001I don't know if you realize we can't hear you yeah can you hear us now Pam thank you okay thank you Liz um okay so Dr Willard who don't believe that we have any mail insurance but we do have a new member here so can we maybe take an opportunity to introduce her we do actually have acknowledged we do we do oh look at that and flip it over yeah okay and then yes so we're gonna do two so um uh we do have the booster club wanted to tonight acknowledge the district level booster club was kind enough the tolerance above has donated a new athletic scorers table that will be used at all home volleyball and basketball games um the addition of this table will allow for a more efficient scoring and increased amount
002of space um you know occasionally we do get wonderful things it was just provided a scoreboard and so the boosters are again providing things that are making our sporting experience much better and more wonderful for everyone so they work very closely with Mr McCluskey to design it and get the correct table for our needs and uh and they have given us that take so it's just something to be very thankful for and we deeply appreciate the hard work and effort it went into you know into getting that we by chance have a picture [Music] of curiosity honestly am I do I have right yeah question oh I think I do have to say the next person I would ask is there I think actually take a second because everything takes a second well it's sideways
003but if you tilt your head you can't get a good picture of it so that's that is our uh the design of our new scores table there is no I don't think I can rotate that in this particular disability that's okay I put you on the spot yeah there it is well thank you very much to the booster club for that anyone have any questions or anything very cool it looks very nice uh okay so we can add to our second acknowledgments here um we do have uh as you know um we have had the pleasure of having Audrey McGowan we have her student rep and she's done an amazing job and joining her now is Sarah boolan who will be joining us to to participate and give us all the student perspectives of our
004student rep no not really no we got sanitizer that should not imply anything here is that we're here to help okay [Music] okay um we are not approving uh removing anything on the agenda so we go to the approval of minutes we do have two minutes on here um when Dr Willa had gone back notice that we did not actually vote on the April 17th minutes so those are on here as well as the June 28th so I will entertain a motion to uh approval of minutes at the same time um I moved to approve the April 17th and June 28th meeting minutes any discussion on that and we don't have Dana online correct you just want to make sure okay now if you're here please raise your hand she is nuts at this time
005so therefore we can go ahead and say all those in favor can say aye um okay well let's do so now so you have Griffin that is obscening but everyone else so therefore the minutes are approved as is at this time um I would like to welcome the public participation we have people online in in the room and a lot of people seem to be new faces so just so that everyone knows um we do have a two minute timer that Dr Willett will put up you were given two minutes and as long as you state your name and your address which are very important or um Lisa to put on for the minutes you can talk about anything that you would like it's not a back and forth dialogue just so everyone knows um
006the discussion takes place with four members and the points of information um so at this time if you want to if you're in the room the owl will pick you up when you stand up but it just follows you and if you are online if you could please raise your hand then we will go from there I mean anyone online going once going twice okay I will close out the public participation portion saying that there are no one interested correspondence okay um so just a note again there are a couple late breaking emails um related to the um that was an etq discussion that arrived today I haven't had time to put them on the report but they will be on the next one um so everything um between now and yesterday uh we received
007an email questioning whether the Board of Ed is playing a meaningful role and is not voting on an LGBT policy before regulation is issued we've had an email thanking Dr willick for organizing the town hall meeting on the sub-regulation and we had an email asking uh win the next FFC meeting is scheduled thank you very much okay so at this time I will open it up to points of information for any board member if you have anything else to say this notifications appreciate it let me know yeah I got a lot of um this is that are ready to move on okay student representative reports all right so first of all thank you for the hoodie it meant a lot being Dr willetta what's my age group um but no thank you guys live and
008a lot and now on to actual stuff so the fall Sports registration and conditioning camps have started and Mr McCluskey has extended the sign up window to August 4th so if you're interested in any fall Sports make sure to set your registration in by August 4th I am a junior Health officer and the student health officers are planning a haunted house this fall and finally because it's summer and we don't have anything going on the DECA officers meant to discuss the upcoming year and our plans moving forward with Becca yeah that's it any question did you say power plans you're an officer um this is interesting where is the Hamilton house going to take place it's cool and hmm I don't think we've ever had something like that have we went only in the Crandall
009Road years ago and then that's interesting so I don't think so this is cool that is neat is there an age restriction um you were thinking it would be just for the high school scores having done such a thing and including Elementary children I've ever done in my life a good thank you thank you ladies very much and I hope you guys are having a great summer because I know next month school starts so people love the smiles perfect okay um let's go on to uh Dr Willa if you want to start on sure because they're the first one of the superintendent reports so we do have tonight um the great benefit of having internet please send an attorney Ritter here to go over and talk about the MSP QA guidelines and also the CTE
010transgender civil rights in the state of Connecticut and give a board a presentation and understanding of working stand um so I have everything queued up here um as we said the owl will follow you okay so is the presentation going to be on both screens Dr Willett it will be on 12th streets and is there a night advancer I can give it to you to sit here and just roll them forward or uh you can tell me to move on whatever you prefer whatever works best okay so um I don't always stick to a script though so no problem um so hi everyone I know that I've had the pleasure of meeting all of our Board of Education under this is my colleague Sarah Gleason I'm sorry to the audience members if my back is
011bleeding towards you I'm just trying to also be able to book a screen um so we will be brief I understand that you have a very busy agenda so we will do this efficiently and expeditionally um but we've been asked here just to talk about transgender students in the law and what your obligations are under state and federal law I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the evolving Federal landscape and then I'm gonna focus on what the state law has been and what the state law has been for actually quite some time on this topic and then Sarah will get into some additional kind of q a some issues that I know have recently emerged here in Thailand um so Dr Willard if you don't mind going yeah thank you so let's
012talk a little bit about the national landscape so what I want to impress upon all of our Board of Education members and I know how much time you commit to the school district and how much you care about our students but as you know the school districts has an unequivocal legal obligation to protect the civil rights of all of our students and here in Connecticut that also includes the civil rights of our transgender students and so if there's one thing that you can take away the recent correspondence I understand that there were some proposed guidelines that were issued by Dr Willett that has been the topic of discussion I want you to know that that is a document that we prepared in collaboration with Dr Willett that is specifically taken not only from State guidance
013in collaboration with our Connecticut Department of Education as well as the DHR role which is the state agency that enforces discrimination laws here in Connecticut but it is also based on explicit federal court cases as well as date court cases as well as agency decisions both at the state and federal level so really what that is is a regurgitation of what the land of the law is here in Connecticut so with respect to our transgender students we do not have discretion with respect to saying whether or not we're going to allow our transgender students to use a bathroom or a locker room that corresponds with their gender identity or not that is not a discretion that any local Board of Education here in Connecticut has in fact that is the law and if we do
014not comply with that you will be opening the Board of Education anywhere in Connecticut to significant exposure and liability and if you are sued for non-adhering to the law you will lose and so we will walk through the state federal landscape that supports what we are telling you here I also want to be clear here that Sarah and I have no political or philosophical agenda here our job as your lawyer is just to tell you what the law is of course I'm happy to answer any questions but as far as we see it it's pretty black or white on most of these issues and not a matter of political disciplines so let's talk a little bit about the national landscape when we are looking at the rights of our transgender students and our transgender employees
015it is important that we are aware of Title VII and Title IX so these are federal statutes Title VII protects again discrimination in the employment context Title IX protects against discrimination in the educational context and we will Circle back to both of those federal laws but I just wanted to give you that basic Foundation if you could go beep to the next slide please so we will get to Connecticut state law where in fact Connecticut has really been a Forefront of this issue while Connecticut has been on the Forefront of his issue we started to see some significant discussion about the rights of transgender students through the Obama Administration what we saw in the Obama Administration is that in 2016 the U.S Department of Education in collaboration with the U.S Department of Justice issued a
016dear colleague letter in that dear colleague letter it made very clear that we the two agencies that would be charged with investigating discrimination claims brought forward by students we interpret Title IX to Encompass discrimination based on a student's gender identity including the transgender status so that is what the federal presidential Administration is telling us in 2016 and it further summarized what they believe is a school's obligation with respect to Title IX now why is this important well if you are not complying to the Title IX and you are not confined with the guidance that has been issued by the agencies that are charged with enforcing those laws you could lose significant Federal funding so in addition to losing significant Federal funding through Title IX with through Title VII we also of course have some legal
017exposure which Sarah and I will get into more specifically so if we could go to the next slide please Dr William so this is just a quote that we wanted to share with you that specifically comes out of the Obama era guidance that says the Departments and here they're referring to the Department of Justice and the Department of Education at the federal level treat a student's gender identity as the student sex for purposes of Title IX and it's implementing regulations this means that a school must not treat a transgender student differently from the way it treats other students of the same gender identity now they rely on this interpretation to also say that means that if I am born a female but I have a sincerely held belief that I am a male and I
018want to use the male locker room that is my civil right to do so that is my legal right to do so same thing with the locker room I want to use a locker room I was born biologically a female but I identify as a male I legally have to be allowed to do that now one of the Alternatives that they talk about in the correspondence is that you can have a neutral bathroom but you cannot force a transgender student to use that Mutual backwards but that mental bathroom is really there for anyone's level of disability so if I feel uncomfortable having a transgendered student change with me I can go use the neutral locker room or I can go use the neutral bathroom but as we start to see and we'll get a little
019bit more into this and there we'll talk about some of the case law what we have seen and what has emerged especially more recently is my religious objection or my discomfort to the Civil Rights of a transgender student does not outweigh their legal rights and so I want to be very clear about that that I know people are going to and I understand this is a complicated issue so I'm not again asserting any opinion on anyone's religious or philosophical objections but I'm here to tell you that the law of the land right now is going to say that does not outweigh transgender students right to express their gender identity and expression if we then go to the next slide please go to the next slide please so then I just want to talk a little
020bit about 2017 because I think this is where some of the confusion comes in because in the federal landscape things have kind of flip-flopped whereas in Connecticut the law has been more consistent but we see our Obama era guidance is rescinded in 2017 by the Trump Administration so the Trump Administration says we don't agree with the dear colleague letters or the FAQs or any of the information that was presented by the Obama Administration and we are advising the U.S Department of Education and the Department of Justice to not take into consideration transgender status when looking at the Title IX regulations basically saying that steps under Title IX does not Encompass transgender status contrary to what Obama was saying when they've seen this though they are very clear however as we are with sending this we
021still very much defer to the stage right to implement educational policy as the state sees fit so they're giving significant rights to the states and that's when we'll start to talk a little bit more about Connecticut so not only do they say but there should be due regard given to how a state wants to deal with this issue at a local level but it also says though even though we are rescinding the Obama era guidance it doesn't mean that we don't support our lgbtq community and it doesn't mean that they lose their legal protections and school districts still have an obligation to protect them from discrimination bullying and other harassing Force let's fast forward to our abiding Administration so the Biden Administration in 2021 issues an executive order basically saying I'm going to Trump the
022Trump guidance and this executive order I'm going to be showing the world that the federal government is committed again to including and making sure that when we are implementing Title IX regulations that we are also protecting against the Discrimination of our transgender students so that is issued as an executive order and then there are proposed significant changes to the Title IX regulations in June of 2022 which are still in the proposed format that is specific to Athletics the other proposed regulations that we're talking about which should be coming down in October which Sarah will talk more about is specific to Title IX the implementation of those regulations and how it impacts there will definitely be a component of how it impacts our transgender students and by all accounts we have been informed that the definition
023of sex will Encompass transgender students so more mirror what we have in Connecticut that is not finalized yet but that is what we've gathered so far so I just wanted to give you a little bit of kind of the federal landscape so then let's move to this case if you can move to the next slide Dr Dylan so here is the bow stock case now the reason why this is an important case is with a landmark decision in 2020 this was issued by the United States Supreme Court and this was specific to discrimination under Title VII which we talked about in the first slide which deals with the employment context but the decision issue in this case has also set precedent for how other judges in other jurisdiction have interpreted Title IX so I think
024it's important that we talk about it this case was a trio of cases so we had one gentleman I'm just going to pull up my notes here so I get it right Gerald bosock who is the names plaintiff here he was a child welfare services coordinator fired after his employer Learners he had joined a gay softball league then we have Donald Zarda who is a skydiving instructor instructor excuse me he was fired after his employer learned he was gay and then we have the third case a funeral director Amy Stevens is fired after her employer learned that she was going to transition from male to female so the Supreme Court takes all three of these cases consolidates them and issues One Singular opinion that basically says because they were fired for being in the process
025of transitioning from male to female or because they were fired because they were gay that is discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity as prohibited by Title VII so now they're encompassing the word sex to include sexual orientation or gender identity reason why this is important is that if we go to the next case we have a series of cases so Dr will if you could go to slide e yeah we have a series of cases that after the fact use this Landmark decision to support Holdings of Title IX with respect to our transgender students which really is impactful with respect to here in Thailand and all of our other local school districts so here you have the 11th circuit determined that the school board violated Title IX by its bathroom policy
026which prevented a transgender student who identified as male from using the boy's bathroom at the high school what the 11th circuit looked at is they said here we have school officials who by their own admission and buy their own testimony consider this student a boy in every respect this child would identifying and presenting as a male and it was a sincerely held belief that he wasn't male however their bathroom policy said that he could only use the multi-stall girl bathroom or single stall gender neutral bathroom and they held that this was in violation of Title IX so that goes back to what we know um is set forth and those guidelines that were issued and also that are consistent with what we have from our state officials so then we could go to slide nine
027I want to talk a little bit about Connecticut Law so that is just kind of a brief overview and it's complicated and it is constantly evolving but I wanted everyone to understand kind of what's going on on the federal stage and then I just want to talk briefly about what has been going on Connecticut since at least 2011. so Connecticut is probably one of the first States if not the very first state to add gender identity and expression to the state's anti-discrimination laws so that was as early as 2011. Public Act number 1155 protects against discrimination in employment education housing public accommodations and in any other areas in which sexual discrimination is prohibited it also authorized a person to file complaints with the chro alleging discrimination so for transgender students felt that they were being
028discriminated against in any local school district in Connecticut they would file a complaint with the chro and they are authorized to do so by this public Acts if we go to the next slide codified within this change back in 2011 here is how the Connecticut state legislature defines gender identity or expression so this is taken specifically from Connecticut General statutes 46a-51 where public acts 1155 was codified um you all have a copy of this it's a very comprehensive definition but briefly a person's gender related identity appearance or behavior whether or not that gender related Identity or parents or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the person physiology or science that's at Birth um if we could go to the next slide please in Connecticut we also have Connecticut General statutes 10-15c where they
029have reaffirmed Public Act 1155 and they have added discrimination in public schools are specifically prohibited including gender identity or expression meaning you have to provide an equal opportunity to all of our students to participate in our educational programming free from discrimination based on any protected class including gender identity or expression if we can go to the next slide so the correspondence that Dr Willett I know shared with his staff and had shared with the board event is largely taken from the Connecticut State Department of education's guidance on these issues now when I say guidance I don't mean to suggest that it's discretionary um or does it have the effective binding law because it does and if you look at the very first footnote in this document and we do have copies for you so you
030can take it it is very clear that this is an interpretation and that this is an affirmation of Connecticut's laws also of Title IX um and also in collaboration the viewpoints of our public agencies which are charged with looking into discrimination complaints the chro and then also complains with respect to students the Department of Education so this Guidance just so you know the impetus behind this guidance so this is from 2017. there is a working group now at the state level that will be reissuing a guidance we have no reason to believe that it would be much different from this though we do think it will address some very complicated questions that may come up that the 2017 guidance doesn't but I want to be clear that the impetus behind this was after Trump rescinded
031the Obama era guidance on protecting transgender students Governor Malloy directed our state agencies to come out with a document like this reaffirming that in Connecticut it has always been the loss since 2011 that we view the transgender status of our students as a protected class and that he asked those two agencies to put together this guidance Sarah's going to talk to you about what is contained in this guidance but I need to impress upon you that some of the features taken from this is this guidance is not discretionary and it is critical that we share this Guidance with our community members that we share this Guidance with our staff that we offer professional development on these issues because they need to know what the law is and they need to adhere to the law and
032so I I just I can't impress that enough that this is not something that you have this question over with respect to these issues so Sarah if you want to just talk briefly about how a child would establish gender identity in the school conference yeah for sure yeah move the side down one thank you um so I'm going to kind of talk through what that what is in that right and it's going to seem very familiar if you've read the guidelines um because it's taken from that right so you're going to hear a lot of the same things you see a lot of the same things um establishing gender identity right that's a big piece of what is in that Connecticut garden and it says that students are not required to produce specific documents that
033reflect their gender identity right you don't have to produce um paper is that they don't have to produce a specific record or a specific document in order to be treated um consistent with their gender identity or expression and regardless schools are required to address a student in a manner that's consistent with their gender identity or expression um even if there's their education record has a different sex than that right you still have to address them as an American consistent with that gender identity or expression and if they've made very clear in that Connecticut guidance that refusal to address students in a manner that's in with their gender identity we'll have serious civil rights implications on the part of the district um for all the reasons that just kind of went over right it was from
034all of that different federal and state guidance and different laws how do you go down one more so how do you show gender identity right that's another question that comes up that's another thing that just got in the guidance um there's no brightline text and they're very clear about that there's no one way to do it but they do give you kind of four things to be thinking about although it's very clear that this is not an exhaustive list um medical history right care or treatment of the gender related identity consistent and uniform assertion of that identity um and then you know any other evidence that the identity is sincerely held you heard Jessica use that phrase a lot right it sincerely held so any other evidence that it sincerely held it's part of a
035person's core identity and that they're not asserting that identity for an improper purpose right that's that's a key piece of this um so again that's not all the ways you can do it but those are the four ways that are laid out in the guidance of showing gender identity so a couple of kind of the the questions that are answered in the guidance um because just you know to be clear there's the Connecticut guidance and they also issued a companion FAQ document to basically reiterate the guidance in a different way right it has an FAQ format but some of those questions that come up are is consistent expression of a particular gender identity required to establish that gender identity and that Connecticut document is clear that you do not have to have um consistent and
036uniform assertion of a gender identity um throughout right that is one way for an individual to indicate their gender identity but it's not a requirement that an individual consistently and uniformly asserts themselves as a male or a female part of that's taking into account gender fluidity which is actually defined in the guidance and something that's talked about extensively but they're very clear that you do not have to have consistent and uniform assertion although that is one way to show gender identity or expression and then you know and just to be clear my opinion what's on your screen is um taken directly from the guidance right this is how the state department of the head is explaining these issues and so the question of do transgender students need to provide documentation I mentioned earlier if they
037don't right students are not required to produce specific documents or any documents at all that reflects their gender identity in order to have the right to be treated consistent with their gender identity um schools are expected to treat students consistent with their gender identity um regardless depending what the records show or what their um documents say or don't say right there is no requirement that they produce specific documents for that so with that kind of background right what about names pronouns gender markers some of those things right the guidance again is clear schools have to address the student in a manner that's consistent with their preferred name which could also the name um they're pronouns right whether that be he him she her whatever their Express pronouns are and their gender marker so whatever a
038student is asserting as their name their pronoun their gender markers the school has an obligation to use those when addressing students in the schools keep going down so how does the school right respond to requests to use a different name when that comes up schools should consistently refer to students by the requested name or the pronoun right regardless of whatever sex is on their records in you know in their file regardless of their birth stacks um in doing that schools have to accurately reflect the chosen name on all records going forward right if a student has said that they haven't chosen or preferred names that's what has to be reflected you don't have to have a legal name change to utilize that chosen name so again that goes back to the idea right that you
039don't have to have a specific record you don't have to have a legal name change to be using a different preferred chosen name so you can see that example there the transgender girl enters high school and asks the principal um to inform the teachers that even though um the name is John right on the record that student prefers to go by Jane and then um not only completely acceptable but you're required now under the law to refer to them as Jane yeah we often get the question whether or not Family actually has to go to the vote report to get a legal name change and it used to be that it was done that way but the guidance has been changed and so there's absolutely no legal requirement that someone would go through kind of
040the legal hoopla to change their name thing you go down so conflicts between parents and students are a big issue right and that's an issue that um there's no clear guidance from the state department of Ed from any sort of federal Agency on how to resolved um but there are some appropriate best practices right regardless the guidance is clear that the school has to continue to address the student in a manner um consistent with their gender identity right regardless of any sort of conflict so when they're in that school building they get to be addressed using their names and pronouns of their choice um where there's appropriate right the school can provide supports to assist the family and ensure the well-being of the student this is going to be very different for every student right
041this is going to be where we're going to look at each student family Dynamics what's going on in that student's personal life and how can the school best support that student and sometimes that might be a conversation of legal counsel a conversation with other people in the school building but working together to figure out what is best for that particular student um this question is I'm sure you can imagine right have garnered legislative attention across the country there's uh more than three but we have three cases here all across the country of school districts kind of grappling um with this issue and the answer is there really is no answer they're kind of all over the place in the terms of um how the courts are coming down but then also all of them are
042on appeal at this point right but we still are waiting for those kind of higher level courts to come down and give us some more guidance right because that's really where we're getting a lot as you heard from just earlier right some of the Boston case right that is from the Federal Supreme Court so we may be getting there soon with some of these issues they'll have you go down one more I'll just talk about these three cases um briefly because again they're all on appeal at this point but this one actually came from Massachusetts and this one with where a court of held School District policy allowing District Personnel to withhold information related to students gender identity from the student's parents so that is you know a a case that the court actually said
043it was apprehensive of the policy and the actions of the school and you know the parent and the students would be better served with a more thoughtful policy but nevertheless upheld that policy at the lower report level right that's on appeal we'll see what happens and what the district uh courts kind of decide with that but again that's just kind of showing how a lot of courts are coming down on some of these issues really on um with the rights of transgender students and protecting those right in addition to that the state working group that is reissuing the 2017 guidance we hope that they will elaborate more on some of these complex issues that schools are navigating I think what we would say is on balance we of course want the parent involved we of
044course want the parents to be made aware if they aren't already though in most situations that we have dealt with the parents um recognized what their child may be going through and they want to work in collaboration with the school I mean that has been nine times out of ten that has been our experience and it is a very collaborative process and we work closely with the families through support and counseling services to appropriately address the child's transition in a way that is healthy and safe for that child in the rare circumstance you might have a situation where the child says to you if you reveal this to my parents I will be placed in imminent harm and unfortunately as a mandated reporter that would mean that our school counselor time to follow to report
045something like that because if a child fears that they're going to be physically armed if they were to reveal this we have no choice but to make that call so you can see how these are very complex because then the parents will eventually know that that call was made and it will probably then become aware of this information so these are very complex issues case-by-case basis no one size fits all but of course as Educators the child is always going to be in the Forefront of our minds and of course we want to work with families to the extent that we can under the law and I do hope that that guidance that we receive in October will help school districts navigate some of these complexities better than it does now I agree and I
046actually was speaking to somebody um this morning who said that there is a working group both to update the 2017 garden and also working groups specifically to deal with these issues and when there's disagreement between students and parents and kind of how to navigate some of those more complex issues so it's coming it's just a matter of when but that will hopefully provide a lot of helpful support um to the school staff and to the school districts generally and you go down again um again just another lawsuit in Wisconsin um again where a parent is bringing a lawsuit alluded in the school district violated the parental rights by adopting policies regarding transgender students and regarding you know parental consent and in this case right the school this the court denied the school district's motion to
047dismiss the lawsuit meaning the lawsuit's still alive so the Court's gonna figure out you know where do we land on this so it's a little bit different right than the Massachusetts that said that this type of policy he was was fine and so it just goes to show how this is across the country um a huge issue right now and something that the courts are all grappling with in a different way and we'll see what this what happens with this it's not the one appeal I think we're expecting a decision and I think six-ish month is what they said that we'll see but again it's not in Connecticut it's not going to affect us directly but it will kind of start to paint the landscape of what we can expect to see with these specific
048issues um and the final one in Maryland the church court where a similar policy right that really protected transgender students Protected Their right um and protected you know their ability to um make decisions with differing levels of Parental involvement and you know the judge there found that the guidelines advancing goal of protecting student safety and privacy and siding with the board of education on that um again we'll see you know this is this guidance is similar to the Connecticut guidance that have been issued um and so it's just another core kind of reaffirming that this is you know what is the law right now so Dr Willett I think we can probably jump ahead because the Student Records I know we talked about extensively so you could just keep going um so if you could
049just go back up to the restroom and the locker room so I mean you know certainly add something to do things there but I think um you know what is clear from our state law and our federal laws and the guidance like we have said before you have to allow a student to use the restroom facility the locker room facility um with the gender that they identify with and with the gender that they are expressing um and so uh you know I don't know if there's any other questions about that I think what's important here is that you know it is clear I don't know if you're currently doing this now that you can provide access to a non-stigmatizing alternative such as a single text unisex bathroom but as we mentioned before we can't force
050anyone to use that facility even if it means that someone has a religious objection or has discomfort um as a result I don't know if there's anything else you just want to add quickly about the facilities I wanted to go off for the locker rooms too it's the same exact analysis that they asked for the restroom that you can always offer um that gender control alternative okay so you know this is just the board meeting and we're not doing questions from the public okay she says I have a question okay and so can we um Jump Ahead then so I just want to briefly so I just wondering uh board events no just to the right here so Board of Education members and you know again um this isn't the socratic methods you don't have
051to answer it but whether what you think from this um scenario we have here so we have the district and the family communicates extensively about issues such as the student's name change registration as a female access to girls restroom and locker rooms and eligibility for girls Athletics the district honor the students request in all aspects accept her request to be provided access to the girls locker rooms at a high school do we think this is discrimination based on what we've just discussed yes okay so let's go to the student versus Township so this is a case from dating back as far in 2015 before we even started to see the federal landscape shifts and start to really address these issues so this is um a direct case from the office of civil rights who reviewed
052and did an extensive investigation and they certainly saw that it was discrimination and they um opined that the district had impermissibly relied on privacy concerns of the other students and that by making privacy curtains available and still not permitting the transgender female to change in the girls locker room um that was a violation of her civil rights you know one thing that I also think is important is when we talk about liability and legal exposure there's also significant costs attached to this and so I believe that through a resolution agreement they reached a settlement in excess of a couple hundred thousand dollars so we also write your fiduciaries to your local school district we want to be conservative make sure that we are adhering to this legal advice so that we don't find ourselves um
053having to use our valuable and scarce resources to pay settlements of this nature right um so if we want to just jump ahead I don't think we need to do the other scenario but I do think it's important that Sarah just provides you with a brief update if we could skip ahead Dr Willett um I know that there has been also um a case that has generated significant buzz and attention because it is in Connecticut with respect to Athletics um and transgender student and so Sarah is just going to briefly touch upon the status of that case yes this is this dual case that'll be straight out of Connecticut and um in brief it was just gender females of high school students who ran track um brought a suit against this Dia theme which is
054the kinetic Association of Athletics right there um their policy that allow transgender emails to compete in female sports so that that was the that's the policy these female plaintiffs brought this case and it went up the circuit went up to the second circuit at one point and they were they were seeking an injunction that said that the policy violated Title IX right so we talked about that one earlier they won at the court to say that a policy allowing transgender females violated Title IX and then they requested monetary and other relief the end of the day the court found that the claim failed because they did not allege what they called a cognizable deprivation um and any claim of their law the future employment with tooth speculative and they did not have standing at that
055point right so they kind of just missed it on those grounds um nevertheless the second survey court of appeals rehearred the case just recently in June of 2023 and a decision is pending so we're still kind of waiting like with a lot of those cases I talked about earlier um but as it stands now right the that's the IEP policy has been deemed to be you know legally compliant and that kind of plays into what we have coming down the pipeline from the federal level which we'll go to the next slide um so these are the new proposed Title IX regulations um first sex related eligibility criteria and athletic teams so basically right we think of Title IX sex discrimination part of that is Athletics right the federal government is coming out with specific regulations
056related to that and what they've said is and these are the proposed right we're not exactly sure when they're coming down with final ones they could potentially change at some point but this is what they came out with at this point and these proposed regulations say that school policies cannot categorically ban transgender students from participating um on athletic team consistent with their gender identity so they're gonna you know that these regulations now will not allow school districts right to categorically ban transgender students from participating in the sport um however they do say that schools can use sex related criteria in their athletic eligibility policies when such criteria substantially relates to important educational objectives and can be implemented in a manner that minimizes harm what does that exactly mean you know we're not sure at this
057point we're waiting for more guidance from um the Department of Education but you know it this just goes again to show that all of this is being thought about and it's being thought about you know very meticulously by these agencies state and federal and they're trying to help schools kind of navigate these issues um and so when those come out will of course kind of let you know what what those are and then finally on the last slide um there's also new regulations coming out related to Title IX and sex discrimination and I just point out only one thing is that those regulations now will specifically um include discrimination on the base of the sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity so Jeff I remember she already said that that has Title IX being
058interpreted based on those court cases and so now these new regulations that are coming out are simply going to codify that they're going to put it into the law and so we're expected to come out in October of this year um so every document that we referenced including the presentation we have copies of which I can leave with Dr Willett we did put together packages for you so that you can have that information and so certainly if other questions emerge you know certainly reach out to Ashley or Dr Willett we'd be happy to address anything um I don't know Dr Willett or our board members if there's anything else that you would like us to highlight I think this was very thorough to be honest um I think it has a lot of answers to
059the questions that will be either received from the community or as board members had at this time does anyone have any other questions go ahead um I question about one of those court cases that's currently making its way through the court I think it's the first one would be Ludlow um I had two questions number one was is that in a federal district or like a state board physical state board okay but it could still eventually work its way up um and the second question was it's like what I want do you know any um thing about like why the court decided the way it did like what grounds it was just kind of curious what the argument is yeah so you know it was a little the court as you see here right it
060does it with apprehensive the policy the courts didn't go and then why um it was appealed so quickly um but they you know they said that the the state has and the school district had an interest in protecting student rights protecting transgender students right and um so you know they kind of be different almost to those policies that they the school district created to protect those rights and you know as you see here the court that although it was apprehensive perhaps of that policy and thought maybe there could be a more thoughtful way to serve the same interests nevertheless it was protecting the interests of those students okay thank you it's very thorough well I think we want you to understand look it's complex yeah and it is still an emerging area of the law
061and it's navigating a lot of complexities but I do think sometimes people are confusing the federal proposed regulations with how that into access here in the state because what's happening in Connecticut is different from what the evolving manuscript has been at a federal level so I think that has lended to some of the confusion but I'm happy to leave why don't we leave these Academies you know Tony does have um yeah do you have another question yeah because the as far as so the guidance uh that's after would put out that don't understand correctly pretty much coming from uh the recommendations stays fairly ambiguous as far as when this communication with the parents should should not occur was that intentional or yeah I mean I think it really so I don't disagree with you Tony
062and the reason why we don't have a bright line of rule is because it's going to be very specific to the facts of that case I mean as lawyers we wish there was more of a they have a black and white answer to that question because we often have to navigate that question with our superintendents with our Administration you are not the only District grappling with these issues in fact we've given this presentation in a lot of places um My Hope Is that through the proposed regulations coming down from the federal government and then through the think tank at the state level which is supposed to also issue some FAQs we will get additional guidance on this because right now it's really just again trying to balance everything that we know here while also understanding
063that parents have significant ranks too so it's really just a balancing act right now but I wish I could give you a more definitive answer because we would like you know I would like to say that it would be nice to have this presentation available for about public to see I don't know if we have that as an option to the school district somewhere just in case [Music] as mandated reporters the school would have to contact UCS if the student let them know himself as they were going to be in because of Walmart is it just physical harm or would that also well emotional harm you're right I should have often said emotional harm but I guess I was trying to impress upon the fact if the child said I can't go home whether it
064be emotional psychological or physical if you share this with my parents you're right that Richard or DCF also you're right it's not just limited physical it would be psychological and emotions and just for the public uh I'll be posting the presentation to the lgbtqia and landcroft the superintendents page just so you know where to find is there guidance for our staff to know the difference I guess so for example my one son said to my other son mom's gonna kill you if she finds out you ate her whatever so you know how how does a staff make that determination if a child says something more alarm goes like my dad's gonna kill kill me if he finds out you know you know what I'm trying to say yeah so they're significant training and you have
065to have training on DCF or refresh reports every three years and you have to have it within like the first month of your appointment I would say that if you look at the legal standard for when you call DCF you have to reasonably believe that the child could be in imminent danger whether it be emotional physical or psychological so I think if someone says ingest oh my father will kill me hahaha and just that's not going to trigger the call but I will tell you that my advice has always been to mandating reporters if you can't tell you call even if that means that DCF says I'm not taking the case I also want to protect our staff members from liability for failure to report um because we've seen over the years that a lot
066of school administrators or Educators if they fail to report can also be criminal liable even if they weren't a perpetrator and so if you can't tell I would call in an abundance of caution I feel like it would be such a tough thing for an educator because having a child then have DCF come out could be I would think very traumatic as well so there's no so we deal with this all the time where an educator will say but this is going to ruin my relationship let's say I've worked really hard with this family I have finally connected with his family if I make this call it's going to destroy all that work it took to have the credibility of this family but the problem is by not calling who knows what could potentially happen
067to that child right but also the law really does hold them accountable from a civil and criminal standpoint and so it could absolutely destroy your career if you don't make that call um I've also seen that with staff members not wanting to report on their colleagues that has been an issue as well in other places but again I have to impress upon them that you will be impacting not only the district and the child but also your own livelihood if you don't make that call again just to build upon Christine's question so as Dr Willard already stated when when these um situations come up we have a Title IX coordinator at every school and the Title Nine coordinator will be involved with that then take some of the responsibility off staying you know English teacher
068Mr Smith would he necessarily be the one calling DCF in a situation like that or would he refer to the Title IX coordinator and having to stop the obligation lies with you so if I saw the abuse that the report was abused to me now that doesn't mean I can't go to My Title IX coordinator and we called together but I am not extinguished from my responsibility by passing it off to someone else because then that person could decide well I wasn't there I didn't hear it I don't think it's worthy of the call I can still be liable because the responsibility lies with me I can't push off my responsibility to someone else and if I go to My Title IX coordinator and Title 9 coordinator says don't report it and I feel that
069I need to report it I'm going to report it and I've advised Educators to do that just building off that that's within 12 hours too right yeah it's within a certain things right now you know there is um a distinction where if you don't believe it to be an email you could report it online within 24 hours um and they have said that they're not going to hold it against you if they deemed it imminent and you didn't but the only time that I would advise the 24 hours is if it's something where you have very little facts and someone told you um that they heard something from you know 15 years ago that isn't sexually related I mean there's very few situations where I would tell you to use the online platform but it
070does come up from time to time or that's an acceptable form as well but you always want to call as soon as you have that information now lots of times DCF doesn't take the case so you know Christine to go back to your point it might be that I call I still don't know whether I should be calling but DCF doesn't take it and then the parents or the educator never know that I called and I can remain anonymous so that's also helped any other questions okay well thank you guys very much always a pleasure to see you I'll leave that information here with you um and if you have any further questions and if you want to post a presentation please feel free to do so thank you very much you already did it
071very efficient thank you okay thank you guys take care thank you let's move on to the transportation and just once again for everyone at home we put it on to what was the link it's uh if you go on the district side super antenna and then along the left side of the superintendent's page there are options one of them is lgbtq on it click on that it has a lot of documentation in it is this presentation at the top thank you all right so um I'm just trying to get this a little bit of marijuana but it's not so I'm just going to walk up and talk off this if you look inside the the Board of Education dashboard there is a link to a folder that includes these three documents uh the town Public
072School transportation contract and then exhibit a executively so the town of public school transportation contract as you know we went out to bed you know what those you know you know what the results of it were um and so we've been in negotiations transportation company to achieve the contract at this point we are very close to finishing it um it does have uh Financial uh adjustments for if uh targets are not met it has a language for us to have the uh the software for parents so that you have parent tracking or um you know for the buses as they're going through their routes uh it has it has basically everything that we were looking for with respect to um the you know the uh the services Additionally the bus and the bus fleet has
073been increased to 34. and that will help a lot with timeliness because we were that's we were short by about or by bus time for now we have enough so that we can reintegrate them into the routes and the routes will be inevitably shorter because we have more more of a bus free so that will help in that way too so parents will have a much better view where the kids are the fleet is larger there are still Provisions for um you know what we can do from a resource and financial perspective if you know things are paying targets uh there are monthly reports required that they have to do and as you know when we talked about this and we were in the budget season you know we worked with the company and were
074able to get um you know these are the right we were able to get a provision for uh you know creating a an increase each year that would benefit us from a financial budget perspective rather than getting a 13 increase in one year it's a 9.5 and 8.75 and F5 and if we continue and want to extend it for the following years after that it's five percent five percent um so what I was going to do and it's just a basic overview tonight I was providing this documentation for you obviously there's a lot here to read and so on to process it and then on the dashboard there is a link to submit your questions um you submit them you have to login sports to do that I'll get all the answers and I'll get
075the attorney's answers and I'll provide those answers to you I'd also see if she's available for the next meeting I'm not sure she would be but um but I think again any questions you have I can get the answers for them this is a very good contract even comparatively with other ones in the state some of the other districts that have been going into negotiations have ended up with much much higher percentage increases so this is a very favorable contract forums it has everything in it that we wanted and as you go through it if they can see that and with respect to other other ones out there it's it's you know um probably one of the best ones I've seen recently so we're very fortunate in that way to have the relationship that we
076have so it should solve a lot of the challenges and struggles we've had um and I think it'll be something that's important we'll uh we'll appreciate it especially as time goes on see a lot of little difference I have a question for the targets um you know they'll be one at three Lane's talking about who what and where decide what those guidelines are of how late they are or they don't show up or who is still doing that now so within this contract I mean it throughout the state you have a so interruptly you have enough but within this contract what we have is a language that says that it's defined by you know a certain number of minutes around the Stop and that I have some discussion to determine with them what reasonably that
077is so it it you know so again it would discourage the idea of you know uh normally it's around 10 minutes from 8 10 and then one day it's you know eight six to eight fifty yeah well that's still within an hour but it's 40 minutes off of what the parent would expect it to be I would have some leeway to to hold on having said that um the software now will show apparent exactly where it's a kind of an uberesque form so there might be something happening where they divert traffic exit 67 through exit 68 we've seen that happen when that happens and anything happens on this they're up there here right through the center of Thailand it greatly delays anything that has to use that road to you know cross between the areas
078of town so you know that kind of thing can sometimes happen where you're expecting the bus at 8 10 but it really doesn't get there until late 40 and sometimes it might have to do something like this but the parent would be able to see where the bus is and you know and see that it's locked up for some reason and not moving much uh on you know uh is important 195 I know on that end it's 195 I don't know what it is but anyway you can see that it's locked up on 195 and you might see the bus rerouting so it should really Empower parents from a point of view of information um the bus lead being increased to a lower than amount of time the routes take um and the accountability measures
079are within the stocking so it's it's really a good one especially considering again you know keep in mind we did a process this year and that process ended and I wanted in regard for a million so you know there are a number of options that could have occurred from this that are quite different than the one we have we have we have a good contract here with them and we have one of the lower percentages um in this you know comparatively around us that goes into my next question for the software um how do we know for the safety protocol that is it like a per bus is it going to be able or District like do you sign in and then you have like certain yeah I mean these things change fairly frequently in
080terms of updating and making them better so it's either an app or a some page but my impression is now it looks like your kid will be one of those apple I think it'll be you know I just thought my question I mean it sounds silly but I just don't want to I want to ensure that it's the parents who know where their children it's not just like an accessibility to the world and say okay here's the you know Town School Bus you know 15 year comes over here yeah so I just was wondering what kind of security like what the parents like yeah a control set that it's the parents that the kids going or something you know but once again how do we get access to have access to bus five but Cody
081bolt shouldn't have or you know for sure to that um but I assume like we've done in the past you know we've linked things to certain ID numbers you know and usually parents have those and other people don't okay um and we've done that in the past so it's probably following some more the software has its release from different companies and they do things a certain way we they you know whether we can ask for modifications in pre-existing software that does this that wasn't necessarily an RPM yeah I would just say I'm sure it's secure from their point of view because they have to ensure their whole operation their liability would be high right it would be safe for them to have that software accessible to distance information I just think about their little little
082ones and you know yes but they themselves don't want to disseminate that information is that going to be up and running for the start of the school year yeah the ability to access it as far as I know yes but we have to make sure we have to get this process done first we have to say yes to the contracted that far yeah I will read the contract but just curious have we addressed the athletic buses in the new contract because we'll have more to be able to flex we should be able to manage that better we have more in the fleet overall so we can dispatch or combine you know certain things so for the penalties uh stickers are met can you just kind of give us a 45 second Pitch about yeah it's
083a monetary penalty that we can you know apply against the coming Bill and that that would mean that anytime we see something to keep track of it and then we could you know pay a certain amount less and was that in the previous contract um it was there was language in the previous contract for that too but we did through uh we did get money okay I know there were various things where the student provided funds back to the district um and during coveted they they did actually a very good job of applying quite a bit of funding so we've had a pretty good relationship about with that um and they have areas where you know we don't follow through with certain things you know for instance I can't just arbitrarily release you know reduce
084the number of buses because they have Logistics they have to hire people they have to pay people they have to bring training on insurance so you'll notice in there that if I say I want to go from 34 to 30 then they get to charge more for the buses that remain because they have just different things they have to vote okay um just to remind everybody that this was the only thing that we've got before the buses and we will have to on the August 9th make sure that we vote on that to make sure that we do have buses for the start of school so if everyone would need the opportunity to move my crew and ask any questions by the board that would be great and you have a question yeah and maybe
085this is a formed [Music] outplacements and you know students being driven from Thailand to you know crack or whatever it may be is that included as well on those buses I mean because you don't know how many you're going to get when how and why that tends to be something that sometimes you have to add any other last questions I think we're looking good so um just make sure you get those questions what I'll try to do is as you get them in I'll try to get the answers but but by the fourth gives me a good shot of making sure just so you know the security one I'm not going to put it in there but that is the question make sure they're in there okay um let's move on to the field trip
086update so um as you know what I what I've been doing these days is just instead of um kind of doing it uh all at once I do it as it goes so we have another field trip that came up it's a Costa Rica field trip um looking at uh you know doing that April 6th through 13 2024 grade levels are 10 to 12 about 30 students who participate um board doesn't have to take any action on these either just things that come across my desk and I check and I you know get approved or denied approved this trip to go um it has various really great educational benefits there are certain Financial aspects that allow kids to go and they're struggling um so it's a good trip and they this is one of the
087World Language trips they've wanted to be doing a series of World Language strips so this is one of them and they've done others in the past and want to see more in pictures it's just giving you the update about when it comes across my desk I try to get it going on here so you can see everything going on it's fun yeah yeah is that during breaking I was like apparently there's a lot of sloths we have Sloth Sanctuary yeah I can't imagine this candy is the only one attending that the only staff member at any metric correct well usually it's a one to ten ratio but she's the she's the one who submitted yeah just out of curiosity you have the information but how much does a triplet that cost for students usually cost
088a couple thousand yeah in fact yeah it's usually it depends if you get everybody could knock some of it down you know the more people that go a little bit less that it's in the thousands per student per student like 1800 to uh I feel like I'm dating myself but I feel like my my trip to France when I went in high school was about that so it seems like a pretty good deal okay any other questions okay moving on uh let's move on to committee and liaison reports I know there was a lot of uh cancellation things going around so forgive me but you're gonna have to just let me know because go ahead couple um so earlier this month um the mental health and substance use task force met um to continue to
089discuss the recommendation to hire um either a wellness coordinator I think it's a title we're still going on um which will be funded partially through grant money that Human Services received and have his position would work to implement any of the the areas where we were short pumpings um also just a general note upon the task force um we're looking at winding down operations for the task force I think we even mentioned August potentially being the last meeting I'm not sure if that's confirmed but it's definitely winding down soberations um it's unclear right now whether it will be replaced with a permanent standing commission or if um responsibilities are going to be folded into the local prevention Council but that's kind of where the discussion is for that for the obvious one they were going
090to go to the Town Council board yes yeah yeah and I think they scheduled a regular computer as well yeah um but yes the townhouse for that recommendation um also curriculum Matt um earlier today we had a good discussion um we reviewed mastery-based learning um you just want to revisit some of those big topics from time to time so we discuss that we also were able to look at some numbers in terms of the number of outplacements that the district has had well again to differentiate special ed house placement first oh yes yes but yes the tuition so just to be clear referring to students who might go to a magnet school or some other High School outside of talent High School not not special education um but uh we were able to get some
091data that looked at this um over the past it shows five or six six years plus this out of District tuition spend that we that the district has to spend of those students and got an idea of how much we're spending per year up on that those materials are now on the dashboard every time we have a meeting anything in the committee thing it's always on the dashboard at the bottom there's Boulders so so good question how much is it um so right now I think it was highest um in 2017 that we looked at for the data anyways I don't know what yeah 18 was the highest and we're about 18 to now it's dropped about yeah uh getting us something at 230 000 debts highest so we were spending now it's um below
09227 now and it's about uh 46 and 47 now to 36 yeah in terms of number of students um so definitely a good resource to have especially when budget season comes around and we have conversations about cost avoidance um this I think should serve as useful reference material um today recovered policy 5081 which is bullying prevention and intervention discuss that a little bit most of it is updates and changes to align itself with curve regulations that one has been approved out of committee in this in the queue for leadership to take a look at we discussed uh 5700 as it's right now being titled which would be the lgbtqia bus civil rights policy we took a look at the initial draft and some questions and really good conversation uh wanted to wait and listen to
093what that I brought and do a little more reflection we're anticipating the next meeting will be the last meeting where we make some minor changes and then that it's pretty easy to bump out of committee at that point absolutely when Jessica was talking about the state coming down with new guidelines in October because it makes sense not that I know we don't want to hold off anymore but does it make sense to see what if the state changes anything or but along the same notes as the guidance uh I think it's important that we get the best that we have as right now if the state comes down and has any sort of changes policy committee can can pull it back in and do the selections but I think we want to get this out
094but we do think and everybody on the committee I think was was fairly committed that one more meeting should be all it hits and then we'll be ready to pop that up for the borders are open we also then covered policy 4142 which is retention of electronic records and information uh the policy was about 13 years old and so it had to be updated with things such as uh see Twitter and Snapchat and various other software that I had this like into that but uh it essentially our new policy will reflect what we couldn't have put out after that so that one also popped out a comedians will be awaiting a few communication meeting but I did want to thank Dr Willett for finalizing the um the letter the legislature um I think it's two
095board members who signed in um and then we are currently in teaching negotiation this question I think a lot of specifics but is there like an ETA about when I might be ready for the board to vote on teacher emotions it is a step it is a step story time so we have to be um if we don't get it resolved we go into mediation automatically uh in September and we're in arbitration automatically again well that's not that part the para one um we should be getting that probably pretty soon almost they ratified that yeah okay thank you okay um no report um board action so at this time um we will open up public participation and the rules still open um it's the same if you put these Lister name your address for the
096record um this public participation needs to just be with um items that we discussed today during our meeting so if you are online you can raise your hand if you're in the room you can raise your hand and then I will have you come up um Dr will with the two minute timer up and we'll go over there so we'll come up just give us another minute to cancel your situated okay all right okay he's ready so name and address please case today Lewis 63 Tomlin green um I have a question I don't know if you'll be able to answer this but if not maybe you could bring it back to uh shipment it was about the policy and the regulation regarding transgender students use of bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender
097identity their preferred gender identity and this is um this question comes from uh the knowledge that um you know being kids going through a transition some transgender students might not choose to go and use the bathroom of their chosen gender right away or ever it's a decision that is um holds a lot of anxiety and um concern because of those other peer reactions um and bullying and just corporate level so I wanted to ask whether or not there's any guidelines um in you know that about okay so a transgender student identifies as male but chooses to still continue to use the female bathroom whether it's um you know that or the opposite um whether or not um there's any guidelines to that nature I know that a lot of gyms in Connecticut they say that
098the um uh participants can use the bathroom there of their comfort level so that's kind of um what the question entails will that be something that the school adopts or considers as the Comfort level of the students whether or not they want to use the bathroom of their sex designed at Birth for their gender identity anyone else I'm going to go online if somebody would like to go online and go back to the room if there's anyone else if you want to raise your hand please do so now please anyone in the room no okay um I will close out the second public participation seeing no hands okay uh points of information so at this time if any board member would like to respond or have anything else to say please do so now or
099if you Dr Willett want to say anything to I want to exclude you yeah okay okay so at this time um we will have we will be entering into the executive session once we do a vote for the purpose of the superintendent's evaluation um so I will entertain a motion to go into the executive sector for the purpose of the superintendent's evaluation inviting Dr Willett [Music] executive session for the purpose of the evaluation at 8 30 sitting at 9 17 um I would like to entertain the most important I moved to adjourn in 19 second 30 seconds all in any discussion no okay all in favor and say hi everybody thoughts all in favor we will end at 9 18. you know