001oh [ __ ] it hello Happy Valentine's Day everybody you too um yeah I was going to wear my red sweater but I realized I wore it to the meeting last night and thought that would look like I only had one sweater it should be fine but nobody would have even noticed probably not yeah all right so we are now custom live streaming and so uh we can actually call the meeting to order officially okay we'll call the meeting to order at 5 35 pm and begin the agenda with the approval of meetings minutes sorry I'm very asleep from the January 10th committee meeting I will make a motion to accept the minutes from the gym wait was I at the January something everyone was at the January 10th meeting and I will make a motion to
002accept the minutes from the January 10th meeting so um excellent in favor I see Amy and Jenny both raise their hands but Donna without the camera could you either there we go perfect [Laughter] okay and then we would move to public comment I have received none have you done uh no um we did not receive any requests for public comment at tonight's meeting so none okay maybe we'll get to meetings with lots of public conversation that would be cool all right so we are going to talk about the cape Communications webinar which was really useful I don't know that you two need to attend it given that I think Jen and I gleaned the stuff that seemed most useful to us do you want to give a talk about what you found most exciting about
003it Jen um yeah so um the um and and if you do want to attend it I know cave webinars are available on demand um I thought it was one of the better ones that I've gone to maybe because it gave some really practical ideas around something that I think we've been struggling with yeah I found the presenter um was the essentially communications director from the Boston Public Schools so um obviously a much larger District where you can afford an entire full-time communications director but I think what he did was approach a very large school district in a way that wanted to make it a smaller School District so I think some of the idea he had are very applicable to us I think one of the things that I took home sort of right
004away was that um his recommendations for the board um align very much to the work that the board can do so for example one of his recommendations was to update our Communications policies um because you know writing and supporting policy of the board is the work of the board and he said you probably haven't looked at them in a while and um and I know our Communications policies they are scattered throughout the entire policy manual but we have a lot of them at the very sort of front end around Communications with the public and sort of parents um role in Communications and you know they were updated maybe six years ago but the shift that we've seen like I think much like we sort of said okay we're going to focus on student discipline this
005year that might be a nice Focus for the board um if we ever get out of some of student ones that we seem to keep getting ourselves mired into um but but I thought that was a great suggestion um I think um to uh Donna will appreciate this he said that if you want good Communications you have to allocate resources to good Communications um so I think um you know that is something that we um you know we talked a little bit about last night and I will continue to pursue options through Aces um but even some strategies that we might be able to um to bring back um uh he did make some recommendations around the New England School uh public relations Association and I have a feeling that that organization which superintendents can
006be part of might give some strategies and tools um for for making those Communications um and then um he the last was again because your responsibility policy budget and superintendent is to evaluate the superintendent's communication strategies and process and then to provide that feedback for improvements so I think additional development too yes and so I think in some ways the board has kind of already figured out what you can and can't do with respect to Communications um but then um his sort of last suggestion which is I think um the interesting piece is um that the board can open up opportunities for family and staff and Community engagement with the board in a way that maybe isn't necessarily just like public comment and so I think that's the thing that we're all struggling with is
007that um in in public comment in the meetings we don't have dialogue but that need for conversation seems to exist so he started to give some um ideas um on that um I thought again he was very clear about how to conduct civil Board of Education meetings um and I thought the bullet points he gave um our chair Mr Davis does exactly what he said to do um the time limits the setting the expectations so I I did not feel um that we there was anything he really said to us there that could um that we would have to change um I think uh one of the things that I liked and again I'm gonna have to kind of look for it um and we've we have this but we've talked about it before but
008we don't have it as like a resource he talked about the flowchart for communications and um Cabe had they actually put a cave model up we have an organizational chart but I don't think we've actually been explicit that that organizational chart is also the communications chart so when people come to you with complaints about something I'm thinking um like the um the fencing that is up around the Stadium Field that should not be an email to the Board of Education right there is a chain of communications that you can go through to actually get that fix as opposed to so and and we don't have that to like hand to people to say oh this is who you should call um so who do I call would be a great section on the website yep
009um if we ever get that website updated but yes um but anyway so I thought that was a helpful one um but what he really um started to talk to were that I started to kind of um hone in on are the ways in which we can engage with stakeholders um and so he talked a little bit about the idea of community forums which I know has come up before where we could actually have um conversations and a back and forth what his approach what he recommended was um that it be topic oriented so that it's not a big open free-for-all um but that the that the board could pick specific topics um that the community Forum would be directed at um organizationally they weren't like Auditorium style um it sounded like they sort of
010put people into a library and media center where a board member and a school administrator would sit at a table with just a handful of community members and you'd have multiple tables going on sort of all at one time so that way it didn't feel like kind of that formal Auditorium like panelist discussion but you had sort of that intimate kind of back and forth plan um he said that these um had uh guiding questions so there were very specific so that way the experience at the tables could be somewhat similar so they had guiding questions they had a note taker um and you know some uh you know were very specific to listening um sessions so it you know one of the things that I think um potentially this committee could do is identify
011what the topics of facilitated quest of these facilitated sessions could be could kind of help craft the note-taker and The Guiding questions that we would want to put out to um to the attendees um and then start to open up some of that uh back and forth engagement and dialogue with the community so I thought that that was a very sad a set of really good practical ideas um he did talk about Coffee hours and I know all of the principles um run the coffee hours um they're not tremendously well attended but again that's not a reason not to do them because then you can say well we had coffee hours nobody came but he would recommend again that that would be something um where you had a superintendent and a board member started very
012informally hosting those Coffee hours um and he um you know he really talked about the role of the board member as an ambassador making sure that you're constantly putting out to the community the mission the vision the goals um the Strategic plan the values statements the portrait of The Graduate like all of these things that are foundational to the district to just every chance you have to kind of remind people of that's why and what we do for schools and he mentioned maybe having a dashboard that showed progress toward the Strategic plan so if we get our plan together then we can be showing progress yeah so I think that's you know in Mr Davis and I have talked about that it's one of the things that's kind of absent that other districts have which
013is an actual strategic plan um we certainly have one now around our efforts towards diversity equity and inclusion but again that's sort of a subset of what we have to consider as a much bigger strategic plan now we're building some goals and action steps around our accountability reports and student academic achievement so I think you know we have pieces that fall under our three goals right the first one is kind of our academical the second is our budgetary goal the third one is our climate and culture goals so I think we have at least two of those so we have the the workings of a strategic plan we just need to kind of assemble it um he talked about social media which was um interesting um he was very so he said absolutely we need
014to have a presence on social media he did not dispute that um he was really explicit that we should not ever ever engage in the comments in the back and forth on that occurs on social media because we did ask I I think I asked the question of like how do you respond to it so when it goes so quickly like wildfire and he's like you just can't you just don't um he's um Amy yeah so when I was the night that I was being appointed for the Board of Ed at the board of selectman meeting a woman who I had never seen before ever got up and was questioning my ability to be a member of the board because I had posted on Facebook um like a vote Yes I had actually reposted um
015Anna Mann's and it just said vote Yes it was the third time around yeah and um there was a comment made about well she'll know better moving forward like am I not allowed to do that like I'm not a hundred percent sure so I haven't done anything I haven't commented on anything I haven't posted anything because I'm not a hundred percent sure what I can and cannot do so um so you absolutely and I I assume I remember this a little bit from our board members roles and responsibilities you can absolutely Advocate proactively and in favor of any of the efforts of the district um when it's on your own personal social media site um that I mean again that's fine you're an elected official with opinions and you are allowed to do that I
016think what he was cautioning us against were twofold um one is he actually recommended leaving the comment ability on on districts or school websites or social medias which I am almost certain we always turn off because we don't want to necessarily have people throwing questions out there that we're not going to necessarily respond to in a public social media platform so I'm going to have to check on that and I want to think about that one a little bit um so he was cautioning against sort of if you have the comments on engaging in that dialogue back and forth through the specific um District or School Board social media site the other thing I think he was cautioning about is like when you have posts on the moms of boa page um and not involving
017in those commentary because at that point you're inserting yourself as a board member and it could be that perception that you are representing the board so your own social media is totally fine it's the commenting within other places that I think he was cautioning us against I hope that makes sense absolutely okay I stained from all social media because I wasn't 100 sure and I didn't want to get myself into trouble yeah um and and and he did sort of say one of the um he he said you know one of the ways to respond to incorrect information on social media is to use your own social media platform to get out sort of fact versus fiction ideas but um he in that case that's clearly where you're relying on somebody who can do that
018as a 24 7 job because um that's where you have AIDS I find it to be really difficult because people tend to look for arguments and during coven um somebody had posted something about the West Haven school system and how they were closed or something and I was like no we're not closed we're open and um I she commented something else so I sent her a private message and I just said um Westhaven is open Bailey Middle School is closed for one day on Friday because of stuff shortages she's and I was like you know for obvious reasons I don't want to you know comment on the the website and she ripped me like a new one and couldn't understand why I would be willing to share information with her but not not publicly everybody
019else I was not looking for an argument I was just trying to correct misinformation because they said at one point the the whole West Haven District was closed and I was like nope I'm going to work one day because of stuff shortages and then I wasn't um looking for an argument so I just kind of shut that down real quick so again it's like you don't know when but like I said I guess it's better if you just use your own platform and then you're not in a back and forth and yep that makes a lot of sense yeah the impression I had was that he was talking about the district and school accounts and saying that we need to keep the comments on so people don't feel that we're this stonewalled they can't engage
020thing but that we should like brace ourselves to not respond because then you can get into a back and forth step all over yourself and the people who don't get responded to then feel bad so which is why a barometer for how many people are engaging and he reminded us to think about the audience and give them credit for the ability to discern a really bad argument like not everyone who reads it is going to be believing the things that are said correct and I do and again that's sort of again where I sort of wonder about the wisdom of turning on the comments because people expect response to the comments that's why they comment so um so I don't know I mean so that that's the part that I struggle with will it be
021just like another public comment session at the board meeting where people will say things and then we never respond and so they feel equally dissatisfied like we're never paying attention to the social media account um we don't have a board of ed social media account as of right now no the board does not um we have um we have a handful of District accounts that we try to keep somewhat semi-active obviously Ernie has a great Athletics account um yeah and then Mr Davis employee not board chair um is trying to help us both our Facebook and our Instagram account um we don't really do a lot with our Twitter account from the district level because the parents seem to be on Facebook and the kids are on Insta so those are our two primary uh
022places and then Mrs Laplante does a lot through as sort of like a counseling slash high school student insta account that really is somewhat more targeted for the kids um I I know that I have individual teachers and groups that also run their own social media pages but in terms of getting a district message out those are kind of our our three areas that we have um and and you know and I would I think I would like to probably get a little more opinion than just the one guy on what to do with comments on those social media Pages because I think it's probably a mixed set of of thoughts out there and and honestly right now I don't have staff who could even respond to comments or acknowledge them if we did turn
023them on so for right now I think we'll keep it structured the way it is maybe that's a long-term goal um I you know he was really clear that when it comes to crisis communication that's where the Board needs to step back um and if we're ever in the mode of kind of a a crisis the board just needs to just kind of say you know rely on the communication from the school and the superintendent um uh he we asked I asked about a Communications committee like what you know if he's got a good structure for them what their purpose should be and he was interesting he said that Communications committees form when the board is dissatisfied with Communications and the work of a good Communications committee will tell them that they need to like
024they'll know to disband when the work is done so he felt that it's kind of like a short-term committee um it seemed like like once you get everything in place and lined up then you don't need to be have a Communications committee anymore I don't know if you sort of took the same kind of message Jenny I did and I liked it a lot I failed as though the message I was getting is if we have a Communications plan if we know who to talk to when there is a Communications that people think needs to go out and we have the policy to support that and we fund whatever is needed to do that work then when there's a problem or a thought someone has they can say I'm getting a lot of talk about
025this can we have some information that goes out about this topic so that people understand what's going on the board would know who to talk to you would not be getting swamped with every single question that everyone has about everything like there would be that flow chart you were talking about we would know who to call we would know who to talk to and whose job it is to do these things and then we as the board can focus on things that are in the board's purview like having this community engagement series of forums right and the best practice things that I was taking away from him that struck me is the not to leave information vacuums which I think is a problem that we have because we don't have staff and we're overwhelmed and
026there's this 24 7 News cycle commentary cycle and there's not I don't feel a real structure of how that gets responded to and it's all your job and you're also supposed to be doing every other job in the entire world I do support trying to hire someone he was given this sort of tiered structures of how school districts respond with Communications and like bigger districts will hire professionals and then moving on down you end up with the superintendent who's relying on the volunteer parent who can give a couple hours a week to try to throw some things together and I thought what a nightmare and that's an awful lot like what we're doing by trying to have board members volunteer to write things to throw together to respond to erroneous assumptions I would love to
027have that not happening I would love to have a good plan that I have an underlined note here it's very important to have closed loop systems for problems and how to report back that there's a follow-up like if we have a plan and a system so that there's a checklist and that thing always happens and people always get the feedback that a problem has been addressed even if they don't hear what I think that would reduce a lot of anxiety about what's happening is anyone responding to this and the communications committee could just fade back into the general board and focus on these forums and then being able to report back to the full board these are the concerns of the community I love the idea of making ourselves obsolete Jenny I mean you you've
028already heard me speak last time in our last meeting this this is a lot for one person to do and it's uh it is a full-time job now I don't know if you need somebody full time forever but right now uh in order to develop a communication strategy you want a cohesive message you want it consistent you want yeah right now it's piecemeal and that's exactly how it it sounds and because that's what it is but that is not what you you want you want the messaging you want you want to be able to engage the community and you need someone to put together a strategic plan and Jen you're wearing many hats this is not something you yourself have time to do and this person would set everything up they would say we're gonna
029you know communicate they're gonna talk about everything when you talk about health and safety and you know what's going on technology what is the Raptor system all the questions and things that come to the board um that people want to know about oh STAR testing when STAR testing happening when you get the results how do you get the results who do you call if there's a crisis who do you call where does the messaging come from it comes from the superintendent not the board you shouldn't be contacting the board for these miscellaneous questions but they do people do that because they don't know what else to do yeah and and you know and I and again I think yeah and I think that's where maybe that that flowchart idea so that way you can redirect
030them at some point hopefully they learn to stop always asking you and to actually call the school first because right but I think that flowchart idea sort of helps because you have to have that as a quick um resource you know some of the other ideas that he he said he was like you know schools always make the mistake of putting Communications out right when you need something from people like when you need them to vote for the budget when you need you know so he said it's got to be really a year-round cycle um so that way you're always keeping people in the loop on things um I think that you know I I commend like I said Mr Davis for his monthly newsletters because I think that has kind of shaken us out
031of that we only communicate at budget time uh sort of we were in um he you know one of the things um he recommended he said op-eds are fine and he said even op-eds from board members just as long as it's very clear that it's an opinion uh piece that you know but again that's part of your role so he didn't have any um qualms about that he suggested an email list of kind of the influential people in the town um that I would have that I could then very deliberately send Communications to so like when Paul's newsletter goes out to the media simultaneous to that having this list of the town movers and shakers who would also receive that and I think by sort of the influential people I don't think he's referring to
032just the board of Selectmen and the board of Finance you know I think he was really thinking in a very broad sense of who are the people in the community who can help to not just spread the message of about the school system but who you can also if you can assuage them then and answer their questions ahead of time they're not going to cause challenges for you necessarily um you know and and I can't remember who I was talking to after I went to this because I was all pumped up and kind of excited by everything I've heard but I was like I don't even know who I would put on that list but that is again where the board and the communications committee and the entire board can come up with the list
033of people who should probably be on the list of influential people that I need to be sending these things to because I don't necessarily have those roots per se in the community but as board members you certainly do um so anyway that was interesting um you know he um he talked about um a uh a sort of like he called it the find the good stories um so it was like and he said it can't look like a newsletter it has to just be a 200 word like blurb just about the good stories and so that got me thinking back to the old Amity in action which again I know Mr Brown talked about last night because that's kind of exactly what it was it was the eight page glossy that was really kind of
034the good stories of the year um I think we tried to do that in a multimedia manner when we worked with um uh our videographer and tried to capture those good stories but not in print but in video um but I think combination of perhaps um not the right person in terms of reliability um but people still just don't seem to to see those videos and they're really they're cute they're good like they tell the story so much better than the words can but um somehow rethinking that 200 word idea um so you know those are again with so in like Donna to your point a plan I mean those are some of his practical ideas that he would have as part of a plan um but again I can sort of come up with
035action steps and what to do and who might do it but it would really be asking current people to just do more things more right people to do some of those no you need someone who has an expertise in this you don't want somebody who's learning you want someone who says okay what we're going to do is we're going to do we're gonna have a plan we're going to be proactive not reactive and we're we're going to have you know when you have crisis management you're gonna have a boilerplate and you're gonna say this is what's going to happen and you're going to have somebody who sets up the communication uh time frame you alert you keep people informed people want to know you want to close the loop you want to invite any questions
036you want them to know who they can contact when you talk about like the feel good story people who don't it was also brought up last night people don't have times to go through a board document they don't want to know every little thing that was said they want the highlights there are districts who put out like a one minute video last night the super superintendent will come on last night this is what happened at our board meeting and they'll it's very purposeful thought out and these are the new things we're talking about we're talking about schoology and how we're testing it we're going to have these great new textbooks here's what your kids are going to see here's what your kids are going to do it's um and when you talk about you know
037do you want a newsletter how do you want to receive it because not everyone wants people I don't do social media I have no interest in social media I have people contact me about what's happening on social media and I hear a lot that way so yes that is a whole other animal but that will also be incorporated and again so all the ideas like and again this is sort of kind of Loops us right back around to the beginning right because coming up with the strategy to improve Communications and a strategic goal to actually have a communications director whether it's full-time part-time volunteer whatever it is but those are all things that the board would want to build into the Strategic plan because at that point you can say okay in the year 2025
038that's going to be the year here that we put a communications director into the budget you know and so it's kind of a lot of that goes back to sort of that kind of the vacuum that we somewhat have in needing to have a strategic plan um you know 20 well and again so Donna I'm just talking about you know what a strategic plan right is a five-year sort of long-term goal and I don't know what else is on that strategic plan so if the board collectively says next year that's the most important thing we need to do again that's part of the Strategic plan conversation but I don't think that's a I don't think that's the type of work that will ever get accomplished at a board meeting it needs kind of that board
039retreat in the facilitator who helps work us through that and and B it's probably not something we can make a decision in committee um when we get to a board meeting our committee can talk about sort of our thoughts and opinions on it because that's the specialty of our committee but um but I think that that is you know as I'm listening as I was listening to everything he was presenting it's really clear that we that we would have to have goals and measurable actions over a period of time to kind of implement what he was proposing Carol I'm sorry I see your hand why don't you go ahead I just wanted to say that part of the goal is to increase communication so we like feel that not that like knowledge vacuum but I
040think thinking bigger picture I think about this as part of our vision for like helping us connect better with our community and to turn around the perception of you know misperceptions of our district and I think those are bigger broader and could have result in a lot of benefit in many different areas across the district um so yes it's good the communication piece is good but I think if we're thinking bigger like perception is everything and I think a good communication plan can help us really turn things around and and you know um so so I just wanted to add that but like the communication piece and you know letting keeping people abreast of like what we're talking about what we're working on but I think big picture it's about perception too and I think
041right now I think we're in need of some but we're in need of like someone who can help us sort of turn um things around and help to sort of build trust and allow you know our community taxpayers that fund our schools to feel connected and I know like like are we going to play for like the feel like but yes it makes a big difference um so I I would I would push and even say this is not something that I I'm that I think we need like a few years from now I think it's something we we could benefit from now like today um yeah 100 now I mean you you want you you have you have towns individual towns criticizing the district and that's not the relationship that you want you want
042to build trust you want to build trust in community within the towns you want the students to feel engaged you want the parents to feel engaged you want the teachers to feel engaged and you know you want to be a community is very proud of your your district and and you know a little bit on that because I actually think we are we hear from the same six people every single board meeting um we have a member of a town finance committee who writes op-eds it it's not necessarily what we and it's to Mr Davis's point right that the only time you when you put out a survey it is rare to get the people who are positive you only tend to get the people who want to put through negatives um so I I
043again I don't disagree but I think I think ouching it in sort of saying we have these terrible perceptions we have to correct I think doesn't necessarily play into what our presenter said which is trust that the general public can actually see sort of to through to the truth you may have to help them a little bit and I think that's what we would want our PR I'm not going to call him PR because I don't think that that's the right language but no our Communications directly to do um but I think um but at the same time I I think again it would be under like Carol was saying a much bigger sort of vision of not that we have these that that we want to have a better relationship with the community or
044we want to have a strong relationship with the community not that we are trying to somehow sort of fix um a a perception that is held universally um I can agree with that I do think that we have problems with trust and that that aren't even about the school that are about everyone being really worn out after Iraqi several years and people need to feel reconnected to things I think it's a problem to imagine putting a communications director in the budget for next year at this point 100 I I would I'm wondering if we could afford some sort of Consultants to help us think about what we need and what we can do well and that's that's why you know I I'm I'm still going to continue to pursue Aces because it's again it seems
045like it's a regional service that they could help to provide to at least get people off off the ground so to speak um you know we have um always had we've had you know we had the Amity in action money we had the videographer money so we've had a very small piece of our budget and when I say small I'm talking like ten thousand dollars um to sort of have something related to Communications and so um if that is simply funneled to a consultant to help us kind of think of a plan that might be the best use of that um I think we have a couple of things that are still in the works again the complete website rebuild is still sitting there it probably won't be done until the start of next school
046year because you know I I'm just reallocating another staff member to help do that that work until we can get there but it's there um but you know I so I think that that is I think looking at what funding we already have in the budget and how it can be diverted is is a great strategy I cannot imagine going forward at this point with a adding anything to the budget and be putting in something that I believe will be seen as frivolous and self-serving as a communications director and I say that in terms of I believe that is how it would be received well I'm going to pushery 100 wow Donna I agree with you that we need like a communications director would be great but I think we're already facing adversity with the
047current budget request that I can't I I do agree that putting in a communication director into this year's budget is going to seem self-serving my question is because I have no I know idea how Corporate Works how expensive is a communications director I don't know what that would entail is financially I I think you should not corporate I I have I think they're going to be probably comparable to the other directors we have in the district so think director of people Services Director of Finance director of facilities director of Technology um and and I think that the to me I think that the best strategy that we could try and I think again this is where Amity board members can maybe reach out to your bow board members because I think it would look a
048lot less selfish and self-serving if this could be a shared service between our four districts um well you have communications you can have public schools communication jobs and in Connecticut Stanford's hiring one you can just look them up on any website and you can pay someone you know approximately I would guess around sixty six thousand dollars yeah I I think they're much cheaper than the director oh yeah I mean there are if you look in DC they get paid a healthy salary they are managing large districts these these this is um this is um this is not a one-person job in a large District they have a staff but you could you could start it out small you could say it's a coordinator job and you could have it be you know something very small
049and then have it be um you could say it's a part-time position and that would be so you you would phase it in you're saying all of these really I think the other thing they'll do granular ideas are exactly what comes through a strategic plan um and and from the board's perspective the Strategic plan is just kind of um having a sort of a finite like deadline like where you say okay by this year this is what we want to have and then again you operationally you let Terry and I figure out how we phase that in um but but I do think it would help us and again this is where I can't necessarily I can't I could convince the superintendents in boa that it's a great idea um but unless their boards are
050willing to fund a communications director um they're not they're not going to go anywhere either so this to me is where I think board member to board member you know Amity to town is a great role that the board could play in advocacy um you know I've had certainly one member of or one town really always pushing for shared services this is a really good opportunity for a shared service um potentially um and if it doesn't work with Beau then that's why I kind of threw it out to Aces because it may also be a service I share with Cheshire because Cheshire could probably use a part-time communications director and if Amity can too and then maybe you know maybe I'd look radically outside of just our immediate area so that was kind of my
051other strategy in tossing it out at Aces to see if anybody else would maybe be willing to look at going in on an idea with us um who's you know and a little bit more need right that is actually a very good I mean it's a good solution I just into Carol's point I don't think waiting is the idea and I understand not putting the position in for this year but I do see that as I was starting to say is that this could be if people come to a shared service or somebody who could just put together as a phased in say okay well this year we're gonna we could work on the strategy and then they could come back and say to the board this is what we would need this is what
052I would do this is what I would need this is the amount of hours that I would need they'd put together put together something preliminary and then come back and say ideally because you know I would spend X number on social X number amount of time on on social media I would put together uh Communications for um for hazard for um you know or emergency notification team I would put together all these teams and they would act as a point person and this is you know it's it's the same type of it's not a nine-to-five job it's would be something like you know nights weekends whenever type of situation and when you have someone who's young who's eager who may only have a few years experience this may seem like a great opportunity for them
053um to take on don't we have a marketing Communications course yes it's hard for me but throwing this to the high schooler seems and again I mean it's going to be the same thing we worry about whenever you hire somebody right like you are balancing expertise and knowledge base with essentially what their salary demand is and you kind of try to find that happy medium I'm really aware of the time because I have got to get out of here at 6 30 and hopefully Dr Turner does too so we can head I will I'll be there um I didn't want to talk about a couple other things first just really briefly if I can share my screen I will show you what we have for the draft right now um for uh Mr Davis's report
054um so the chairs report um right now uh his initial sort of focuses on um the shortest summary of my budget presentation that I thought I could possibly write um so um uh hopefully that kind of conveys um the big um as Donna put it one minute messages um then um we have a fairly Hefty section on the 2023-24 school year prep mostly in there to remind people of how much we work to transition sixth graders into seventh grade eighth graders into ninth grade what we do to help kids select their courses for 10 through 12th grade um so um that was all in the board report but we just kind of uh put it all into one area I really wanted to highlight the trades week that's going on right now it's our first
055ever and it is a great opportunity for students to engage in the skilled trade Fields it also I think speaks to the continued perception that we only support the highest achieving kids go on to the best colleges or we support our really needy special ed students and we forget everybody in the middle because I think this speaks exactly to some of the population in the middle I included a brief thing about the hurricane Ian photo restoration project because it's just really so amazing and I want to make sure our community knows about it an opportunity where we partnered with the Yale School of drama which again I think people think is normal and it's just a wonderful chance our students had that it's just one of those things that happens only in a place like
056Amity um and some of our science research students and the recognition they've received and then our Student Art Show so um oh and a brief blurb on our keynote speakers so people can still refer back to that presentation so um kept it to two pages I'll see what Mr Davis does in the editing um all of that came from the superintendent's report and again I'm trying to make sure we're covering the Arts we're covering the academics we're covering that uh highest academic achieving students in SRP our Middle Ground kids and our trades week and then some budget stuff at the very beginning um so I don't know if there's anything that you saw in the superintendent's report that you think I missed or that you would want to see highlighted um Jen how about something
057I can't remember if there was something in there um about 14. so I have not done anything with sports yet in these because Ernie runs such a good website for athletics and because the town papers will cover a basketball game I mean the town papers cover sporting events it's it's one chunk of the paper that's always there so I have not actively done that um I'm trying to sort of balance with the things that don't get covered so so Jen I have I have a question um how and where is this going to be communicated where what is going to be communicated yeah the newsletter the same way it's been every single month we send it to our news media Outlets they decide whether or not they want to publish it um you're creating it
058as a PR piece yet Mr Davis and I have been doing this since September right same process but who does it go to in the community so it goes on to our website and then we send it to our list of I think we have about eight to nine media Outlets okay well I have a suggestion that perhaps it should go to to parents and they need to you it's called permission based marketing you opt in if you want to get it uh if you want to get a newsletter but send it to the parents because this is the highlight of the board meeting I would also suggest um if you're going to do this on a monthly basis after each board meeting to have to embed links and to also include Athletics because even
059the links don't work because then the media Outlets won't publish them so if it remained only A's so in order to get it into the Woodridge Town news the orange Town news the Milford Orange Town news or whatever those are they have to be Standalone printable articles so they can't necessarily have the links embedded in them right so you could always say I can create two but again I'm creating one and I don't I barely have time to create one I don't have time to create two and this is the argument that supports someone who does communication because now you're only allowing one type of media you're not expanding so this you need to have a multi-touch approach where you're getting everyone so right now but we are missing the community or missing the parents
060because when you take a PR approach it's if they pick it up and that's not the approach you want you want people to know everything that's going on and I would I know we want to wrap up but I also include Sports because it may be redundant but not everyone uses the same source of communication these are these are these are the thoughts you you don't want to just try one way you're like oh I saw it here I saw it there I saw it there these it's it's a multimedia type approach you don't just take one shot at something just for the record um actually you can do exactly what you're doing I knew I thought Mr Davis had been setting this up so on the board of ed site um you can find
061the board share newsletters and there's a little button where you click follow and you can enter your name and email address to have it sent to you on a monthly basis that's great can we can we have it on the on the home page because now everybody goes to the board of ed website unless you're looking to look up a policy I don't know that our home page and again I won't say no but I don't know that it has enough space for it right now you know we function in terms of a template and we just moved registration and all of that information to the very front because that's the most important thing we have going right now so I'm not sure I have the space for that particular and again you know this
062is brand new so um I hope that the board can appreciate baby steps um because um you know I'm thinking like now I'm getting agita of thinking how I keep up with all of the sports that are going on and you know collecting well you don't no no you go to Ernie go to Ernie but again I can't ask an Athletics hours a day wow I can appreciate your enthusiasm I am always in 100 when I'm in something so Jen what I would I I would I the here here's an idea what if we use the same communication that we use whether it's from the weekly updates from the principles and also you know what's the happenings but also the Swift 2K and say hey we have a board email um a board newsletter if
063you're interested you can sign up here and it will be pushed to you that I can do yeah I think that's a great idea and then people whoever wants it and are interested in getting those and they're I think there are a lot more people interested in like what happened at the board meeting last night it's possible that Mr Davis did send that out I just can't remember I knew when we were creating it that was the intent so um I will double check with him but um can you can you add well the news again let's pick up Jen I'm sorry not not the links but if what if you put in for more information contact and then this way no one's emailing the board about something that is in that newsletter whether if
064you want more information like if you had the thrift store or the bees you know I thought it was interesting that we're selling the honey to the staff but a lot of information yeah I can't remember where I saw it but I did see it but the honey is being sold to the staff um so this is um hopefully you can see um so if again under hang on just go home um where is it let's see so under Board of Education on the home page you have the Board of Ed news when oh I love the link when you click on that you've got the archived newsletters from the entire year the most recent one and then if you click on the follow button it does exactly Donna what you asked which you entered
065in and you get the newsletter sent to you right so you opt in so here it would be criticals on the home page to say I don't think people know this is here so I don't know what you consider the home page either uh amityregion5.org like this page yeah you got it because most people don't go here either need to go and we are solving very detailed things yes I want to talk about what we're going to do next because I don't want the idea about open forums to Fall by the wayside and not happen until halfway through next year so I think I think I would love to at the next board meeting as a result of our Communications um share the idea of an open forum and then solicit potential topics from the
066board members and I hate and I don't know but I almost wish it wasn't a open Forum around the budget but we may not be like I would like it to be something more substantial like about weddings and kids but we'll see um that may be what everybody strongly feels we have to have an open Forum on um I think also we should probably give ourselves at least two months to plan it so between advertising it to the community coming up with the questions and coming up with the Note Taker um I think we need at least two months to put that together so we're probably looking at May anyway um what about asking the community what they would like to have open forums on so not so I think this was the danger that
067our presenter warned us about is when you open it up to everything you don't get to control the message and that is still the role of communications but I mean we have a long list of topics that people have brought up you've received as a board a lot of presentations that nobody ever sticks around for they leave after public comment so I think there's a lot of potential opportunities and again you're tied into the community I have every confidence that you could identify topics that you think our community would find valuable without opening it up to everybody and then not being able to control kind of the discussion and the Forum that we have you want something that we can have some success and get some communication out there right you also want to make
068sure you have some guard rails set up you want to keep everyone on topic and you might what what happens is that you would probably find is that you may let's talk about the budget for example if you talk about the budget you will find other areas of interest that come up in the public forum that you could say this would be great for our next one if you see a theme developed so you you think that the first one you want to and we could ask the board but you're thinking around the budget that maybe that might be the I mean if we can't plan until May it's too late anyway so let's make it around something else how about like academic achievement like that's come up in public comment a ton we could
069talk about that and present some a lot of the the data by then we'll have it'll be the end of the year we'll know where kids are going off to college we'll have a lot of information that we could I think it's very interesting that our test scores were better than a lot of the private schools that some of our students are leaving to go to I mean I'm I didn't go to West Haven High School I grew up in West Haven I didn't go to West Haven High School I went to Sacred Heart right choice for me um and my mom because you know she was old school Catholic um right choice for me at the time I currently teach obviously in the public school I think the fact that our test scores are
070better than a lot of the private schools our students are going to would be really eye-opening because I was I did not know that you know my kids go to Amity I didn't know that our test scores are better and I will tell you just as an aside that I'm so super proud my daughter has a learning disability she went to Amity orange she went she's going through the Amity High School she's the senior she just got accepted the internship into the Yale program and only a few students did so I'm super really proud of her congratulations that is wonderful thank you and she's a robot somebody doesn't have rowing so you know um so she drives every day to Litchfield so I think Amity has done a such a great job with her you
071know there's a lot of like these unsung hero students they don't they don't get all the big Awards I mean she just broke a thousand honor SATs almost 1100 but that was huge because her PSATs were like 800. um you know there's a lot of good things that happen at Amity that kind of get brushed under the carpet with the middle of the road kids to your point you know she's not the student that's getting every award she's not getting the superintendent's award she's not getting you know all these academic athletic scholar Awards because her sport isn't you know represented at Amity but she got a nice little scholarship to Eastern Michigan she got accepted into the Yale internship program there's a lot of things that are really good that go unsung um for the
072middle of the road kids so I do think that you know Communications in that respect would be great uh what about Amy type so I'm sorry I really have to end the meeting I gotta go good luck tonight gotta get up to Bethany so um Dr Turner I can't mean to use serp you but I've got to roll roll I will see you soon so um cold meeting opened for a minute I feel like Carol wanted to say something I don't want to live stream and end the zoom and show my practice down and everything like that oh you're the meeting host Jen yeah are you oh I'm the meeting host and I'm running um our live stream okay oh okay well can we so then can we close the meeting and can you assign
073someone else as the dad I can do so then we can but then then you guys are in an illegal board meeting no no we're closing oh I see because it's not being right right right right right right right right okay okay then Jen I have all right uh for Amy Amy what if we did for the forums we did a student story to open the forums if we did a public forum just a just an idea maybe we can talk about it another night you gotta have a great time at your meeting Jen I'm going down everybody four chair privileges to end the meeting Carol I look forward to it I adjourn the meeting at 6 36. you'd better run I appreciate it