fuel than rather than the diesel buses so um with that said our net uh cell i don't know legally what our next steps would be and or if the board members have any questions about this um i'm happy to respond let me just start with the end in mind this is just information this time and uh if there's a sense of moving i mean it is a savings we've done it before if you know we want to move in this direction so at the next board meeting it would uh be an item on there uh we'd have to publish it and do all of that work and then move on from there that is not something that could be done tonight could hurt me can we bring this up at that june 8th uh budget meeting we have a uh the answer yes you can but you still got a guy heard courtney said the advice is the board as a whole at a board meeting uh is going to have to vote to suspend the policy but just to get more into the details of the finances thank you sure sure we just thought tonight would be a good night at least to mention it to you all uh because we are looking at all of this it does create a savings but it does require action by the board so we can do that uh richard thank you um i don't know if there's any questions about it we'll we'll bring it up um madam chairman that's all i have thank you thank you okay um next is uh we're moving on down to the agenda is uh the chip board chairperson report uh three things i have on my list number one to board members that have not completed the survey from ray associate please please complete your survey and send it in because they are sending a notice that they have not received board members survey information so if you know that you've did it please just let me know so we can i can contact them okay uh the next thing is uh we want to talk about ray associates who is our um um yes thank you it's bad to get old and be late at night but anyway the red rail associates is our uh consultant firm and uh ray uh and associate is a firm that does a nationwide search okay and during our discussion uh i was just stuck in my mind that we had talked about a regional search which would include internal candidates and i made i misspoke and i'll take blame for what i said but real associate will be doing a national search body board and that search will include a regional search with internal candidates okay and uh if you go to anyone want to know the uh process we have it on our website you can look at the entire process you can look at the focus groups when their time and who those focus groups are so um with that being said you know that's all i would like to say about real social and um they have been working very hard with us and and just uh com like to thank carol because carol has been working very hard too and uh finally uh we know that we have received a lot of invitation for graduations i can't be at them all so if you're going to a graduation please just go and represent the board okay you don't have to ask me can you go can you speak on behalf of the board i trust each and every individual uh my plan is to be at the high school graduation okay and probably ace and uh the other one downtown i can't think of it uh endeavor okay so uh and i can't beat all the other rest because i have some family obligation that i have to take care of too so um if you can and you have the time please go and represent the board please okay are there any questions thank you all if no one else have any other questions i entertain a motion to adjourn some move madam chair moved by mr de silva if everyone would just leave to meet him that means that we're all saying good night and enjoy the rest of the week and your memory weekend good night
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And political activists, not just in our school, but around the world, came together to give voice to the voiceless, heal the wounded, and fight against racial inequality and systemic oppression. As fall came by, students and teachers had to adapt to a foreign way of teaching, the distance learning model. And by winter, both the students and the staff had to wrestle with the idea that we may never come back. Throughout this pandemic, we've adapted and we've shown that we're capable of overcoming the most difficult challenges as a community, constantly moving forward. However, that is not to say we haven't also experienced loss. The loss of work, the loss of loved ones, and the loss of our final year of adolescence. However, despite these losses, we've also gained vision. A vision of what we're capable of when we move forward as a community. And that's the beauty of life.
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With change, there is always the opportunity to move forward and evolve. The sheer determination and perseverance I've seen from my classmates leaves no doubt in my mind that we will be able to adapt to change when we experience it throughout life. And as we face difficulty, no matter the outcome, as long as we make that conscious effort to move forward and adapt, there is no challenge we won't be able to overcome. The future is ours. Thank you, Jared. That was beautiful. Our next speaker is Katon Safu. Throughout his entire high school career, Katon was heavily involved with extracurricular activities, both academically and non-academically. He joined the robotics club his freshman year and worked his way up to president his junior year. Under his leadership, robotics club was able to raise over $1,000 for a new set of parts for future competitions. Using the experiences he gained in robotics, he now works as an intern teaching younger students about robotics and writing simple code for robots.
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Additionally, he participated in the OC student census count committee. Katon plans to go to Cal State Long Beach where he will be studying mechanical engineering. He'd like to thank his entire family for encouraging and supporting him throughout the entirety of his high school career. [Applause] What's going on, Cyprus? All right, moving forward. The future is ours. Centurions, we made it. Although none of us could have predicted to finish our high school career the way we did, we got through it. Each and every one of us was able to push through when faced with adversities and overcome any obstacles that stood in our way as we approach this day. We thought that 2020 was going to be our year. Uh what a curveball we were throwing. First, we lost Kobe. Then we ended up losing the remainder of our high school experience. We then watched as our nation nearly ripped itself apart over a multitude of racial injustices across the following months in which school closed.
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All of this while COVID cases were still skyrocketing without any sign of slowing down. When we expected a year full of enjoyable memories and exciting events, we were presented with a year that was plagued by disease, political unrest, isolation, anxiety, and the looming concern about avoiding CO. With all of this going on, we were forced to reflect on what we still had to be grateful for. Surprisingly, that's a lot. We left 2020 still with our health, our hope, a home to be safe in, friends and families that have been cheering us on to believe that brighter days are ahead, and the rest of 2021 and the rest of our lives to look forward to. Centurions, we are the only class to ever experience such situations. And guess what? It didn't stop us. It didn't stop us. It felt like 2020 just kept throwing one punch after another after another.
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But with all that 2020 took, it gave us a new perspective. It gave us greater determination and it gave us resilience. Centians, when we look in the mirror, we see that we are the only generation to have to go all the way through a senior year adapted for a pandemic. So that being said, moving forward towards our future, what's going to stop us? Nothing. Who going to get in our way? Nobody. What we see, we will get it. and what we set our goals for, we can achieve it. Moving forward, the future is ours. These past four years have been nothing but a stepping stone to greatness from here. So, that being said, work for whatever it is you want. Work for whatever it is you want. Because if this year has proved anything to us, it's that we not the generation to be played with.
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Go get that dream job. Go make that allstar team. Go drop that album. Regardless of what it is that you want to do, go out into the world and conquer whatever stands in your way. Because if we learn anything about ourselves this year is that the class of 2021 is unstoppable. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Katon. That was awesome. I would now like to introduce our principal, Dr. Kevin Hodgson. [Applause] Good evening, families, friends, faculty, dignitaries, and most importantly, our graduating class of 2021. I'm so honored and humbled to be standing in person in front of you tonight. A night of celebration, a night of reflection, a night of remembrance, and a night to look ahead. To say the last year and a half was trying and difficult would be an understatement. For most of us, this was the most challenging year of our life.
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