001oh [Music] oh um [Music] yes oh we'll call the august meeting of the starrington board of education to order please join me in the pledge of allegiance [Music] [Applause] liberty first item on the agenda communications and recognitions we'll start with you warning what's good to say everybody it's good to be back after uh i think last time we saw each other was june um i just wanted to acknowledge um the community lost a a great teacher coach friend mentor um in joe ciriello last weekend and um you know to me coach c embodied everything that that we as a community stand for um especially with our teachers our administration our kids um in terms of getting better success being successful and teamwork both on and off the field um you know i didn't know joe
002as long as most of you have um he came into our lives about six years ago when uh we were looking for somebody to help my son work on his jump shot because it was pretty uh pretty awful um and uh he wouldn't take a dollar from us he just wanted uh you just saw that my son wanted to work hard and he wanted to work with him um turned from a coach to a family friend to mentor to my son's communication sponsor and i would just like to thank joe for everything he's done for our community for my family and uh really set the bar high for what our community should uh should be about so uh thank you joe thank you gordon peru jack anything for you i would just echo what you
003said coach c with my tennis coach along with george kraus way way way back and uh always a very positive person uh easy to talk with um really would set the bar high and expect us to achieve but would be right there with us running around the field giving us pep talks so he will be missed thanks jack heidi next item on the agenda comments from citizens anybody wishing to address the board will have the opportunity um you can address the board for a maximum of three minutes i ask when you come up to the microphone just state your name and address for the record please thanks hi i'm dr collier i am a licensed psychologist education researcher and the parent of an incoming kindergartner um i would just like to thank the sony tune
004administrators and the west vine team for their care and coordination as we transition back to school i would also like to speak to the board and the community about the importance of us staying on the ball at this point in time and not losing sight our context is that students are nationally a half year behind at best despite heroic efforts of our teachers and families depression anxiety due suicide are increasing substantially this is worse for our students with disabilities our students of color and we have a responsibility to be serving students at this time and not being distracted by political boogeyman by made up controversies around masks or around college-level racial theories and we need to be focused on supporting our students to be socially emotionally academically successful during what is some of the most
005challenging years in our history and so with every meeting in every conversation we need to be very vigilant about asking ourselves if that whatever we're working on is it advancing social emotional and academic well-being for our students and if not we need to really focus on getting our eyes back in the ball because otherwise we are being negligent and derelict in our responsibility to our kids there is a lot we can do right now tutoring has shown great effects we can screen our kids putting intervention social emotional intervention in place the research says that the support that teachers steal from administrators and families feel from their schools matters as far as how their their hints do so we have a great responsibility and we should be meeting that responsibility and anything else is negligent thank
006you there's actually a piece of paper up there where you can write down your name i'm sorry i'm about to start my 25th year in stonington public schools and i'm very proud to teach in this community i'm super proud of that accomplishment i wanted to take a minute to thank the board of ed dr reilly and mrs butler and all of the administration for doing a wonderful job in keeping our students and sticks staff safe over the last 18 months this awful pandemic it is my belief that one of the reasons we were able to stay as safe as we were was to do the strict mask rules that were put in place by the district at first glance you would not know that i live with a chronic autoimmune disease that puts me at
007a great risk of severe complications or death from code 19. my disease is invisible to the outside world there are many of us that have these invisible diseases that our staff in our school that our staff in our schools or that live with someone that is at high risk even more concerning to me personally is the high number of students that have these invisible conditions that put them at high risk each year staff is asked to take the bloodborne pathogens training which reinforces the idea that we need to treat all blood as if we carry disease this universal precaution is used in place to keep everyone safe to me using mass is the same idea we don't know who is at harvest for this disease and it's important that we do everything we can to
008keep students and staff safe and that includes wearing masks so i think that as a community the least we could do is support our board of ed and our administrators who have i personally know lost a lot of sleep over the last 18 months worried about keeping us alive um and so i just wanted to thank all of you for standing by the guidance of the cdc in science and i'm not getting into that way hi i'm beth blanchett at 16 west vine street in pocket and i just wanted to take a more first a second the mass day masks doing it if it's alive but also when i first moved here with my husband and my young daughter it stood out to me just how much a lot of people in this town look
009the same and act the same and i reached out to florida at the time and i asked what are you doing about this how are we increasing diversity how are we making this a safe place for people of color for kids of color and i was really impressed actually because there was a lot that was happening that i didn't know about and a lot of people didn't know about that i spoke to so i want to say thank you to the administration to the board for making that a priority and i hope that you continue to do so and don't get distracted by the people who don't actually know what credibility theory is and just get upset pay attention to the kids that need the help that need us to stand up for them and
010remember that life can be harder for some people and so please keep up the good work there keep doing the dei work and i really appreciate it good evening my name is jennifer evering and i am here with my husband mike he's over there um we are at 19 cedar grove lane in pakita we have children that are going into second and fifth grade at west vine street school we are here to express our opposition to the masking of our children not only is it developmentally abusive to our children but the data is not there to support the effectiveness of masking for kids for eight hours a day additionally teachers have had the opportunity to be vaccinated from johns hopkins and even cdc data report near zero mortality rates for children with without underlying conditions
011and near zero transmission rate for students from students to teachers we're when we're when are we going to open our eyes to the real data additionally doctors from johns hopkins and tufts know many detrimental effects of masking including not being able to see with glasses severe acne discomfort with mass which distracts children from learning and increased levels of carbon dioxide in the blood mass can be vectors for pathogens if they become moist or if they're used would you want masks can also cause anxiety or breathing difficulties for some students children compensate by breathing through their mouth and this um if prolonged it can alter facial development there's also psychological effects facial expressions are integral to human connection especially young children who are learning how to signal fear confusion and happiness covering a child's face mutes
012these non-verbal forms of communication and it can result in robotic and emotionless interactions anxiety and depression which we've personally seen the same people speak is a building block for phonetic development and it's especially important for children with disabilities all of these effects need to be considered when we're having the kids mask up for something that is extremely low risk to them on a final note i just i want to mention that my husband and i um we graduated from stonington high school in 99 in 2001. and when we were there we were taught to think critically and to be leaders so i'm calling on the board and the administration to do the same thing to be leaders to stand up for those kids who don't have a voice to not wait for the surrounding districts
013to make the call but to be the first district to make the call give parents the choice people can still mask but give parents that choice whether or not they want their kids masks the kids deserve better than this thank you for your time rosa maria burger 24 russell um so uh many of you know me i'm a chemistry and biology to lower this i'm a chemistry and biology teacher here at stonington high school um but tonight i am here in my mission as a mother of an incoming kindergartner and i'm here to express my support for mass mandate our district has the opportunity due to our later start of the school year to observe what's happening in districts that have already opened up and use that information gathered to make informed decisions to protect
014the health and well-being of our students and our staff we can observe what happened in marion arkansas with the governor's ban on mass mandates they began their school year as mass optional last week just days after opening 59 students and nine employees tested positive the district now has 925 students and 13 staff members in quarantine this week not only is this incredibly disruptive to learning children are getting sicker when infected with the delta variant of probit in areas seeing spikes children's hospitals are filling with children critically ill with cobit some requiring stays in the icu some are ventilators and yeah some dying this is just the acute danger children infected with covid can develop multi-system inflammatory syndrome and long-haul complications so even if they suffer survive their probit infection children have the potential to be
015sick for a long time my husband and i are vaccinated and scientists say that we are at a lower risk of severe corporate symptoms and virtually no chance of death from phobia but my daughter is not eligible yet she doesn't have the privilege of protection from serious illness that we do we make choices for our children every day sometimes like me we choose to get a happy meal for our kids instead of arguing and trying to get them to eat the healthy food that we prepared so meticulously this is my right and my decision only affects my family mask wearing is not the same claiming that your children shouldn't have to wear masks because it's your right is ignoring the fact that with rights comes responsibilities we must respect the rights of others and if
016our our behaviors endanger another's rights we mustn't do it arguing that having to wear a mask violates your freedom is like arguing that stopping you from drinking and driving is a violation of your civil liberties the law is there to prevent you from endangering others violating their right to a healthy life consider a child asymptomatically infected with coven without a mask all their respiratory droplets can reach their neighbor with a mask drastically fewer do and if that neighbor is also wearing a mask the number of viral particles that get into their body is drastically reduced as is their risk of actually contracting hogan my daughter is my world and i want her to have the opportunity to live a long and healthy life and the minute vaccinations open up for five-year-olds i will sign her
017up because that i can do that and i will get her protection from severe illness vaccines for little kids aren't ready yet so the best strategy to prevent serious probit at this point is avoiding catching it we know from many studies that universal masking helps prevent the spread of and if all students and employees of sps are required to wear masks we will be doing our best to avoid disastrous and tragic scenarios that are playing out all over our country thank you for your time and i appreciate what you've done so far good evening i'd like to start by thanking the stonington board of ed dr reilly and the residents of the town of stonington for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is adam linnicus and i live at 23 west enterprise and i'm
018here tonight with my wife melissa to share some of our experiences as parents in the stonington school system for those of you who don't know us we are the parents of two black children our daughter has been a student within the stonington public school system since 2014. early on in her education we observed a significant lack of diversity awareness and understanding of how to best support children of varying races as parents and advocates we began to engage our children's school and conversations surrounding these topics as difficult as it was to begin the conversations with the school administration and as challenging as it was to face the uncomfortable moments especially as white parents not fully understanding what our children were feeling we soon realized that even though the school administrators were always open and always willing
019to discuss these issues there was still a lot of work to be done throughout the years we've engaged administrators at multiple levels and have contributed to advocate for equity and inclusion for all we're encouraged that based on our experience there has been an evolution willingness to listen learn and teach about diversity at diversity equity and inclusion most importantly though there has been support from school leaders who have a desire to continue to have transparent and real conversations in order to move forward to move the district forward since kindergarten our children have encountered incidents of racism that have continued to happen right up through this current summer these incidents have ranged from name calling to microaggressions every week at home we have discussions about kindness humanity humility equity and racism that are assisting in the development
020of our children's critical thinking skills these conversations combined with the continued efforts of our teachers administrators and paraprofessionals will allow our children to be empowered to make choices that will have a positive impact on society and the people they encounter throughout their lives the fact remains that there's still a lot of work to be done within sps but knowing that we have an administration committed to creating an environment of dignity and respect makes us proud to have our children as students within the district while we value a strong academic developmental experience for our children our greatest goal is for them to graduate with the ability to navigate through the world with confidence in their character their identity and demonstrate acceptance and understanding for all it is our opinion that given the demonstrated willingness to be
021open to to be open to our teachers to teach the truth about our history our students will be empowered to draw their own conclusions about the past current events and impacts on social injustice thank you for your time good evening my name is william ewins i live in three shades appreciate driving connecticut um i just wanted to thank the board of ed the superintendent and whoever else uh worked on the anti-racism statement that came out i believe last year i teach in a neighboring district and we are using that as kind of a guideline to kind of think our whole approach to things um i really appreciate what you people have done um i try to stand up here because i know you've gotten some pushback and i want you to know if the town
022is behind you and we really think you're doing a great job so thank you very much good evening my name is ashley toole and i with a 113 winner card drive um i have a couple of topics i'd like to address during this quick time frame first i completely understand that governor lamont still has an executive order in place until september 30th that requires mass to be born in school i just want to say that i hope when the time comes for our district to make its own decision that this board does what's best for our children makes mass an optional choice i understand that this has not been an option for school boards but other boards of education in connecticut have sent letters to the governor to lift the mandates that the boards and
023this shows that the boards are willing to fight for the children in their town on the topic of critical race theory i thank the district for making a statement addressing the issue and i appreciate that our curriculum is available to review critical race theory though as defined by its founder is a verb not a noun and it is an evolving term i believe that this term now holds many different viewpoints in today's society that weren't previously thought of the history of critical race theory is that it was a graduate level course that looked at how laws could have disparate impacts based on race so no i don't think our children in stonington elementary middle or high school are being taught graduate level material what could be happening is that regardless of the curriculum teachers could
024be teaching concepts that are considered critical race theory in today's society i know last summer a professional learning instrument in public schools for administrators and teachers was to reprove white fragility one can assume that the teacher is going to pass down what they're taught in their training and bring it to the classroom some of this divisive teaching does not belong in the schools a middle school teacher from zone to middle school discussed the concept of white privilege in his classroom and even said that it's sometimes surprising to see that some students are very limited in their experience and have a difficult time understanding some of these concepts and it made me wonder how a child who might not agree with the concept could be treated this teacher said that they didn't have enough time to
025put these topics in because of the curriculum so we leave some topics of social justice and said that calls for racial justice often fizzle out so we wanted to bring action on this to our school a member of our administration said that as an educator in stonington public schools they need to make a commitment to do something small in their own practice and to influence the movement of anti-racist education and do something in the classroom to address white privilege and it was said that our district has a philosophy about curriculum and that it should be dynamic and yesterday's lesson plan shouldn't look like tomorrow's lesson plan so these comments kind of make the stoneton public school statement on the issue move don't get me wrong i believe our children should be taught that this world
026is diverse and that there is much more beyond stonington our children should be taught to include everybody i have a disabled sister i have lived by that my entire life and i also believe that we need to look at people for the content of the character not the color of their skin and that there are ways to approach these topics that don't create a divide and i believe that diversity equity and inclusion and all these things are great things that need to be focused on i think that we just need to be careful in today's political climate not to make this divisive not to use words or phrases that are going to make a child think less of themselves for who they are and that goes for both sides i never thought as a parent
027that i would need to ask that my children not be subjected to rhetoric in the classroom but here i am just asking the board to ensure that divisive phrases and subjects are not pushed on the children i'd also like to quickly address the treatment of citizens when they participate in this public comment portion last meeting i watched remotely and i was embarrassed by the treatment of a citizen who asked a question regarding critical race theory to see someone be completely disrespected was disheartening and should not be tolerated parents and citizens should not fear voicing their questions or opinions especially when it comes to the education of our children our school's mission statements here in stonington starrington high school it's personal responsibility respect for self and others tolerance for others and their opinions technical literacy and
028partnership among students staff and community stonington middle school has the raised way respectful responsible and ready dean's middle school we have our dms wish it includes working together treating others the way you want to be treated be safe and have fun and west vine school has their swim philosophy stay safe stay in bubble hands to self and calm body work hard always try your best include all be kind to and include everyone and model respect use kind words manners and follow rules i really hope that as a community as a school board that we can stick to our school's core values thank you i appreciate the opportunity to speak this evening my name is jeff lewis and i live at 159 pequot trail i'm a graduate of stellington public schools and currently employed as a
029social studies teacher at stellington high school as is unfortunately the case and increasingly so regarding any number of concepts covered by 24-hour news stations and posted and reposted to social media critical race theory is a misunderstood and misused concept thornton public schools does not teach crt crt is not part of our curriculum we do proudly however endorse and teach our dei initiative this initiative was brought about by both our community and our alumni diversity equity and inclusion all are concepts which allow stonington public schools to teach the facts of us history in a fashion that respects all americans it is not something to be feared it is something to be valued and endorsed as we meet both the needs of teaching us history and the needs of all of our students it does not denigrate
030any one group of people in our classrooms but it teaches american history as it occurred i encourage all stakeholders at this time to visit the sps website for specifics on the implementation of our dei initiative i respect my students regardless of our cultural and political differences i respect my students both as people and as learners i respect them enough to provide them with all available information when they ask questions when a curious sophomore asked me for details on the levittown suburbs of the 1950s i feel a professional obligation to share clause 25 of the suburbs standard lease agreement this would be the cause which legally prohibited people who were quote not members of the caucasian race end quote from renting or owning in levittown i am equally obligated to discuss the fair housing act of
0311968 with which members of our national legislature aim to prohibit this specific brand of race-based discrimination when teaching history one cannot teach the latter effect without teaching the clause i ask only to be respected as a professional educator to an extent which will allow me to address my students inquiries with all available information thereby showing them the respect that they deserve as critically thinking young adults thank you my name is connie simonic and i live at six school street unit 17 in mystic and i was here in june and i spoke about returning the word columbus day to the stone agent calendar and um i got in touch with um the whole board and the superintendent and i want to thank heidi and dr riley for being in touch with me i would have liked
032to have heard from the rest of the board um about my comments but i did not um i still want the board to return columbus day to the calendar versus indigenous people day i do not believe in deconstructing history i believe in history um and i don't believe that we should be wiping the name columbus off the calendar it's a sign i think that the board doesn't understand that we cannot impose our present time on previous times students must not be made to feel guilty for what happened in 1492 instead as history teachers and i have been a teacher my whole career instead the students must be taught true factual history with all its peaks and pits students must be guided to look at history with open eyes so they can walk in history's shoes
033and learn from the past canceling columbus day in my mind is teaching critical race theory the board the stonington board obeys the um state connecticut state board of education which in turn obeys the national education association this is what the national associate education association has said quote all k-12 schools must teach that white supremacy anti-blackness racism patriarchy capitalism and ableism are embedded in every aspect of american society end of quote this in my mind translates to the cancelling of columbus day in other words if you are a white child you may be made to feel guilty and be a bad person now you may be thinking and many of you work in stonington i worked in legend my whole career you may be thinking as i just heard a gentleman of history teaching say we
034don't teach critical race theory but stonington does in their hidden way and i'm not saying stonington is trying to hurt children that's not what i'm saying i'm saying that the the seeping of this in our society is very secretive and it's in diversity equity and inclusion the teaching of that that's how critical race theory is translated in stonington and in many other towns some examples from the curriculum in the book a day program specifically the book promise of change which brings the students back to 1950s 72 years ago i want to know what the learning objective is perhaps the intent is to cast whites as evil and oppressors children don't need to feel guilty for what happened 72 years ago they need to know it but they also have to know that we do not
035we are not acting like we did 72 years ago we are different we have come out of that that's the beauty and nobleness noble state of america songs like we shall overcome also which was a key anthem to the civil rights movement what is the learning objective there perhaps to make children of color think they haven't overcome yet someday has not come yet how about the song a change is gonna come implying there have been no changes in civil rights throughout our history it hasn't come yet the changes haven't come when they have how about recommended books in the family anti-racism circle we are not yet equal is one of them they called us enemy is about a japanese man imprisoned in the american concentration camp during world war ii it depicts racism and anti-racism
036does the book explain japan about pearl harbor is that a balanced lesson is that going to be a balanced lesson another book in the family anti-racism circle into the streets which is a history of protests in the united states is that going to be taught in a balanced way lastly which as a teacher disturbs me because these are resources for teachers recommended by stonington two books by lisa delpic other people's children cultural conflict in the classroom implies white teachers must lose their whiteness or they can't effectively teach children of color another book by her multiplication is for white people which teaches that public education conspires against the prospects for poor children of color creating a persistent achievement gap in conclusion and i thank you for listening patiently to me stonington teaches crt through their culturally
037responsive education and diversity equity inclusion page they don't want no we don't want to hurt children i've heard from everybody here tonight nobody wants to hurt children but we have to be so careful about how we present this information words that sound nice diversity education inclusion their words sound nice but they disguise the truth about crt which is in our schools throughout the country if we don't open our eyes to the truth of crt our country as we know it will be ruined and our children indoctrinated don't go along with it learn about it don't be afraid to speak out against it don't be afraid to talk about all the difficult times our country has gone through and how our country has come out of those times and how we are a noble and good
038country crt is anti-civilization promotes tribalism and tears each other down is that what we want i haven't heard anybody speak tonight that wants that thank you very much hi everybody uh you really need to get a bigger microphone by the way tomorrow a couple things my name is bruce charles i teach special education at stillington high school i also live at 22 corn street and tech um a couple things to mention when we first mentioned that uh the national education association the board of education do whatever we tell them to do they don't as a national nea cea figure station member trust me they don't do what we want them to do because we feel it'd be much better if they did so that's one thing that they don't do um just a couple things
039i want to touch base with in the past 25 years at stellington high school i've worked with patrick mccarney george krauss elena vanessa jay macko cindy cassidy michael freeman dan higgins carol carpenter laurie hartnett jeff lewis and aj maskel all teaching history or modern history american history uh we've never taught anything we're only related to critical race theory like t-shirts downtown right now i'm really not sure it is but trust me we don't teach anything related close to that we do teach history we do teach history with all towards all the good things we've done all the bad things we've done the japanese internment camps slave free execution we do g settings that's our history that's something that's happened i'm not going to lie to my students and pretend that these bad things didn't happen
040most cyber language students tell them that we did a lot of great things too we helped stop world war ii did a lot of amazing things um so i guess what i'm saying is that we don't really teach critical race theory that we don't teach you at all to give an example what i'm referring to about trying to teach kids to teach critic think critically is that on this happened back in like 2001 2002 i was at the high school and the whole thing about the georgia state flag and how the confederate flag is from the georgia state flag my students asked like what's the big deal is their flag why why is it there they said well what do you think was put on one of those things they're never like put on the
041georgia flag they said i don't know so we looked it up thanks to the internet and it turns out that it was put out i think 1956 or 958 1958 originally thought it would have been put onto the confederate confederate flag and put on just after the end of the civil war to celebrate their confederate heritage et cetera et cetera but no it wasn't it was put on in 1956 i believe was 56.58 so my students thought about that for a while they said why was it done at 56. like i really don't know why do you think they thought about some more they said was there like the brown versus board education case right about that i said yeah there was you think those two things are connected they go on or not then
042we left it there but that's the thing i think we need to think about and as far as masks um please keep them on we'll keep us all safe i don't like them i like telling students to take them off and put them back on et cetera but it's not about me it's about keeping people safe thank you hi my name hughes is uh i remember growing up i spent a lot of time on garden street and my great aunts and uncles houses they had a little family complex at the corner of gardner robinson we'd gather for homemade fried dough we're in the maria soon though procession festival with 10 dollar bills to the virgin mary which later in life seemed rather strange to me and uh i remember i mean i miss all those
043guys so much i remember their stories growing up italian and i had one one of my grandfathers was not italian at all he was more of like an archie bunker fellow i mean i miss him too but i had very different backgrounds within my family and it made for some hilarity at times and you know i'm by no means the image of a melting pot but i had enough diversity in my family and i heard enough stories from my the older generation in my family about how they were treated differently and poorly at times post ellis island and i heard other comments and remarks from others in my family that today would would floor us so no what i'm trying to say is i saw both the good and the bad all the flaws and
044all the realities of human nature in my own family spending time with them uh later i lived in stillman avenue for a while with my neighbors there i you know shared stories and they could they share many of the same types of stories what i'm getting at here is no two human beings are alike and in fact no single human being is the same for more than a split second of their lives we are different people right now than we will be when we walk out of this room and when you magnify that on the collective level nationwide our country is not the same for more than a split second people change people evolve people sin people seek repentance when we look at the confederate icons and images that are being taken down around the
045country and we hear about people like nathan bedford forest and the roots of the kkk terrible horrific stories of racism and then we hear stories about some of those people later on in life sought repentance and felt terrible for the way they had lived and it doesn't mean we should celebrate one person over another i'm kind of radical in fact if i if he went back far enough before this became such an issue tearing our nation apart i was telling my friends years ago that i just don't like naming human naming anything after human beings i don't like seeing statues of human beings anywhere paid for with our tax dollars for that matter i just don't think we should put anyone on a pedestal um but i just think when it comes to critical race
046theory and these issues that are tearing apart our schools right now we just have to recognize we just have to use common sense be good to one another we need to make sure our schools are expecting that of our students and our teachers people ask me all the time as a teacher hey is your district teaching critical race theory well you're not going to turn to page six and find it on the curriculum i don't know what goes on in mr hughes's classroom unless i'm there to see it he doesn't know what goes on in mind unless he's there to see it it's really about what who that person is standing in front of their students and what they choose to bring to that class that day and it's your responsibility to make sure that
047we have good people who are respecting all viewpoints and students need to feel safe they can speak up question things even if they think their ideas may be unpopular even if they're just trying to figure it out and then they feel a little bit of shame because everyone else around them seems to have figured it out already with absolute answers so it's important that we our teachers just respect our students and their diverse backgrounds where they're coming from and that we don't make people feel ashamed because they seem to like the american flag that's a red flag watch out or whatever whatever the symbol might be that we attach to them therefore we label them and we think that label will always apply to them good or evil so i don't know what you want
048to call it critical race theory or anything else just let's try to teach objective fact as best we can let's try to encourage our students to question things and let's respect that process after all they're just kids i was really here to talk about masks i hope this board will stand up for parental choice if someone had come to you two years ago and said i can get you some money all you got to do is throw your kids off a bridge you wouldn't have done it if they had come to you two years ago and said i can get you some money all you got to do is strap a piece of cloth around your students faces all day you wouldn't have done it you considered ideas like that abusive when it comes to
049the ester grants and things like that that are on the table right now for school districts around the state i think you have to resist the temptation you make these decisions based on money let's face it that's what's driving a lot of it do what's right for the kids and there's an easy middle ground here there's an easy compromise position let the parents choose most of the adults in the schools have been vaccinated if they've wanted it we've had it by now there's very little danger to teachers here and um our society as a whole has turned a corner in this pandemic and is much safer than we were a year or so ago and i think at this point it's reasonable especially given the near zero risk to children even today that you can
050let parents choose and if the parents want to send their children to school with masks god bless them they ought to have that right i think you should resist uh feeling pressured by mandates from any governor if you feel the right thing to do is give parents that choice give them that choice stand up to the governor if he tries to mandate otherwise after all the school districts in florida and texas are standing up to their governors who are doing the opposite you can do the same so good luck to you with these decisions hello my name is joseph drelly i live at 19 rossy avenue in bucket tuck um i wasn't exactly planning anything i don't have a piece of paper or anything but i have collected my thoughts listening to to all of
051you and wanting to speak the board first of all my my italian name is josefi antonio gingerella trelli my mother's family's from westerly they're from opry specifically calabria um and my father's family is from trelli uh they didn't have last names when they came over so they named them uh after our village um when i looked at columbus day being changed to indigenous people day it was a point of pride for me i know my people's history it's a huge part of who i am as a person i grew up with my grandfather telling me about trying to go to school at babcock hall in westerly and he couldn't sit with the english kids english kids were just anybody that wasn't italian and he used to throw rocks at him and his brothers on the
052way back down dog street i grew up with with knowing that they got menial jobs and that that they were discriminated against and so when i see columbus state changing it makes me feel right it makes me it makes me feel like i'm in a town that understands that our society changes they're putting up a fence around columbus statue in westerly and i'm telling you this as a westerly kid that now lives in pocket duck that's the most westerly thing i've ever seen in my life all right also go bears um but what i know that it was a huge undertaking for italian americans become assimilated and be a part of our society so they took a story about christopher columbus discovering america and they they made him a hero but now we know and
053we knew back then that christopher columbus did horrendous things native populations so this evolution that we see is a part of our society we don't celebrate guy foxtech guy fox the guy who tried to bomb parliament we celebrate it when we are a colony of england but when we gain our independence we stop celebrating it because times have changed makes sense so with that being said as a time a privatizing american that understands that i'm a part of exporia that left italy for a number of different reasons it's a point of pride for me there's plenty of other italian people that we can celebrate um de niro day or giuseppe verdi or just like anyone besides christopher columbus um so there's that point um masks i run a camp of like 400 kids in waterford
054we wore masks all summer we went outside we took them off um the only one that complained were parents that were upset the kids didn't make a peep all right i'm on a record saying that and then when it comes to critical race theory i'm trying to address you fine folks up here i have to address everyone in this room just because you consume a certain type of media does not mean you're remotely informed about that thing you've been manipulated into thinking like all of it this country's being ripped apart that this critical race theory is this is so scary it's not being taught remotely at the level it's being spoken about here and more importantly we know that it's there's a certain segment on tucker carlson on fox news where this all started two
055years ago this all became a thing on fox news and now it's ripping our school systems apart that's how much power these people have over us that our neighbors are going against neighbors because of a segment on fox news this is the same people that rallied about the liberal indoctrination of college students not for once thinking that they're just becoming more educated so with all of that being said and again i'm not trying to cause any more risks between westerly and stonington but i keep on using this phrase that the pocket river might as well be 100 miles wide honestly in terms of culture there is we watched people rally around crt and they get this big thing in westeroid and then i looked at stonington and i look at what we have been doing
056and i'm so full of pride that stonington is not you know empowering to those the sweetest wheels so to speak that they're not going to be a part of a culture war that's a point of pride for me more importantly as a father of an incoming kindergarten i'm so proud of the work that the dei committee is doing and the initiatives that everyone's a part of it's a huge point of crime my kid's already like super weird like me so knowing that he's gonna really be accepted in a school system that i'm proud of makes me it makes my heart sicker um there are other countries that have sins like our country germany japan china or maybe not china but japan and german germany pacific and italy when they teach about world war ii they
057teach about it honestly because we have to learn from our mistakes as a society so the whole idea that we have lots of parents projecting their shame on their kids about our history that's a you problem not an us problem you have to accept the fact that we've done messed up things as a country and we have in everything is nuanced i can't stress this enough there's not black and white to our history it's nuanced my favorite president fdr did some horrendous things to japanese americans i have to accept that i have to realize that that's nuanced and you'd be surprised how much a kid can understand that things are complicated thank you for your time thank you hello sean dinwiddie uh six devon drive tuck uh race down here uh i was listening virtually
058i thought comment that way and i guess that's not the thing so here i am um i am a co-founder of a local uh social justice group uh called ray of hope um co-founded it with my wife uh raven kelly who is an african-american i have a three-year-old african-american son who i am um often definitely afraid about what kind of world and society we're in um when i see uh reports of police brutality discrimination et cetera et cetera and it's such an on-topic thing right now that it's a daily stressor in my family's life we we try to get away from it but we can't there's been many tears about things that we've seen in the news situations that happen with family members and friends um real quick you know a lot of people we
059talk to within the community we often hear from opposition well that's someplace else or that kind of thing doesn't happen here in stonington and um those kind of things are real and and as uh i can tell you as a co-founder of this group um who had who we have i think it's about 550 some odd uh members that are split up between westerly and stonington uh many who are uh of color um come to us and tell us well this thing happened to me in school going here or uh i felt uh the teacher would often make an example of me in the classroom as the only colored student and so i didn't therefore talk i think you'll uh or speak up and if you look around here today uh we're all white um
060my wife uh had to take someone had to watch watch the baby and uh um she's so she she didn't come down with me uh as i said we thought we could do it virtually but you wouldn't you would see the one the one yeah one african-american black person in here uh defending um racism and and and the defending the charge to create a more diverse equitable inclusive education um had she been here so um that says a lot about i think about our community and uh my wife took a lot of flack uh in standing up uh with uh we spoke about when the crystal caldwell incident happened and um we came out in full charge because of a personal incident that happened to us as a family and i'll share that briefly um
061shortly after i went to school starting to high school and then i moved away i worked in the film and television industry on l.a i came back here a few years back shortly after being here uh my wife gave birth and uh was had to go to uh a doctor's appointment um and so she left to walk it was less than a quarter mile up the road and had my son with her in the carriage and um she while she's going it started to rain and so she you know it made it all the more difficult what happened next next thing you know uh the police police officers uh in a car pulled up and uh then started questioning her whether or not um the baby in the carriage was her own and um proceeded
062to tell her that they got a report that someone had abandoned a baby on the side of the road and given that my son is a mixed race he was very light skinned and started to give her the third degree about refusing to believe that my son was her own um in the ring and then took her id and would not give it back to her um and [Music] then proceeded that they had to then walk her down to the doctor's office they they wouldn't release her um and then escort her into the uh the doctor's office um and uh you know meanwhile she's hysterically crying et cetera et cetera and she she only stopped uh with uh from getting having a dss involved because her her doctor was able to convince her that she
063was she was fine there was no reason there was no problem she hadn't left her baby and uh to this day uh you know obviously someone made some call um and they saw something that that they didn't like and i think this that one example shows a broader example of the uncomfortable situations the number of uncomfortable situations that people of color within our community feel on a daily regular basis and so i'd like to commend uh the board for the statement that they've put out uh this past week regarding um your efforts uh to create a more diverse equitable and inclusive uh education and school system uh and uh i i thank you for rising above the noise uh that is going on um and they're changing in this whole issue of creating a more
064again diverse equitable inclusive society uh into a political issue and it's really not it's really a human issue um and that's where what what it should be so thank you so much i'm bruce burton uh six school street in storington and um i'm here to express my um strongly against the critical race theory and i know what everybody's saying about it so good and all this stuff and it's not what we think but it turns out it's there's laws against it in 26 states now i mean pot's only legal in 19 states but there's 26 laws banning critical race theory in this country that's an over that's a majority of our states that really says something and we want to we want our kids to be taught how to think not what to think that's
065what's really bothersome to most people they're being told what to think not how and everything else has been said already so i won't go over it again but i am strongly against the critical race theory and as far as columbus columbus was a hero columbus worked six years trying to get funding for those ships because he was a businessman he was a businessman he wasn't a he wasn't a scoundrel he was an explorer and a businessman and from what meager little pieces that we could salvage from his journals if you couldn't even call him that was he did take people back with him but they were people that wanted to go no he did not if they wanted to go they saw they saw that he he had he had gun powder he could kill
066things to eat they had clothes they had ships they had food those people went back with them willingly from the little journals that we could find and we'd strongly like to see columbus day reinstated and that's that's all i have anyone else wishing to address the board okay we will move on next item on the agenda is the consent agenda three sets of minutes three sets of checks and bills personnel report typically no discussion unless you wish to remove something what's your pleasure i make a motion to accept the consent agenda agency motion made is there a second second motion made there's a second all in favor all right opposed motion carries next item on the agenda is policy 4118.51 social media doctor island the world has seen drafts of this policy um if you
067have any particular questions marianne butler would be happy to uh to answer those this is something that's on this agenda because we we needed to request that you approve it so we can get it out to our staff prior to the opening of school are there any uh any questions for dr riley i have some questions go ahead let me ask marianne to address that please jack this is a policy that um our attorneys reviewed and it's based on newer policies that keep coming out through cave this is going to be there's another series of policies that are going to be brand new that you're going to be seeing coming your way and so it has been reviewed just to make sure that we're sensitive to the teachers and the staff members first amendment rights
068but also make sure that there's a clear direction on the appropriate use of social media as well as our devices so i know for for our district creating a policy that protects us from wayward social media posts is your is your my contract i you know i hope so i think it is okay i'm just having trouble hearing but i'm in front of the fan here yeah it's on but it's not working um uh let's see wayward social media posts while at the same time protecting teacher speech employment rights is a difficult task that might help you [Music] i just wonder if you know i can think of some scenarios where first of all if we consult like the teachers union or at least mr freeman always sees drastic things like this before they go
069anywhere so okay yeah i can just think of some scenarios that when i read through this policy i don't think the policy gives us a clear direction of how we handle those scenarios well i do want to just reiterate that we had attorneys look at it so they were they actually took the model the cave model we had our attorneys look at it and they redlined it and made some clarifications um if we came into a gray area which often obviously that's why we have attorneys right if we would probably look for their advice on on how to interpret that are you more concerned with the direction for the teachers is that what you're well i am well aware of some in my four years here on the board of some circumstances where um this
070type of thing has become an issue and um you know i would if possible i don't know if there's urgency with this but i would love to sit down with you or maybe the board attorney or you know and just kind of run some scenarios that's just what would work for me what we could do jack is um we wanted to get this approved so that we can use it for professional development at the beginning of the school year but we could kick it to the cow if that's okay and that would give you a couple weeks to get with us and ask your specific questions yes because i think this forum wouldn't be appropriate okay okay is that okay everybody else is the board okay if we move that let us know jeff what
071just send me some thousand dates all right we'll move it to the camera next item on the agenda report from the superintendent of schools for those of you out there when we say we're going to move it to the cow that's not the animal that's the committee of the whole it's called another board meeting we have later this month um the superintendent's report i'm going to focus first on the opening of schools and some issues that i wanted to make sure the board's aware of the masking has been an issue that was brought up tonight we will require students and all adults that are inside school buildings to have masks on and that's part of the governor's directive through at least september 30th so that's the way we're going to start school i also want
072to point out in this letter to parents that it's important for our parents and our students and our staff to know that we strongly encourage mass breaks and students can be outside we have tents up all around the district for classrooms for recess for lunch when appropriate so in all those situations mass will not be required of anyone the the teachers or the students when they're outside and we encourage that we none of us i haven't found anyone that likes to wear the mask but we will do that because we are providing a safe environment the safest environment that we possibly can there's um comments in here about remote learning i had actually two emails today from parents saying now that new london county is a significant level for the coven are we going to
073offer full remote option like we did last year and at this point we are not the state strongly encourages that's the term they use full in school for everyone the exceptions would be for a special ed or a 504 student that has part of their particular individual plan requires some or all remote learning or a student who is medically compromised in some way and that's the way we're going to start out unless something changes and as you know we get changes from the state and the department of health every every couple of days but we're going to start out with no at this point at no full remote option for for parents um another thing that's on here i would like to mention that the other day we put together a podcast that answers some
074of these questions and others chairman tedesco and michael freeman our teachers union president and myself were interviewed by marianne and that podcast is being finalized and should be on our website maybe by tomorrow by monday so please feel free to take a look at that um item c on here is the optional profit 19 testing in k-6 we have the opportunity along with every other district in the state to have free testing it's totally optional for parents parents don't have to do this but if they would like to have their their child uh have coven testing twice a week our nutmeg our our clinic our cova testing clinic will come to the school and perform that the the test on only the students again that parents want to have tested and then share the results
075with those parents we will be applying for that that's a new thing for none of it hasn't even heard about this yet it really is in the last few days uh something that every other district that i've talked to wants to do this why not it's a it's an op free option for parents it's not disruptive students would come out of their class for three minutes get the swab and then go back so we will be offering that it probably won't start until the middle or end of september but we will be offering that for for our families for our parents um just a couple other things um summer schools listed down under monthly reports but i didn't want to um to miss the opportunity to thank our our summer school staff particularly kristin and
076jenny who are in the back here along with allison and others we had a wonderful summer uh program we really and what was really fun about it and i think we'll all appreciate that as we it was a non-uh screen summer school we encouraged uh group activities where students and staff were working together on projects they were outside as much as possible it was just really refreshing to see actual human beings together working together on things and be able to be outside in that case when they're outside without mass and working on projects together it was very successful we had over 160 of our non-special ed students typically we have a special education summer school it's also very successful but on top of that because we knew that a lot of parents wanted students to
077have an educational opportunity in the summer we had a very very successful program so i'd like to thank the teachers and our administrative staff for putting that together um i'd also like to just mention the crt and there's a lot said about that tonight and in front of you i mean i have a copy of the statement that we put out that is i think pretty clear we do not teach this we do teach being respectful and now those kinds of things and we will continue to do that and those are the main things i would like to talk a bit about the esser funding but before we do that uh did any board members have any questions or statements about the mitigation measures or the crt and after you're done i'll go on to
078the elser ii funding any board members heidi [Music] yeah i'd like to make a comment about um crt it's a little bit different than what we've been hearing here but what it primarily emphasizes is the complexity of this issue and i think we really need to appreciate that in the recent months i have been reading everything i can possibly read to really understand the critical race theory and in an effort to better understand it i read a book recently that gave me a new perspective on the critical race theory and i want to share with you tonight the book's the fatal invention and the main point of the book was that the concept race is not a legitimate biological category the current concept of race or races actually comes from invented rules of classification which
079were particularly useful to the europeans in the 15th century because it separated them out from those who they were conquering apparently the word race was used in the scottish poem in 1508 to indicate a hierarchy of categorizing people and the english coined it these powerful conquering people that the english referenced were of course white and this is when the game of grace began to get ugly because if you weren't white you weren't powerful and conquering you were inferior and thus more misconceived associations evolved but the really ridiculous point is that there can't be a better or best or a more powerful race because biologically there's only one race there's no competition we're all born into one race the human race and it is after birth that the artificial categorizing takes place through skin color and
080other physical characteristics but categorizing continued and superior and not so superior races were embedded it's it's pretty difficult to understand how this idea persisted when there was not more than one race that existed what did exist unfortunately were the byproducts of an artificial hierarchy from the invented categories categorized of race more specifically these byproducts were a discomfort with diversity a resistance to inclusion and a resulting behavior of inequity so who can restore this needed balance to this misconstruction of society right now there seem to be two professions working on this lawyers and educators lawyers are analyzing systemic racism and how it is or is not fair and equitable and we the educators are trying to figure out what is age appropriate for k-12 in this discussion in our lessons we instruct the benefits of living
081in a diverse culture where all are included with no hierarchy of privilege this objective basically supports the curriculum detailed in the school statement discussing critical race theory and what the fatal invention does is show how deeply embedded in our culture in our world this embedded concept of race is rearranging and re-educating people about this centuries-old hierarchy of invented privilege is very challenging and it will continue to be challenging i emphasize continue because our search for the right balance of instruction to write our social structure is ongoing it's continuing we continue to need our stakeholders support and input i particularly appreciate all of the comments from the citizens tonight they help us the board to direct policy and i appreciate the comments about what your perspective is and how we're doing in your classroom and the
082impact of our specific resources used in the classroom so i thank you for that and i hope that you understand and appreciate the challenges that we have is not just today but is centuries old and deeply embedded and we're trying to untangle that any other comments from the board jack dr riley i just wanted to say i i support the statement that was issued by the district in regards to critical race theory i think it is important that we provide opportunities for students and i say this as a father of three i still have a daughter in high school i've had two could have graduated from stormington and also i've been a lifelong resident here for almost a minute 50 years i'm uh i'm getting up there but uh anyways uh i think it's important
083that we provide opportunities for students to have what may be uncomfortable conversations about race and race relations in our country i hope that students through their experiences here in stellington will learn to be and become good critical thinkers always striving for more information and actively seeking to be part of the conversation that will ultimately shape our community and country as we move forward and you can see that this evening we had countless people stand up for graduates of stonington i'm proud of you all and um we'll get through this any other comments i guess dr riley just one question about the um the k-6 testing that'll be happening i know you can't report on individuals but will we be able to get a just aggregate data in terms of the number of kids that were
084tested um i mean yes the number yes we'll be able to share that and i guess the other thing i would say is you know at our bears advisory council meeting you know i thought it was great when ledge light came in because i think you know myself included like i said nobody wants to wear masks um but i think one of the things that we need to make sure we do is is stay connected and transparent with the community with ledge light and perhaps get legend you know in front of the community here one of our board meetings to talk about what they're seeing because ultimately that's the guidance that that we're taking um there's there's liability out there to go against what uh you know what ledge like cdc and others and we
085take that very seriously um i think it's also important to note uh to the community that the board of ed did before um numbers did change but a note was sent to the governor um requesting for for not to wear masks um but then things have changed over the past you know 60 days so i think it's important for the community to know that the board the administration has been extremely proactive in uh on that topic but yeah we just encourage us to have our local health authority here at you know future board meetings to uh be transparent to the community around the topic we will do that we'll also be putting together a podcast with legend so parents can understand if they're signing up for this option what it means and how often that
086the kids will get tested and how they get results that kind of thing so before we go on to the next item i would like to point out the sr2 funding update you've had a chance to look at this i'd like to thank our our principals and also our teaching staff and everyone else at the schools who had input into these various positions and needs at each site we've been working on this for a number of months and you can see in here that we're looking not only at academic assistance where it's needed to help students accelerate back to where we think they should be but there's also a number of sel positions family liaison etc that we know that the emotional and social needs of students is is is prime um we we talk
087about the three levels that we're looking at we start out with safety and that's all the coping mitigations you put on top of that the sel and the emotional social needs and how we're going to be addressing that at each school and once we have those two faces in we'll be able to work on the acceleration of the of the academic area but you can see each school is very different and these came from the uh the schools telling us exactly what they need out of the sr ambassador ii funds you can also see at the very end of this the original list that was presented to the board we didn't have the funding after we applied actual individuals to these positions so there were a few things that we had to hold and you
088can see those at the very end not much but there were a few things that we needed to put on on hold for now so that's the sr2 funding that will be submitted to the state i would like to uh always till the next item on the art funding on in a second to talk about the next step and how we would have used the esser these positions these ideas to help with our art funding that will be coming down the road any questions on the answer any questions for dr riley okay did you want to address our funding or are you saving that for a different thing so it's after the calendar discussion so i know they wanted to talk about the columnistic issues oh okay i saw it on item b i didn't
089know if there was more you wanted to add next item on the agenda discussion and direction regarding school calendar uh this this was an item that i was asked to add to the agenda heidi [Music] mr chairman i i really appreciate you adding the agenda at a previous meeting i think you can at a previous meeting which i chaired the boe accepted a calendar which changed the day columbus day to indigenous day and i realize now that the process of this change was flawed i take full responsibility for that since i was chairing the meeting at the time and on that basis i move that we change the name of that holiday back to columbus day and not consider any changes without a public hearing what you made is is there a second i would
090just like to add a digital commentary that uh well you need a second before we discuss it i would like to second that motion okay discussion on the motion so at that meeting i also like to acknowledge that uh you know we were very very focused on the uh the number of professional development days and i know myself personally i probably had you know about 11 questions on that that topic so um that did go through um without much discussion you know when i look at the uh the national holidays that we do have uh columbus day is one of those so i do support uh heidi's motion of not saying we don't change it but for now i do believe that we need more community input before we uh before we make that call
091any further discussion on the motion am personally supportive of the dei committee and i personally would like to keep it as indigenous people they thank you any other comments i guess that i i appreciate the indigenous day but i also think of where we are as a community which is right next to westerly when i know that there are people there that feel very strongly about columbus the investment that they've made in that statue and the protectiveness there are many people that feel that that to not include columbus is indignant and it undermines a pride that they had that they think they have about their italian culture so i wanted to reconsider that with appreciation and consideration of that um i also think that a an indigenous day could actually be added to the calendar
092and my question is what is taught on columbus day and what will be taught on indigenous day the children are going to not be in school and i have a three-year-old grandson who would be very curious why he's not going to school he would ask the question so certainly a five-year-old would say why am i not going to school today because today is indigenous day oh what what is that so what are the teachers going to be teaching about that day so it is justifiably a day that they actually are off of school and the same thing i would ask about columbus day what is taught about columbus on that day and is it and is it contextual maybe do we talk about the renaissance and reformation do we talk about what inspired um initiated
093the explorers to move and do we talk about how they how many of the explorers acted when they did come here um and what was that about that can really be a very good debate a very good discussion a morality question so my question would be for us to see the curriculum the instruction that's given for both of those days to justify why these children are staying home all right any further discussion just just reiterate that i'm not opposed to changing it i just heard that there's been enough feedback from the community that we should listen and make a little bit more of an informed decision i'm happy with keeping it okay so there's a motion made there's a second all in favor [Music] aye aye opposed okay [Music] this next item is concerning the
094art funding i would like the board to know that uh as i mentioned in the last couple meetings this is the larger amount of funding that the district will be receiving um our plan at this point is to use uh this would be the year after this coming year that's when the uh art funding would start we would mirror the plan that was just presented the sr2 funding for that year we will absolutely be modifying that and changing it as we know more as we move through this coming year but the total amount of funding that we would initially be asking out of the arm is that 1.15 million that mirrors the esser we have we then have a balance available for other related items of 1.406 million so basically 1.4 million dollars of the
095district's arp funding that's again after we've had the first year of esser ii in the second year of part of the art funding and we have 1.4 million dollars available our my recommendation would be one of the very specific items in addition to mental health and teaching and all these other things that is stating in state-of-the-art funding is dealing with the quality air quality in the buildings and particularly the schools as i mentioned earlier my hope would be that we could use that balance the 1.4 million towards the stonington middle school need for a new error an hvac system they're the only school that does not have a proper ventilation and air conditioning system we don't have the funding with the 1.4 million to accomplish that peter has met with a number with uh hvac
096companies and the recent most recent estimate is around 2.8 million dollars to fully do the middle school and put in the kind of ventilation that our students and our staff at that school should have so my question is we have half of that fund and would the board be accepting of us going to the town the town has 5.2 million dollars of our funding and the request has come out from the first woman are there suggestions from departments and others in the community on how those funds could be spent i would hope that air quality for our students and our staff in a very large building would be part of that particularly since the board of dead would be putting in 1.4 of that we would then go to go to the town and ask
097them to consider funding the other 1.4 million for the total of 2.8 again i think that of all the other you know they're going to have sidewalks and sewers they're going to have all kinds of important projects for the town but we have asked for this we've talked about this since i've been here for nine years and before that and this is a way to do that without going into the cip or you know the general budget or the reserve we're very fortunate to have this these funds coming to us into the town and it is very clear in the in the federal guidelines that air quality ventilation in particular is one of the items that is suggested to be considered so tonight if the board pleases i would draft a letter to this to
098the town suggesting that they consider funding half of the stonington middle school air quality project you know be a little more specific and certainly run that by uh the chairman and make sure it says exactly the right things but we have a chance here to accomplish something that we needed for many many years any thoughts from the board jack i would like to support that i also can think back to when we consolidated the schools we told the community look we're going to put two schools into one but we're going to make some significant upgrades and uh you know i know the school is it's fairly you know it's crowded right now and i can't imagine being in that environment without an air conditioning system that works well and as we see more hot days
099um uh i would think that this would be a really good thing to have for that school does anybody oppose sending such a communication okay so you can move forward thank you [Music] next item on the agenda is the approval of the paraprofessional employment contract vane did you want to address that you had a chance to look at this this is the last of the openly classified employee union contracts and uh we're very proud of what we've been able to do for our paraprofessional employees recommended to be approved any uh questions or comments on that hearing none will entertain a motion i'll make a motion to approve a paraprofessional employment contract motion made is there a second okay there's a second all in favor aye motion carries mr chairman i understand okay please note uh
100that for rook spain next item on the agenda monthly reports uh there were three uh finance facilities and uh summer school report uh any questions on any one of those reports [Music] a quick question about summer school how many students actually attended roughly there were a little over 160 general ed students plus the summer the uh specialized by 44 students that's 160 over what we've had in the past it's really it was really a great opportunity for those students what grades were mostly populated in that was it even across or was there a lot in the elementary you know i'll get that to the board it was pretty pretty well distributed um but i don't have that off the top of my head i'll be happy to get that for you gary i have one
101question for you uh when will the last fiscal year be closed out and when will the board receive the final reconciliation of the finances that that takes a while uh mr chairman only because we have open purchase orders and sometimes don't they don't get filled or we don't close them for six or seven months but we have still have a few projects on the books uh for example the hvac at the high school that might take another month or two months to accomplish but i think we'll be sooner this year than we have in the past okay thank you any other questions on the monthly reports next item on the agenda update on the board of ed advisory council yes thank you not much to report we um we're actually going to push our meeting
102next week as the the letter that came out from dr island in the administration that addresses a lot of what we were going to talk about for back to school um so we will um push our september 14th meeting to the 22nd so we've actually got two weeks of back to school and we can have the council get together and dr riley in the administration give us an update on how back to school is going um and then we'll keep that going um you know at least through the first half of uh the school year so do if suddenly we have to swing to totally remote can we go right into the remote sort of instruction that we were doing before and how quickly can we pivot because things change that rapidly i don't know
103that that's a question yeah that's probably a good question for the superintendent and maybe even the state that's a difficult question because it depends on if a certain grade levels or if it's if you're a high school student you've been vaccinated maybe there's these rules we don't know what the rules would be i can tell you it'll be a lot smoother and quicker than it was in march a year and a half ago because we were scrambling to get computers out to everyone our teachers are used to teaching remotely if they need to we're hoping we don't have to go back to that that would be going in the wrong direction but if it's required because of the outbreaks then we'll move very quickly and we do have the we have the number of computers
104the one-to-one we have all that available and ready to go so it would be a lot quicker than it was a year and a half ago is that something that we talked about at the bears meeting well i think the bears meeting you know well i think that's that's an opportunity to see where you know how we're doing it back to school if there's any updates from the state um that dr reilly receives and he can share that with us and if that you know happens to be it uh let's hope not let's hope it's going the other direction and certainly we'll we'll talk about it but um it will only be two weeks in at that point i think everything we've seen from the the governor has been september 30th i believe was was
105the next update so i wouldn't anticipate that discussion on the 22nd but you know hopefully not in october november meetings either but something i would like to talk about at the bears meetings i see a anxiety rising in parents particularly the younger kids because of the impact of bavarian i do i i'm wondering if we should be able to offer something remote to some parents who don't can't justify keeping their child at home because they're perfectly healthy but there is evolving fear justifiable i would feel maybe nervous about sending a really young child back to school now i think i mean i can understand it if the parent felt that way so i i don't know if we should try to think that we should be having something for families that feel this way so
106heidi if i may offer an opinion i think that that may be an appropriate discussion at the bears meeting but it's going to be done in collaboration with the administration and then whatever guidance is available but you're bringing up a valid concern yeah but it is i'm dr raleigh isn't there so it would be something that we would consider i just want to be responsible yeah i think i think the intent of the bears committee is to review um you know some of the input that we we get and the administration gets yeah you know to me that would be something that would be reviewed you know amongst the board if that's something that happened we'd review as a board with the administration and then get that feedback from the from the bears advisory council
107and i think that's the key thing about the advisory council it's to advise us and give input based on things that we're putting together specifically dr riley and his staff yeah not uh it's not a decision-making body or um it's more about input than anything i think that's that's what part of our charter and the administration's charter yeah just to clarify as i said at the beginning of the meeting the state has given us the following guidance that remote learning what you're talking about a full remote learning will not be required in any district so and that's what happened when we first started this thing 18 months ago we all have to do that so that is not required then they say the state wants full in school uh for every student then they say
108if you're going to if a student needs to or you you want to offer a reload which is what you're talking about it should come through a special ed ppt or a 504 plan or a medically necessary student those are the three areas that they at this point say is appropriate what you're talking about is someone who just you know they don't want their child to go to a school because they don't think it's safe we don't have that yet but again school hasn't quite started and that could happen any day so we'll certainly keep you informed uh as the as the rules and the guidelines change any other uh comments as it relates to beers all right any items for future board meetings any board member comments i just want to apologize to our
109uh team in the back uh the team that led the change of the name change from columbus day to indigenous people day i'm sorry that we could not uphold your recommendation i apologize to the indigenous people of connecticut the mohegan tribes the deepak nation all the people that we try to celebrate so i'm sorry [Music] for fruit i would just like to explain that going back to columbus day was not a disregard of what dei did or in disrespect of indigenous it's a way of listening to the whole community and that really is our job as the board is to represent who's out there we were elected by them and being a representative includes that so because i voted to have the name changed back for reconsideration and reassessment i i don't want to be
110labeled to somebody who showed disrespect or um disregard of what our die did we may very well have an indigenous day return become the state but anyways it's gone back to the drawing board for reconsideration i just i just want to make that clear what my perspective is any other more comments every node i'll entertain a motion to adjourn most of the journey motion mages are a second second all in favor opposed emotion cares