001all right let me start with recognition start with recognitions beautiful heartfelt house which is very nice to uh see hello mr watson sorry i was one minute early so this is this is a cool night for us as we head down kind of the home stretch of the school year and it's a tradition that's been in simsbury for many many years a chance to celebrate the wonderful artwork uh of our students and the tradition has been amongst other things we have some individual awards i know that shannon's going to go through but the framed artwork in the room sits in the board for two years so what we like to do is bring these talented artists out that span all the way from lower grades in elementary school all the way through high school um
002honor their artwork give them a chance to tell us a little bit about each piece no pressure but a little bit of chance to talk about your art uh receive a certificate uh and a pin from the board members uh but we haven't had a chance to do this in three years actually in the way the rotation has been which is pretty incredible to think about so i think it's one of the unique things about our board office space rooms when you come up it's really decorated with our wonderful artwork of our students that they change month to month and then the framing stays for two years so um come on in yeah come on anthony sorry it's fine it's fine it's tight but we're really happy to have you all here so please make
003make yourselves comfortable and we're fortunate enough tonight to have our very talented shannon garnier with us our k-12 director uh of arts our department supervisor so welcome and i know you're going to kind of run us through the order of operations tonight and i think the first thing we have up our cass award recipients yes um well welcome everybody so nice to see you it's great to be here um were recognized for the connecticut association of schools for visual and performing arts so i'm going to start with paulina thank you thank you um paulina was chosen by the art teachers as this year's cass awards recipient because of their outstanding commitment to the arts and the art department they are always eager to volunteer their time and talents paulina shares their creative experience with peers
004and helps the art teachers with any and all studio duties as an active member of the mural club the hallways at simsbury high school are filled with paintings that paulina has created independently and through collaboration next year paulina plans to attend the harford art school at the university of hartford so congratulations pauline and next for performing arts we have alex vargas so stand up alex [Music] alex was chosen by the music department as the performing arts recipient of the cass award because of his humility leadership inclusiveness of others and kindness throughout the past four years alex has been a member of simsbury singers connecticut northern regional festival gospel choir theater tri-m society director of one acts as well as this year's lead in pippin alex plans to attend fordham university in the fall congratulations [Applause]
005so talented [Laughter] [Applause] slideshow okay slideshow all right so next um we have another celebration from students grade 7 through 12 who competed in estate competition in the visual arts and were recognized for a variety of media and process so we have digital art images we also have still life so drawing from observation we also have digital a more digital art and media and um you can see the awards it says and there's there's the printed piece that's up there so you can which was a gold key um rebecca poole this is a silver key for um this image and her whole portfolio was accepted as well and a harford art school scholarship as well as um a gold key photography piece and this was best in show so it was the the um top
006photograph in the caa presentation and then we're at the middle school and we have print making processes and um this sculpture which was was noted as the best sculpture um in the show and awarded a special recognition we have digital film and animation and this is a special note because we just found this out but jaden did win um a national silver award so his work went on to compete at the national level and he was recognized and um was awarded 200 and um will be celebrated this summer in new york city so that was a really big fabulous recognition and i wanted to just make sure that everybody knows that they're invited and welcome to the art show we have central schools opening tomorrow evening we have henry james middle school next week where
007you can see some of that fabulous work in person and then may 24th 25th and 26th you can visit simsbury high school and see the exhibition at there so and all this information is posted on our website so thank you and congratulations to all the um recipients of their awards congratulations great job by the whole art team too great inspiration yeah and so i i wanted to take the opportunity just to share something that is a new feature that will be at the art show um actually if you look over at this piece over here at grace wallenberg there's a little qr code that's attached and if you scan your phone it will pop up and you can hear a really wonderful presentation of our artistic process and the benefits of art and for learning
008that are deep within the process and then you have the product so we have asked our senior this year for their senior showcases to document their learning process through digital portfolios and a narrated presentation and commentary that accompanies that so that you can listen to their process aligned with studio habits of mind for the artistic process connected to the vision of the graduate which is our goal for students accomplishing these attributes as they graduate simsbury high school and alex just finished his ap exam last friday and so i have been working with him as a student consultant to give feedback and ideas to help bring this to life and he's done it so beautifully amidst taking i think about five other classes and tests this week so he's going to share his presentation right now
009live but if you come to the art show you can view um i think we have 25 senior showcases that you can connect to see their process understand how the vision their graduate is living in the art department and see kind of their um you know written and endurance through the process while enjoying the final pieces exhibition and it's really fabulous work so thank you alex for presenting this thank you all right um so i'm alex um as ms ghani was saying i finished my ap portfolio which was a sustained investigation that happened all throughout the year this year and we thought it would be valuable to share today because it does fit very closely with the vision of the graduate values that the school has adopted so you'll see that the presentation is uh
010divided into two sections one is sustained investigation and one is final works and the uh college board actually weights sustained investigation um higher in the scoring of the portfolio which makes a lot of sense because especially with the vision of the graduate process and investigation is valued a lot more than the final work especially in like math and science classes today the emphasis is a lot less on what was the final answer and did you get that correct um people are looking a lot more at the process and how you got there joey just go sit over there oh [Laughter] teamwork all right so the first section in the vision of the graduate is the being a critical thinker and so every ap portfolio starts with an in-depth inquiry of a certain topic and a
011set of guiding questions so minor up there my topic or my guiding questions this year were in what ways are earth's creatures affected by mutations how do humans manipulate and edit the natural world and how are organic beings converted into unnatural forms for the sake of civilization's progress so all of these questions are formulated and designed to solve real life problems using art as a means of doing so and in my case this inquiry relates directly to my concern for the environment and artificial genetic engineering so for example this shows process photos and that's the final photo of the work so my intention with this piece was to kind of draw attention to society's kind of fascination with um animal mutations and so i created a two-headed snake out of clay and submerged it in
012resin so it looked like a formaldehyde jar um and you'll notice that next to each of these in the portfolio there's a little blurb that describes the students ideas materials and processes and that fits closely with the communicator value in the vision of the graduate because it allows a student to show their ideas uh clearly and concisely to the college board because you really don't get a lot of space there so you both need to show your ideas through that writing and a lot more through your work as well this is another piece i did um showing genetically modified organisms and so i created flowers and leaves out of metal wire and submerged them in soil to kind of create like an ironic look of like how we're making like artificial things out of the
013environment which shouldn't really be done in my opinion so well basically the theme of this portfolio is that uh artificial genetic mutation is kind of a no-no but this is another one basically showing the growth of cancer cells and mutation in that sense but you'll see that again in the final works as well this one was one of my favorites uh basically this kind of shows a lot of the collaboration values of the vision of the graduate as well because i asked a bunch of my classmates to bring in all of their old stuffed animals that they didn't want anymore and i tore them up and created a basically a new stuffed animal using uh disassembled pieces um and so that one was meant to touch on the uh the act of putting together different
014animal genomes and things like that uh so another the biggest i mean i think the most important value here is being an innovator and this was one of the pieces that took me the longest this year because really what the college board is looking for and what capstone is looking for is an in-depth sustained investigation this one took me about two months to do because it was there were just so many steps so that was actually my initial sketch on the left and you can see that the final photo on the right looks absolutely nothing like that because through experimentation and trial and error things change a lot along the way so to this this is more valuable than just the final picture um that was the final and the end um again more draping
015and different sewing techniques went into that to try to figure out how i could convey the message of pollution as well as possible going from a green to white and gray and then a black gradient showing the effects of pollution and how that causes mutation within an organism and then lastly basically all of those ideas culminated into this these two last projects although they may not look very similar to the rest of the portfolio it kind of shows that higher level conclusion after the sustained investigation so my final process was showing through using industrial materials like wire and paracord but creating organic flowy shapes that could show how the human race is infiltrating the natural world so um basically this shows a progression from rudimentary ideas to the most advanced ideas in your portfolio and
016uh so for that reason there's a lot more images that go into that that you sent to the college board than the actual final works and then the next five slides these are works that you saw before but um those are the final portfolio pieces that i sent to the college board and so again like ms gagne said you can actually come to see that in an in-person exhibit at the simsbury high school art show which is may 24th to the 26th thank you very much [Applause] really great it's really fun alex any idea what the the major is going to be next year um the major is going to be environmental sciences uh but i'll definitely try to keep up art while i'm there um but yeah i mean i think this is a
017good way of showing that like your actual interests and instead of area of study can be shown through art no matter what it is um because my major very much isn't related to that at all but i still was able to kind of incorporate that thank you for all your contributions and you're headed to princeton next year yes thank you very much thanks for sitting with us as well that's great very educational that was wonderful outstanding work he's also serving as national art honor society president and um has been integral to that leadership in our programming so so great and so now we'll be introducing our artists the frames work and we'll be able to see from our kindergarten to to our seniors what we're building up to this is always the funnest day we
018all love it yeah sitting here being able to interact and see these talented kids great person and thank you so much for um for supporting this and and showcasing the work and celebrating the effort and talent of all of our students so we have i think each of you have yeah the first person avery so i am so delighted to be the first one to present the first student with this great honor so angry how old are you seven and what where are you first grade where do you go to school who's your art teacher avery nice great i do so angry why don't you tell us a little bit about your work up here i know it's high can you see it up here sure you want you can you tell us a little
019bit about that hold up let me hold this okay so you can talk to the microphone and you can tell us a little bit about your inspiration of what you did here i made this because i always like going to the park sometimes and bringing my dog and i like playing with my brother outside sometimes and i like playing fetch with my dog well that is great avery and do you want to read on here you want me to read about this okay avery roll this is i don't know if you can see it back here but anyway this is avery and his family what's your dog's name awesome so avery wrote this is my family i drew my dog also my mom my dad myself and my brother abel my family is special because
020we are different from anyone else we make our own unique wooden toys well wow that is very special and that is very unique so avery what's your special toy you made i made a written last year for my cousin well or a long time ago that's great that's wonderful well congratulations avery so this is for you and do you want to read it foreign it says simsbury public schools art achievement award this honor is presented to avery payson in recognition of outstanding visual achievement in visual art may 10 2022 and it's signed by mrs celina chairman of the board and sims berrier department congratulations again you have a special place to put your award in your home and your bet this award in my bedroom oh wonderful avery before you go where's your mom and
021dad where's your family are they here there's dad my mom had to go to soccer practice it happens good well thank you avery very much and i have one special thing for you here this is a very special pen and only the students who have their artwork hanging here get this pin and i think you have a very special piece of clothing to put it on right there you go congratulations avery [Applause] [Music] the next child coming up will be madeline griggs she knows where she is great she's here it's here right on this side madeline if you could go to your painting that would be wonderful or your piece of art that would be great you'll meet this and then we're never going to get out we vote so you have the two pieces
022two pieces in the back wall i'll get it sorry yes okay we're gonna make it hi how are you um first tell us your madeleine gray oh that is yours that's beautiful wow so what was your inspiration um just like i got a scenery visual in my brain that's amazing congratulations that's great and you are in 10th grade yes and this is your certificate okay he did a great job thank you so much and a special pin just for you thank you very much thank you nice job elaine ruffy that's me is elaine here yeah oh great where's your piece of art elaine you want to go back and show us all right elaine why don't you tell us what we have here wow look at that ryan give her the mic yeah okay so
023here you wanna you want to tell us what you did there you don't have and your available and thank you so much for coming out say hi to your brother are your parents here yeah they're right nice well congratulations to everybody um real and silva rate brielle where's your painting where's your painting i think it's over in this corner is that it in the middle yeah do you want to go standby no you want to stand right here can you tell me about it what is it wanna tell me the colors of these so everybody in the audience will know which one is yours [Music] why don't we walk over and just look at it it looks beautiful from here for sure in the middle that's the one in the middle right yes so everyone
024is the one in the middle okay central school you go to central school for great evening um kindergarten oh wow you like it yeah okay guess what i have something for you this is for you for your beautiful artwork and guess what else 10 that only you have no one else will have in your grade okay so that means yes you're welcome grace wallenberg come on up show us your painting and todd will be mister i'll meet you around because i got to get close this is my favorite [Music] so tell us about your your piece i love this thank you um this piece was really about me letting go and kind of not worrying about the end result rather i'm just enjoying the process and trying something new so really just doing whatever i
025want paint any particular inspiration any artists that you that you like that you were thinking of not in particular i just kind of let um the layers build and i kind of just added to it based on what i was feeling i was thinking about this yesterday when i was reading the news they set a record for the uh an american artist at auction 195 million dollars and i think that this is the next one congratulations thank you emily where's your picture is it over here come on show me oh wow so tell us a little bit about your your you go here's your certificate thank you um and where are you at school i go to henry james nice and can you tell us a little bit about your beautiful prince yeah i mean
026i just put falcons on a tree because i like falcons and i like like trees and i'm kind of drawing both so i love your colors i had some i had a lot of assistance it's wonderful well congratulations we're going to really enjoy having it here and here's a bin for you as well thank you thank you pleasure benjamin keller what up show me what you got so benjamin tell me a little what year are you what grade are you henry um nice here's your certificate no you want to tell us a little bit about your you can get closer if you want so we uh had to pick an artist um in an art class and combine their style of art with hours so i did a self portrait um and the artist i
027picked was uh ed janetta miller and she uses a lot of fabrics so i combine that with um my self-portrait portrait it's fascinating um you play i love it well i'm really happy to have you here and thank you very much and good luck on future art [Applause] again thank you very much to all of you for coming out thank you so much for all these talented kids and i just hope they keep enjoying art and trying new things and layering it up because i think that that's where you learn a lot more than you expect to and i appreciate our art teachers and all of them throughout the district who have inspired these these students and many many others that were not able to have their artwork here but we really appreciate and we
028hope to get out to all the shows absolutely wonderful to talk about the attributes of the vision of the graduate and i think the hearts represented so well so thank you for all you're doing as well thank you thank you we are moving on to the rest of our meet of our meeting and if you'd like to leave we are not offended if you'd like to stay we are happy to have you thank you thank you [Music] that was great alex that was a really cool cool cool presentation thank you i love that you're so balanced you have your arts and your sciences is really amazing you're welcome thank you very much shannon so i would like to say happy to be here um i'm sorry that sue and jeff are not here but sue
029is at her son's graduation which is very very exciting and jeff is out on work um but i will now open the floor to public audience please state your name um your address and three minutes to speak oh we need to give you a mic too you can stand there this yeah thank you very much my name is april smith i live at 44 climax road simsbury uh we were already in a few months ago to talk about the crt and got nowhere with that they just you know kind of told us they're not teaching crt we then found out that they actually are they're kind of infiltrating it through the air ducts between the math and the english and the everything and we get nowhere talking about that but my the reason i'm here
030tonight is because i was told about several books that are genuinely pornographic and i'm surprised at this school that there isn't anyone at this school that doesn't put their foot down and say that this book should not be accessible to students and that book is called gender queer and you can uh google the illustrations and see what i'm talking about i've never seen anything like this before and i i feel that kids are naturally confused when they're going through puberty and i don't want the school system to add to this or to be guiding them down a road that they maybe never would have done before the parents should be having this discussion uh these are very personal discussions the schools shouldn't have anything to do with this and i just whose idea was it
031to bring this book into the school system genderqueer thank you very much we'll take your um your comments under advisement and look at look into it anyone else have a public audience my name is jennifer wilson i live at 23 worcester road um i'm speaking tonight in regards to recent events at the high school it's no doubt that the last two years have been hard for all stakeholders of the school system administration staff students and families as a public school educator myself i know it firsthand with that with that being said it does not excuse away recent events that i feel are symptoms of a bigger problem throughout the year there have been multiple conversations in the community regarding school safety at the high school specifically around fighting and sexual assaults i know the frustration
032that legal limitations put on administrators and school staff and i acknowledge that firsthand with that being said it does not let you off the hook to me these are symptoms of a bigger issue and that is the school climate that seems very high i know that as a response to the walkout a few weeks ago mr petrina set up times and space for discourse around specific student concerns and i think that's a positive step moving forward my concern is that it took a student walkout to make that happen school climate is the most important element of a school it doesn't matter what top 20 list we make as a system if the students do not feel supported and safe during a board meeting earlier in the year a parent was discussing a fight that took
033place of dismissal and just last week i saw another fight taking place at the exact same time of the day in the video there was one security guard who was radioing for help to which another security guard eventually responded during that time the fight escalated greatly my concern is that there was clearly a lack of adult support at this location and no administrative support that i could see on the video my expectation as a parent is that it as a team you will look at the safety and school climate systems you have in place and revise them as is clearly needed the team should include the administrative team at the high school along with you central office the board of ed simsbury high school staff and students and families all voices matter in these discussions
034each perspective holds value a belief that i don't always feel as a parent at simsbury high school we have to push ourselves as a district to not be afraid to look at areas we need to improve thank you for your work with our children i truly believe that we have the potential to be the best school district in connecticut but not if we continue to ignore what the children are telling us thank you anyone else all right then um i'll start with community with committee reports alex yes um so we're in the second week of ap exams at the high school um which will be concluded on friday um so we're in the home stretch at least for seniors um some special events have been announced at the high school um there's an orchestra concert
035on may 19th of course concert on may 26th and as we mentioned before the art show the 24th to the 26th and then seniors have some fun events coming up with the senior outing on the 17th and a physics field trip to lake compounds on the 20th a physics field trip yes roller coasters henry james uh last week they finished math as back testing and tomorrow they begin english and language arts testing um also on the 17th there will be a culture night family potluck picnic which will be one of the first opportunities for families to gather at the middle school in quite a long time at central just a quick reminder that the art show begins tomorrow and continues into thursday and then at latimer they've announced the return of the all our welcome
036global community celebration on june 8th so our latimer lane families can learn all about the many cultures and traditions within the community thank you very much lydia yes hi um so today i attended the uh the legislative wrap-up presented by cave we do this every year this is our first year of doing it in person test years have been been remote but um it was a very busy year this year it's a short session that started in february and ended just last week but just some highlights um the budget this year was really good news for for public education good news for cave and good news for all our districts so the budget bills um there were some key areas that um that i'm going to highlight that is going to be affecting us all
037in the coming year the coming year after the year after that so in the budget bill it's adjusting the state budget for the biennium year ending june 23. so these are bills that concern provisions related to revenue school construction and other items to implement the state budget some of them are the special ed excess cost reimbursement grant which gets the increase this year of 15 million the ecs underfunded districts will be fully funded by for year 28th and we have been waiting for that for i don't know matt how long that whole entire world i think it will bring the district an additional for the town it goes two to ten right so so for year 28 will be the the big year we hope by then uh adult education will increase by 1 million
038and the chef case settlement by 26.2 million so as you know that was a debated case so that is the budget bill that went through for the districts within the state some of the other areas that um that where i'm going to highlight our school construction grant the indoor air quality these are all bills and amendments that were passed through this year so there was a lot of work done within the committees within the legislature others that went for was the um senate bill one there were three bills adopted this year about mental health and and this was really kind of a very pivotal year because we do not get that many bills adopted and especially this year for mental health in the past two years that we've been within coveted and remote and then
039coming off and coming this year that the legislators did pay attention to districts to boards to superintendents about some of these areas so there's a lot of these bills that are concerned childhood mental and physical health services in school and childhood leads by pre-k up to two to age 22. there's new grant programs for social workers counselors and nurses and a lot of these things will sound familiar to you and to my fellow board members because these are things that we have talked about during budget budget process budget season and you've also heard throughout the news um some other bills that have come through are the minority teacher recruitment programs teacher certification review laws career technical pathways um the remote learning in itself it with that means that this state now prohibits any kind of
040dual instruction with this remote learning bill that was passed another big area is a teacher shortage and retention task force and we're talking about teacher shortages in many many areas it used to be just in some of the key core areas now we are talking about a number of teacher shortages um for the districts not only around the state but around the country another um bill that was passed was the asian american and pacific islander studies and this will be added to the curriculum and in the year 25 25-26 another area again in the mental health and behavioral services for children is expanding the preschool and this is something that we have been talking about for years within the state legislature about doing we've talked about student athletes in mental health pipeline for the connecticut's
041future a family coordinator and recess recess was another area where the um they talk about in terms of discipline and forms of discipline and students you know participating in physical exercise during a routine during a school day also mental health day is going to be designated starting next year the governor proclaimed may 26 as mental health year and it's about getting outside and play for children's mental health another um another bill that was passed was the children's needs task force which i am a member of which is never convened and they're talking about reconvening again so i'm not holding my breath on that one and the third is again the atmosphering children's mental health and um we talk about truancy we talk about the act concerning employment of school social workers peer-to-peer which is about
042sros and mental health support programs trauma coordinator and um and a number of other things and then of course there was the act concerning remote meetings under the under freedom of information act and again beckoned behavioral health assessments so and the last final at the last final hour was passed was um the act concerning assorted revisions additions to education statutes this was passed at 12 11 45 of the final night of the session and that finally did pass so this establishes a working group which is overseen by kade and there's it's a catch-all catch-all act that talks about requiring noticing and training to be provided by paraprofessionals um extends deadlines to january 21st for special ed tax force so there's a whole number of things in there and the final was the resolution approving the
043settlement agreement and chef so that was signed by the governor as i mentioned before and um you know this establishes the additional open choice pro slots to districts such as ours if available and provides protection to the several hartford districts um that uh will be paying increased um fees to magnet schools so it was a very busy session even though it's a short session but we're very thankful that in particular these three areas that we've talked about in terms of mental health for students for staff for districts and public education were really um you know dealt with in the past great thank you okay ted so um one of the things that i guess i wanted to talk about is as a board member um you know i've received a number of calls based on
044the things that have been going on and i know that we've been talking a lot about mental health but i think one of the things that i'd like to raise and suggest that we consider is a climate and culture study um personally i because i think in all our talk about mental health and us bringing in additional resources what we're not doing is getting any input from the students and so i think as board members it's our responsibility to you know encourage that from a district standpoint that we also hear from the students and if that's a way for us to be able to do that then i think it's something that we should consider so okay awesome okay [Music] uh yeah just to note that um last few weeks since april vacation have been
045exciting because it's really when our hiring season for next year kicks into gear we post our new positions in late march sort of let the pools of candidates build up and then our principals and supervisors get to work so we have already in the past uh week and a half two weeks signed uh a half a dozen or maybe one more than that new teachers to contracts for next year and have a whole bunch lined up in the next few days so really um seeing high quality folks come through and uh just been a great start to the to the season um especially you'll remember from our budget uh meetings that there were a number of positions in special education that needed to be filled and um you're always sort of holding your breath a
046little bit right now and we're finding good people out there and um and getting them signed so it's nice to get back to that kind of work uh and uh really i want to thank the principals and the supervisors who get it all going the other thing i wanted to mention is that i attended um along with mike luzetti and um our representative for our from arcadis um um a project manager for latimer lane jack butkus we were at the board of selectmen meeting last night to deal with as you'll recall when the bid estimates came in we ended up after some talk of being several million dollars over the threshold to go out to bid we ended up at the end of the at the end of the reconciliation process about 1.3 million dollars
047over the original threshold and what the board of selectmen did last night was pass a resolution essentially that the town will um make good uh if the 1.3 million dollars based on capital reserves or cash for capital if need be in order to lose no momentum and allow our project to get to bid as soon as possible so techton our architects are telling us design drawings 100 complete by july 1st and then that opens the the ability to get out for the bid process so thank you to the board of selectmen for their support last night that was a key um a key vote for us to keep the momentum going that's great um that's a lot going on glad we got good people coming and our next board meeting is at latimer where i
048think we'll get a little bit of an update on kind of what the phases of that project will look like i think it will give people a good handle on what's up next there yeah great and i know i'm going to give you the floor but i know that um to sharon's point we do have we have we have regular cultural school climate and culture studies i don't know when the last time we did one was because we did one um i want to say four years ago yeah but we had you don't forget we've had like two years of not doing anything so it is time definitely time we do them regularly and i do think that it's we also have a lot of focus groups with the students involved in them so i
049think what i'm hearing from you is that we probably need to be able to make sure all students more students have feel like they can speak up because we do have quite a few opportunities for students to involve and give their philosophies and give their input but that would be a way for us to look at data well it's always good to do and it's important to do when we do them on regular basis so um we will definitely look into when we did it last i think and do it again it it it was pre-covered so i could yeah it was pretty coveted so it's time in now we've had one year yeah i would just say and i appreciate the the input from the public as well i think one of the things
050we've talked about quite a bit with our administrative team is over the course of the past two years so much of the communication has become push communication around protocols procedures safety things we need to think about that we do need to re-engage in pull communication and just make cons conscious efforts at every level of how we re-engage around culture and climate how we reengage around different protocols and communications input and communications in general you know so um i think they're timely comments and i do they come around you know certainly incidents that that you bring up that we take certainly very seriously um so i appreciate the input and we will be uh coming back around to that for sure so thank you and every time we get students together we always learn a lot
051of good stuff very good information it's always a positive um do you have anything else to say i do not well let's get on with the rest of the meeting um okay so approval of minutes of april 26th i'll move to approve those minutes second oh a second all those in favor opposed i'll abstain excellent moving into the acceptance of a donation from central school so i get to steal the thunder from sue lemke for once who normally gets to tell you about all the great gifts and generous generosity of our community sue happens to be attending the teacher of the year celebration with christina nornell tonight so i'm sure they're having a fabulous time out at that um and my my job is to have you look at these two gifts which by board
052policy are in excess of fifteen hundred dollars both of them are from ptos and to support um camp jewel we're not going overnight for camp jewel but we are doing camp jewel for the first time since 2019 um the the decision was to um well it's typically been a grade five experience this year it's going to be grade 6 so that those kids get the experience and then they're going to double back for grade 5 next year and and figure out a new cycle so you can see that they hear that the first one is a donation from the central school pto uh in the amount of twenty five hundred dollars to support the camp true school camp jewel trip for central school families so the motion is there for your taking move that the
053proposed gift of 2500 to central school by the central school of eric organization on second all those in favor aye opposed abstaining excellent it's just so great our ptos are so wonderful and that camp jewel is so fun it's such a great way to unify the kids and really give them a do you remember going alex did you go it was very fun i was living in sydney oh right i'm sorry i'm like what happened how would you miss it is there is it multiple days and just not an overnight or just like one yeah it's two two days is what they're gonna do um and not to be outdone the latimer lane pto uh raised two thousand seven hundred and nineteen dollars to donate for the camp jewel trip for that school community so
054that motion is also in front of you i'll move i'm just going to take it down and move oh i'm sorry who's moving it oh i'm just they're doing uh thank you yes they're doing a um a picnic up to high meadow and granby supporting that point you would have had that yeah we won't tell you what happened but i would accept emotion sharon moves at any second all those in favor aye thank you again for everything um that's wonderful i hope all the kids have fun no matter where they go um we um i would like to have a motion to amend the agenda to take our 2 20 20 and 21 audit report and move it to our next meeting because we the person making the presentation cannot be in attendance today so
055i will move it to it i'll move the tablet oh second second gen all those in favor aye closed all right thank you very much um and then we're back to neil yeah just uh one policy tonight a little bit of a cleanup that um actually something that we were doing as part of a contract review and that we came across our alcohol and drug-free workplace alcohol tobacco and drug-free workplace policy and it had a lot of language left related to marijuana marijuana and cannabis related projects materials that have changed with the law has simply changed so this is a personnel policy that um based on the change in state laws related to cannabis and marijuana the language needed to change i contacted shipman and goodwin to get the most updated policy they sent it
056my way policy committee met about a week and a half ago to review it and forward it on for the full board's consideration thank you very much anyone have any questions any discussion i recognize a motion do we have to or no no just enough time to get it passed for june read it and then we'll talk about it again next meeting um we are opening up for a second public audience state your name and your address and you have three minutes thank you very much you're used to it i'm lori boyco i live at 15 o'cruce road um so given how much i've had to say lately it's not surprising that my comments have spurred a lot of conversations outside of these meetings i actually feel like more gets discussed outside of this public
057forum than here at the meetings but that's a whole other issue a number of people have reached out to me to echo concerns that i've expressed in response to curriculum concerns just one example of messages i've received from one mom said about the book with the young girl who was assaulted my daughter was also disturbed by this book and she has no history she spoke to the teacher and told her she found it upsetting the teacher agreed to let her stop reading if she wanted i think the cutting part was particularly disturbing sometimes i feel like it's just my family feeling this way about some content and like we're the only ones ever asking for possible alternatives it's reassuring to see we're not completely alone this was absolutely not a parent who is politically conservative
058and the parent is a teacher herself this is not a left right issue this is a what is in the best interest of all of our children issue i don't actually think most of us differ in our opinions here maybe a little bit on content but i don't think we're in disagreement um i i do want to say on the record that i did have a conversation with susan selena the board chair that i think was very productive and very thoughtful on on both sides and i hope that those conversations continue not only with susan and myself but with other board members and myself as well as other board members and the community at large so i i want to say that on the record because i have spoken to board members on various topics
059um i think the board and the administration cares very much about our the exposure of our children to obscene and pornographic images enough to have policies in place in writing that protect our students section 5133 of the board of ed policies addresses student discipline in subsection 111 titled actions leading to disciplinary action including removal from class suspension and or expulsion item number three states the use of obscene or profane language or gestures the possession and or display of obscenity or pornographic images or the unauthorized or inappropriate possession and or display of images pictures or photographs depicting nudity is a prohibited item that is possible to have disciplinary action section 5134 policy regarding student use of the district's computer systems and internet safety reads that the board will implement a technology protection measure to block or
060filter internet access to visual depictions that contain obscene material contain child pornography or are harmful to minors i hear my buzzer so i'm going to move on there are several other sections of the board policy that say the same things about obscenity and pornographic material so i would argue that we should be doing the same thing with regard to reading material that's contained within the school library so i think adhering to policies that we already have whether they have to do with digital material or print material needs to be streamlined and consistent thank you thank you any other public audience i just have questions that you probably can't answer that though um you were more than welcome to say and ask questions and um you can also if you want to publicly if you don't
061you can always call the board tomorrow and ask questions it's it's what your comfort level is but um we still need to say your name and your address and you have three minutes have at it uh my name is karen myers i'm 42 woodside circle my question regarding the climate survey that you're going to do that's probably high school middle school i know elementary school the kids aren't going to be able to do it but do you also do they have the parents of the elementary school do it but they would think about what the climate is there for their schools we've done both actually and we do it for the teachers too yes okay yeah it depends which version and how comprehensive it is and we still need to make those final decisions this
062year yeah but we've done elementary student third and sixth grade the obviously the questions are worded in such a way for a third grader to you know but we've done them in the past do you remember all the ones from covid all the different yeah that's what i remember but um my other question is um i know the principal had sent out the information about the um the walkout and the different things that they were doing one of the things was reviewing the extracurricular basically what i call the sports sports conduct right and what what you're are doing and what you can and can't do when you sign that content but again it talks about hazing and bullying it does not talk at all about sexual harassment or anything like that which this yeah it
063does does not have that on there at all yeah it doesn't which amazes me that doesn't have social media on there i mean that's it just that i think needs to change does that change by you i mean by the board here i mean he was talking about changing the uh that was doing before the staff right for the marijuana whatever just wondering how that gets changed doesn't have to go principle first or you reward here that's a piece of input that came from um some parent feedback i received as well as students when mr patrick brought him together it's upsetting as continuous improvement is always our philosophy so any input we get from you guys and in the public and any input we get from each other i mean it's it's we're always trying
064to improve and um so that's all i think it's probably an oversight right not having that change it's probably in that way for years almost a lot of time it was revised some of the things yeah yeah things like that yeah so it's just the input has been we've gotten a lot of feedback in the last few weeks about certain things that we are not at liberty to talk about but we are hearing everything that's being said thank you thank you i didn't think i was going to talk today we do regularly go through all of the policies on a loop and make sure that things are modern and and you know up to date uh and there's a lot of them i mean as laurie can probably tell you um but online that should
065have been i don't know have been yeah social media should have been on there a long time i'm sure there's people but if you we we can absolutely talk to you about certain policies and stuff and you can look at them if you want to go more in depth on that but we're not to do that here now but we're happy to talk to you about that if you want to call in with a policy around because they are complicated and diverse um any other public comment thank you very much all right that being said um i could accept emotions go into um executive session to discuss student matters thank you second all those in favor all right all right so we are our meeting will be um finished after that but we don't csgo
066i know are you you're welcome you're welcome all right eugene's the only one okay see [Music] look at it let's get to the bottom right university of new hampshire you