001we have a pretty long agenda tonight so hopefully we can get through it efficiently but before we start I'd like to read a statement on behalf of Court of Education on specific action in our continuous fight for racial and social justice the killing of George for Floyd and the subsequent events across the nation over the last few weeks communities of color around the country are in pain and there are people in our own community or also in pain and struggling as they face racism in the long battle against racial inequality we as a community need to be active participants in fighting for racial justice as a Board of Education we are committed to Assistant in building a community-wide strategy with families students town officials administration staff and other citizens to fight racial and social injustice
002of all forms and protect every member of our community over the last few weeks we have heard from the community at the schools we will work with the administration on three initial pass the first path is curriculum we will re-examine the Western public school curriculum to increase racial literacy learning related to black culture history and race in addition to ensuring that our correct curriculum is delivered through the lens of diversity equity and inclusion in addition along alongside the fight for racial justice will lift up communities of color for their enormous accomplishments and contributions to art science music and more number two is staff diversity will continue to proactively recruit and hire more diverse teaching staff that we can bring authentic forces to our community and our students and number three is policies we're reviewing strengthen
003our policies and respond and response protocol regarding incidents of racist racism in our campus we're working with the administration to create a task force inviting students and members of the community to participate in making their passionate voices heard and building appropriate solutions to combat racism and all forms of social injustice and build bridges so that every member of our student body feels included and valued these important school-wide initiatives are one piece or only one piece of the puzzle we urge families and community members who play an even and more important role in the moral and ethical development of our towns and nation's youth to join in that effort together we can ensure that we are producing responsible respectful and inclusive inclusive global citizens there's much more to come we have a agenda item that's related
004later to discuss it further and we're working with the administration to work on the specifics of a taskforce like I said there's more to come so bill I'm gonna leave that with you now and to move to the other parts of the agenda at this point thank you Tony thank you board for a very clear passionate and vital and necessary statement for the agenda we have recognition as we annually do at this point we want to recognize the leadership of the PTO many members of the board are active on the PTO had been on the PTO and we all know how central of that organization is to all of our teachers all of our students so what we do at this point is we thank the for current PTO presidents Nicole Coppens mica stromwell Tammi
005Roberts and on Troxel who this year have been serving as the presidents of pearl but with the middle school in high school respectively in addition to all that they do at the building level with teachers and families and students they also come together monthly with me on a district-wide basis to provide guidance and input and insights to administration individually they're working with the principals and assistant principals in each of their respective buildings to help guide what I call the sharing of their time and talent and yes treasure but also their time and talent which is so vital to all of our students so I hope you all will join me in thanking them for their incredible leadership and support next year we'll be joined by two new PTO presidents and that Sharon Murphy and Janet
006Hoffman so I look forward to an ongoing very close relationship with the PTO thank you bill so first let's have a motion move that the Western Board of Education recognized the 2019 2020 Parent Teacher Organization president's second second well before we vote I want to express my thanks to the the PTO presidents for all they do on behalf of the students and if any of the other board members would like to say something please welcome at this point before we vote I'll just say thank you the amount of support that the PTO is provide to all four of our schools with amazing enrichment for our students special recognitions and honors for our staff just great partners and everything that we do here in the district and it really you know it all starts with the
007people who volunteer to take on the role it's president to keep all of that running for a year so thank you yes it's not an easy job we know that you four in particular work so hard so thank you for all of us for from all of us for all that you do for our schools so um let's vote all in favor aye aye Melissa I Jenna hi Hillary hi Victor Ruby oh I'm sorry I was the first one hi Ruby oh sorry I Tony well all opposed motion passes thank you again for all you do bill next one and related to that as I mentioned we are very thankful to the PTO every year and we just celebrated the time and talent of the presidents and the incoming presidents but part of what the
008PTO is the sharing of treasure that is the going out to secure financial resources from parents typically to benefit programs and initiatives in each of the four schools that often are very for very critical immediate needs we also have a partner in the West and Education Foundation and I often sort of in philanthropic terms talk about the PTO is the United Way for our schools it's very immediate very definite very critical the Western Education Foundation is more of that longer term but some of the gifts that each of the PTO is given is also long term you have in the public record in front of you for this item for attachments one is listing the high schools philanthropy this year they are they've totaled out for us at a little over $26,000 a significant sum
009of money and you can see the range of items that they've supported everything from an upgrade to the TV studio sports broadcasting that's clearly a long-term investment through principal discretionary funds professional development funds youth mental first aid training trout equipment update 3d printer and a variety of things that are seen as essential to the high school also attached is a letter to you from Tammy Roberts president of Western middle school listing the range of donations they've provided this year three thousand four principal discretionary funds to be used by the team leader the principle monies for digital cameras the printmaking cart equipment for recess we still know for our middle schoolers how important recess is so that that's valuable to have that addition an author visit and subscription news newsela which is helping the middle school
010advance its digital work you also have attached a letter from Monica stromwell listing out the donations this year for Western Intermediate School and you can see in that letter a range of the things supported this is a principals discretionary fund teacher's discretionary fund cafetorium supplies student lunch tables sensory tools for classrooms an author visit from dan Guttman always a crowd favorite but thank you PTO for that endangered animal species virtual visits you can see the range of benefits curriculum enrichment support for facilities that is being provided there your next attachment is for the robot elementary school a letter from Nicole cope Anne's listing the range of gifts there and again it covers the same critical mixture of events principal development funds responsive classroom training educational consultants for teachers than the one book program excuse me
011one school one book program that's so essential to what happens at robot and then other items in terms of a spot of kindness books other other supports so those are the four schools flats listed here the specific recognition of their donations can we have a motion please move that the Western Board of Education recognize the Western public schools 2019 2020 Parent Teacher organizations funded initiatives you have a second second thank you before we vote again thank you for all you do this is further evidence of all your hard work and all you do for our students and and we have a a vote all in favor hi Ruby hi Melissa I Jenna hi Hilary hi Victor I Tony all opposed motion passes thank you again to the entire PTO yeah before we move on to
012our next agenda item I've had this question for a few years now the PTO is our wonderful partners and give us great support but so do several other organizations within the school particularly boosters gridiron company I think it would be nice if we recognize the contributions to those schools as well I mean to those organizations as well absolutely I mean there I mean it may be something but those were particular ones that come to mind yeah I think we have a very generous community who contribute to the schools in so many ways and so you know that's that there is absolutely no reason why we can't have a recognition for all of those organizations thank you you are mute it's back with you Tony approval minutes I'm okay with the minutes and we have a
013motion Hey okay yeah just one thing when I was reviewing the minutes um June 8th meeting the motion has that we approved the budget reductions we approved all but the Spanish the Common Core reflects that but the mo specifically said that we adopted as presented with the exception of the key to Spanish pause and the motion as written in the minutes doesn't reflect that yeah we basically adopted the the entire budget number with the specific items than to be to be approved that subsidy at a subsequent meeting right yeah capital the capital number and the operating budget with details on the specific line items to be adjusted at a later meeting yeah and the motion as it's written in the minutes doesn't reflect that okay so we should we actually should change you know modify
014them the minutes of the meeting right the reflect yes yes could modify the minutes of the meeting to reflect that we actually voted on the amount of operating budget and capital budget with the specific adjustments to reach that final number to be discussed and voted on at this meeting I'm good with that okay have a second second Ruby all in favor hi Melissa hi Ruby hi Gina hi Hilary hi Victor hi Tony hey motion passes Oh public comment we typically had the student reps at this point but Meredith is there anything in the public comment we have one public comment that I will read okay this is from Kristina Esslinger from 59 Ledgewood Drive east and the topic is fall reopen it reads first off I would like to recognize that Western public schools will
015work within the guidelines of the state of Connecticut on fall reopening I'm interested in hearing principal will X comments later in the meeting this evening as I know they have already given this great thought I know this is all incredibly complicated on so many levels a few considerate considerations related to the high school one it is a fact that teams have begun to socialize more as I pondered that I thought that in two-and-a-half months they could perhaps be exposed and recover well before school starts to Youth Sports is opening up the end of June furthering their exposure and perhaps recovery even if no symptoms fall sports are expected to resume in some capacity as well 317 plus percent of Weston High School students are athletes please keep in mind the end of the digital learning
016or hybrid options will impact working parents we need to drive their athletes to practice after school hours freshmen sophomores some juniors and seniors could another option for the high school be that it opens as normal and classes are live streamed for those students or families who are not comfortable returning to school in the fall I realize that option presents its own challenges as well just sharing another consideration and I will include it in my survey as well and that is all that we have the word public comment all right thank you let's move to a new business yeah the first item under new business is a fall 2020 update while list that is verbal this item in the public record in your material does include several attachments and you can look at those I will
017you know refer to those as we move along here Sara Ellis came out of a very full and busy taskforce meeting today and after I've done my verbal piece by the way Lisa will AK will give some preliminary thoughts from the high school and I will say a little more about that just before Lisa starts but we do have a full and active task force they're going to continue meeting over the summer every other week they've been meeting weekly until now as the board knows that's an advisory body to divisor e to the superintendent the Board of Education on considerations for fall 2020 opening as I've been sharing with the community regularly this is a situation where there are authorities well above the superintendent well what well above the Board of Education that will substantially
018determine what we're able to do by way of fall 2020 opening it bears repeating as obvious is that is that we are went out because of a public health crisis and it will be decisions around that public health crisis that determine in what way we can come back as I had shared some with the task force earlier today actually Weston is I think right now better organized and better positioned to consider options for the fall we're actively working on a couple major passes I've been explaining to the community let me step to the side here for a second and stress that all of us working within the Western schools in our heart of hearts and our all in our minds we want to be back as normal in the fall the magic of Education Weston
019is in person the magic of what we do so well on this district is in person having said that we have to deal with the realities again within a public health crisis right now first update for you is that the regional superintendents are thirsting for guidance from the state it's understandable right now why the state is not providing a lot of guidance at this point so we have shifted at the regional superintendents into meeting weekly that's going to start this week and we're trying to make sure every week not just by email but through zoom meetings we're conferring with each other as to our district plans to see where we can coordinate where we can collaborate and in part that's because while for a while it appeared there might be mandates from the state dictating
020the particular approach that may that may be shifting a bit now to be more each district on its own as long as that's done in coordination with the local health authorities now again that may shift but that leads us here in the southern Fairfield County region to say that district to district Lee's in this area we need to be in close coordination in part just by example if we were to have a very different schedule than some of our sister districts that might affect the ability of our teachers to teach our staff to come to work if they as family people are on different schedules we also might better find some efficiencies and how we operate but that weekly coming together is going to be critical I just let me give you one example we
021have to pay very close attention when we open to a set of state requirements around graduation requirements around the number of days we're in session 180 as you know the number of instructional hours whether teachers can operate outside of their certified areas all which could affect our ability to open so these are things we as superintendents are looking at together to try and handle another document that I shared with you on Friday is part of the governor's reopening task force which very much exists the the state affiliate for the ACA and the state affiliate for the American Federation and teachers put out a position statement I've shared it with the board is now in the public record here it's a public document over the weekend of pregnant president of the WTA thanked me for sharing
022that it's a critical document for all of us to look at and understand because the representatives for teachers statewide you have a strong perspective on when and how to be safe to return students to school and staff to school there's a lot in this document it's a very rich position statement very robust I would urge us all to focus on their insistence the teachers that we follow the CDC guidelines as to when it is appropriate how it is appropriate to come back to school I think any parent would agree with that insistence but that's just one example of we have to pay attention to you also see in this document the teacher unions concern about the emphasis on distance learning as opposed to in-person instruction they're realist they understand the health realities here but they're
023asking us to be very cautious about the amount of distance learning but that document is there for you as a board and the community since it's now in the public posted record for us to look at in late May we received from the state the rules for operating summer schools it was dated May 20th it was preliminary but this is the rules that are getting used across the state if in in-person summer school is being operated that has now been posted for you as a board as well as the community and that's a critical document for the following reason it's our first indication of what we will likely be required to do to abide by the CDC standards and others if we're going to open a particular example there is the 1 to 10 ratio
024that learning spaces classrooms cannot have a ratio larger of larger than one teacher or one adult to 10 students and that's there are a variety of other indicators of what we have to do to open safely masks for all students numbers of students on buses bus monitors the level of clay required the amount of times you have to clean in the buildings that's all in this document and while we do not have any clear direction yet from the state well that's for the summer school it is a pretty strong indication about what's likely to follow that 1 to 10 is critical today I met with the four principles they're all going to share a little bit some things with you most notably Risa wall AK and we're trying to get a foothold never before in
025their careers my career and we finish school and that very next day said we have no idea what the opening will be this fall but having said that we are planning in Weston we are moving ahead and West and even without the guidance from the state and so what the principal is agreed to do today and the high school is a bit out front on this which was excellent shortly least it's going to share some ideas with you is to build out from that 1 to 10 ratio there's fundamentally if we're open and under CDC guideline we have to have groupings of students no larger than 10 it may have to be smaller than that for reasons I can explain but no larger than 10 so over the next two weeks between now and the
026end of June basically by June 30th the principals are going to map out preliminary ideas and how we would organize the return of students to school from an educational standpoint with that 1 to 10 ratio and it may be a mixture of approaches that maybe some of what Lisa's share with you that early thinking at the high school but blended then with what makes sense at the middle school whisk and hurl butter but they're gonna kind of get their first foothold on this rock face with no apparent footholds their first foothold and you'll make this ascent is like 1 to 10 ratio and then quickly think about which different models work for us in West and relative to that I mean it could be splitting by grey it could be alternating weeks it could be
027alternating days but we need to build up from that 1 to 10 ratio Lisa now is going to give you some early thinking from the high school as to their ideas on how to maximize teaching and learning in the fall and they've been very rigorous very thorough but it's still very preliminary after that the principles they're gonna be back to you and I think they're gonna be bored you're gonna need to have some special meetings this summer you're gonna really need to I know you want to and it may be at times Oh often is every couple weeks and maybe the task force is next meeting in two weeks their advisory you're the decision makers I think you meeting and close proximity to that task force is very very important in two weeks the four
028principals will present to the task force I'm repeating myself intentionally they are gonna present to the task force on these plenary ideas about how we're organizing teaching and learning to in the least achieve that 1 to 10 ratio issue what it means in terms of dispersion of students deployment of staff etc today Lisa will give you an early sense of that the three principals can just lend their general support to their commitment to working on these issues but you will hear from all four in two weeks if we can schedule a special meeting around them if that if that makes sense so at least why you proceed have you get through your session your section excuse me and then it may make sense to have several comments from the principal so we're also online and
029then we can open up for discussion with the board if that makes sense to the board okay thank you bill um so we began several weeks ago it's been weighing heavily on our minds getting feedback from students we had some focus groups getting feedback from faculty working with the sills and the administrative team to talk through some things that what was really great about distance learning and it's you know the the pros of it and if we went to one of these hybrid models that dr. McCarthy shared with the task force how would it have a big impact to the mission of the face school and and how the high school and you know how effective with it so our challenge is that we want to obviously provide really high quality instruction rigorous learning we
030have to take consideration graduation credits requirements so we're you know in the local schools they might be able to to look a little bit differently at some of the specialists we kept because their credits for graduation that students have to you know how to fulfill and so in balancing the credits in balancing the amount of content and concepts Leslie we will get the different class of you logical AP classes how would we manage all this there was some really glaring components with doing things like a hybrid 50/50 applicant will not because out because unlike Philippa cool though I feel like there's an echo is this a bad connection and you they I mean we can I can hear you okay maybe it's just on my end but just came out and everyone mute yeah I
031think that would help if everyone was on mute Thanks so for example you know we said well we'll put that will bring half the kids in and half the kids will stay home it doesn't work that way at the high school because we believe in placing students where they need to go and so if you have as you go through the grade levels there are more and more mixed grade level classes so I can't guarantee on a particular day that the school will fall perfectly with ten students in a class with the teacher because you know you said oh whoa we'll divide it by grade it doesn't work by grade if you're in ninth grade okay and that's probably the purest grade you would have a choice between two English's honors or at standard a
032choice between two Sciences honors or standard and a choice between social studies those three pretty much are the least you know you have very um one or two classes that's it to choose from but when you're in math forget it you have students coming up in algebra geometry accelerated algebra geometry algebra two algebra two honors all of those classes could be a ninth waiter could be in those classes we could never figure out well come in half of and well this class isn't splitting right because we wanted to do it by alphabet a through K let's hope it works out in this class then they go to the next class and it's all mixed up it would virtually be impossible and we would spend frankly all of our time working worrying about operations and not
033worrying about teaching and learning and I think that Liz Davies said it best who is on the task force she's an English teacher veteran teacher been there a long time and she said I would rather put my energy into really doing the distance learning well maybe tweaking our schedule that we have you know improving it than to be focusing on which group do I have in front of me um if you if you split and you're doing every other day model you cannot hope to cover the same material the same content because it's not really distance learning it's you're on your own because I'm working with the other half of the school the other half of the class on those particular days so so it has an adverse effect it's not you know it sounds
034like oh well they could keep doing distance learning it's not the teacher would give them work and wouldn't be available to answer questions or work with them because they're with the other group so that's problematic all of these things are problematic that being said there are other considerations for example what do we do about the students where it's been really difficult for distance learning students that need daily strategies classes students that need you know to be able to access instruments and labs and different things like that students that are regular ed students that also get support classes in our Center for academic support announcement Writing Center meetings with counselors some of that you can do virtually but the reality is is that teenagers want to be with people they want to be with their peers
035so how can we find some kind of a balance and still keep the momentum of you know the academics that we need to as well as the social emotional needs so what we are considering actually another little group tomorrow that's going to be brainstorming ideas about you know do we do an 80/20 model where where we look at 80% distance learning and then we look at certain days or times where we can bring in students that need that kind of support or students that quite frankly wouldn't choose to have that kind of support they would choose to access the math lab or the Writing Center or to come in and work with the college counselor not necessarily you know via zoom platforms that kind of thing so we know that the the distance learning academically
036is the strongest as far as getting through on the content we did have some bumps in the road you know as I said both the students and the teachers you were both teaching and learning while simultaneously figuring out how to do it in a eSchool environment so some of the feedback from the students for example the focus groups was you know the beginning of this the teachers gave a lot of busy work then the balance got better as the teachers got better well the beginning it was kind of a struggle but now you know we can do small groups and because the teacher has developed those skills so I think that you know towards the end it was they were really getting very good at it and in looking at if we can't bring everybody
037in we have to have a component of distance learning for everybody to keep everything moving forward and at the same time figuring out this social-emotional piece and also just the co-curricular the CIC did produce a handbook about parameters and things around fall sports when if our one of our benefits is is that Mark Berkowitz is on the CAD board of control he's always um you know the cutting edge of what's going on at SIA IAC he was just actually named along with the athletic director in Barlow they're taking over the WC which I didn't know until just the other day that the gentleman retired will work on how how can we do on the theater and the clubs how can we do that but it's a challenge and these these hybrid models are something that
038I fear we would spend all of our time in operations we've already done preliminary looks at classes to see if we brought in the ninth grade what would that look like the 9th and 10th you know things in world language math or the electives the other half of the school is still in that class and they would need access to it so it's a very very complicated issue and I think I'm probably rambling at this point so I'm going to stop and see if anyone has any specific questions like I said nothing is written in stone I am and very aware of Chris Donna was talking about sports and 70 percent of our students are athletes I also want to point out that that's athletes that are in season so you know it's 70 percent
039over the year some people are not to be seasoned athletes um so we have to look specifically right now at the fall and the fall sports and the idea of you know when the practices are and things like that it was a concern to raise we'd have to look at all of that I'm generally speaking then we'd have to figure out a way to have them you know the practices after school as much as we could right after school or earlier in the in the afternoon there's got it there's going to be a give-and-take with with some of these things and we just don't really I don't want to sacrifice the academics and I don't want to sacrifice some kind of co-curricular program for the students because it won't go well if we do tell
040me if I may I'll be very brief I just want to put this in context as task force members know last week Lisa presented as the task force it was very powerful meeting because there we are with all the doubts the worries the lack of clarity and Lisa walks in very thoughtfully with her teachers who are part of the task force many more teachers involve sills and say we have a potential possible meander skies that underscore that approach and my view is that's an advisory by to you the decision makers I don't want you out of sync too much without hearing this is not for a vote tonight's just for you to hear some of these ideas and if you had a chance to look at the CEA document you can see Wesson potentially tacking
041to a different place if part of what we're hearing from the governor now is a strong desire to get students back in school even if in a hybrid way you can see Weston saying if you care about high quality instruction we may have to see if we can tack a different direction very thoughtful parent point tonight so we just want you to begin to hear these types of big issues we're grappling with and again in two weeks the four principles together will come forward with not the plan but more ideas on what this all could begin to look like across all four schools yep this is Tony winner you know I I think that one of the breakthroughs if you will of the task force has been for that one size doesn't fit all each
042school is going to have very particular needs and the principal's are working hard to make sure that whatever solution we have really is appropriate for the needs of that school I think that as long as we start thinking of this as kind of broadly speaking one size is going to fit the entire district we're never going to make that progress but as soon as we started thinking about specific building specific and and and and focusing on the needs of that building all of a sudden it you know the lightbulb goes off and each of the principals are kind of saying yeah this is a struggle but this is kind of for my school what we think is best for those students and so I think that what's going to ultimately be the cases we're all
043going to go we don't really know where this is going to end because we don't really know what the state is going to do but one of the things that I find that has been really great about the task for is the fact that now each of the principles are kind of saying okay how is this going to work for my school and and what is the solution that is going to be best for the particular student needs that I have to deal with here with with the staff I think that's going to be the key to finding this does the solution that works for us yeah like me one second lease I I agree as I think you know and the task force knows that still has to get done in coordination of course
044it's got a double e's have kids in multiple schools we have the busing system etc etc but so the so it will be if you will if we can get to the right approach it's a system of schools as opposed to a school system on this and the other thing I want the reason I want this out with you now in the community is this is very preliminary or right there you flagged a decision rule Tony it decision rules we need to be willing to have variability amongst our four schools if it's a system of schools there could be some districts where they say uh-huh everyone's got to be exactly the same if we can get there so that's why I want you as tight as this timeline is to be hearing these early ideas
045so you can react give some feedback it's not a vote tonight but just you're hearing it in the communities hearing one thing I wanted to just add is is that I agree it's a system of schools I'm very fortunate in that I have the older students from the point of view that most of them don't need childcare although we do check in quite often when they're at home during distance learning um however if we can take the best of what the schools bring to our students then other opportunities it can help for example if our school the high school is not occupied for the five days then if little kids who are being brought in and they needed to spread them out they could spread them out because there's the space and then you know
046and Patty and Laura talk about the importance of students little student little kids being able to move and be with their friends and and all of that so hopefully with all of this you know all of these challenge will challenges will serve to develop some kind of a system that really that the district shines by working so closely together and figuring out how can we provide the best at each grade level questions from other board members okay yeah thank you you know being being part of the task force with the Board of Ed leadership team I just have to tell you firsthand how everyone is digging in and while it's a complex set of issues a moving target and still a lot of unknowns it I'm I'm really hopeful just given the the people in
047this task force the staff the principals who are really digging into this that you know over the course of the next couple of months where we're going to get to somewhere where I think out of what could be a real adjustable nightmare I think will come out of this you know just given how everyone's working on it will be a good set of proposals in terms of how we're going to operate the schools in the fall Tony the other three principals I don't know if they just want to share anything quickly that we know it's a long night but they are here if they want to share anything or not it's up to you as a board if they want to quickly not their plans but just sort of affirming where we're headed I don't
048patty if you want to start or sure you know it's I think Lisa said a lot of it I mean it's it's trying to find that balance that really being able to bring our students that rigorous quality curriculum but really recognizing that emotional social component that's so vital for the success of our kids they really need to be able to make those connections and and have those relationships with with the teachers and with each other and trying to figure out how we do it in the safest way so where we're working on it we've come up with a couple of plans and now we're just trying to figure out what makes the most sense so that's where we are Daniel or if you want to hang not not necessary but if you're out there yes
049can you hear me okay yes yes floor yeah it's Laura my Google meat is not working well so I just wanted to make sure you can hear me I'll just echo echo what Lisa and Patty have said you know particularly at the youngest level our students are not independent learners yet while we develop independence while they're with us they certainly cannot learn on their own at home so you know looking at some models that get them into school at least some of the time is really important to us we do know that you know the distance learning puts a tremendous burden on the families at home to support the youngest learners you know the interactions are just not the same online although I think we've made a lot of strides and we have some you
050know creative ideas moving forward about how to make the learning more interactive and more engaging for the youngest students but it you know there's nothing like being in person for our age students so you know we're looking at a lot of possibilities and you know they're it's very complex as everyone has said so we've been thinking about this since we've all been doing distance learning you know how we would bring everybody back fighters jump in I just want to echo everything that has been said we love nothing more than to have her back in person for the whole time it's be good but obviously we don't know what Paul's gonna bring so we're planning multiple options if we have to go distance Lori we're going to take the lessons that we've learned strengthen it make
051sure that we have more five segments of time several lessons we learnt about that the delivery of the lesson yeah the assessment how we evaluate everything in a large time focusing on the hybrid we trace more questions that were digging into at this point that we have answers work but obviously the principle to be talking you talked about how much space do to do how much data we need to abide by the 1 to 10 ratio and we're we're digging deeply into this and we'll continue to and we look forward to coming back in two weeks with more fleshed out life great ok thank you thank you Dan and Laura bill I think we're now moving to the distance learning update Ken are you there to provide a little bit on that please yes this
052is Ken can you hear me yes great ok so a lot has been said already regarding reopening and distance learning I think what what I can add you know given that we have a lengthy agenda is that you know from the district level I'm coordinating with the principal's over these next couple of weeks you know to you know look at these issues of the 10 to 1 ratio the amount of space you know how we best deliver instruction with the available staff that we have so we're digging in on that and you know coordinating district-wide we will also as part of that analysis and planning looking forward to having the feedback from the community on a survey that is about to go out tomorrow this is from the task force task force created a parent
053survey to help inform us as we're looking at you know specific areas related to the reopening as well as how distance learning went these past three months and how we can build upon it as it's part of potentially hybrid or full-on distance learning models so that is going out tomorrow so we do ask families to complete that survey by the following Monday for each child that they have in the West in school so that we can also break down the the data by school that's that's really important to us and you know it's it survey should take less than than 10 minutes each time it's taken so we do hope that we get a strong response because that will certainly help us in the process and the task force along with the principal's we'll all
054be able to look at that and use it proactively so you know I figure out keep that short since a lot has already been said but that's my update and certainly any questions from a district standpoint I we can address those now as well but this is Victor is the just really prepared of the household it's actually her child Victor so we'll send it we'll send it to the to each parent and what we would like to see is the survey completed multiple times if there are multiple children in the household and that that would really eight us because I think it's difficult as we talked about in our task force you know for a parent who has you know three children multiple buildings to then try to collate that into an overall response so
055we've made it simpler on the fact that you know complete the survey for where you know your your child is that individual child and then complete the survey again for for another child thank you um I have a question that's mostly related to technology maybe this is a freshen for Craig or or dan when he joins but you know technology enabled education is kind of here to here to stay so whatever you know they have we learned anything about our technology platform and and what you need to do to either the fact is are we are we fine or is there things that we need to do to actually improve it given our experience over the last couple of months with with distance learning I'm not really quite sure where this question is directed at
056but yeah so Craig and I can contact team Craig pure on the call you know from an instructional standpoint you know we're we're learning you know that that you know we can infuse many different kinds of strategies into existing instruction when we get back to face-to-face learning but it does you know it does require that we use some additional tools so we found that there are several tools out there that help our teachers for example facilitate flipped classroom learning creating videos and things like that that that will help us going forward from an infrastructure standpoint I mean Craig can can speak to that and any other thoughts you know that he has regarding digital learning Craig so far our infrastructure isn't leveraged during the bulk of digital learning because obviously the teachers are at home
057the students are at home you may recall that last year we made a decision to take the vast majority of our data and move it to third-party services so all of our primary systems that we use inclusive including power school and so forth are hosted with the companies that provide them so our in-house facilities do not handle our primary our primary servers any longer that's also part of the contract that we have with Novus eyes maintaining our infrastructure so from technology infrastructure perspective there wouldn't be many recommendations in terms of improvements or enhancements there's always things that can be done and there are things that I'm in conversation with Jonathan about and speaking dan about so he's aware of you know for example the we we have a fiber network that that has been out
058of contract for about ten years so at some point the town needs to look into doing that so there are always going to be things within the infrastructure to look at but nothing specific to the ideas of just digital learning and I would say that you know as Ken said in terms of instruction the the teachers showed a real resolved in the ability to turn on a dime take these tools and and do it what they did we have a huge number of tools that have really been fine-tuned and perfected over the past few months into being good supports for instruction so what I would think moving forward you'll see coming once Dan is on board is is the partnership between technology and instruction causing an increase in need for software licenses and the ability
059to continue to support the tools that are the teachers are using now that formerly these companies have given to us for free which that has a finite life expectancy to it so we've had a number of very generous companies providing licenses to us for free through June 30th most of those companies have extended them in through August 30th now but if those tools become the tools that Weston chooses to use as part of their teachers technology toolkit then then those will be things that will need to be purchased so that would be especially given the budget reductions of this year we one of the areas that probably focus on conversation in the future what's the what's the forum or the timeline if there are any new applications that we want to bring the district just
060so that the teachers and staff have enough time to familiarize themselves with it and I'm just gonna I know I've heard a lot of feedback on the additional capabilities that Zoo offers especially creating smaller classrooms within a classroom versus google meets so when and where will those conversations be happening I would defer to Ken because they likely would it they won't be happening while I'm still here oh geez that my videos not working currently I probably have to reboot my computer here I've got challenged with that but you know some of these decisions are financial decisions given the cost so you know we do know that that zoom is something that our teachers are you know looking to have and that it's valuable as you said for small groups but there's considerable cost I think
061just over twenty thousand dollars for that particular tool so the bill and Phil you know and we have a pretty good handle on the things that our teachers are looking to continue we just we did a we did a teacher survey and we have a good handle on that well what's taking a look on the neutral side on how could we deal with cost yeah if I may Tony it's a good question and I think is Ken's working on the distance learning course with the principles it is listing in the IT and ET area where might we come up short you may remember we did we pulled back in the budget or refurbishing right this if we're substantially out next year either not at the beginning or later we're need to think about that because
062those are devices in the hands of our teachers and that and they're they're out there without that critical tool so that's an item clear the zoom piece is definite and in my super moment I'm going to bring up at the end of the meeting whether we change your platform to zoom to align with the rest of the town but there are costs not with that but what we may you know but that would all be on the list and we'd have to be listing those things pretty soon so you as a board to grapple with that and those are in those costs either you as a board and you know or another source has to think about is we you know going to next year but we're looking at it and tracking and listing it
063hey thank you hey Bill where do we go to next we are into the item take yeah and I don't know if you want to take the lead here you'd like to hear a few things from us I know Ken can give you some information regarding the curriculum piece we can also do a quick verbal on what we have been doing in terms of our recruitment and identification of the first faculty and staff but it's really what you as a board want to talk about here this yeah I would open up other board members but I think that you know from my perspective I think that here reading the framework for up and sorry and you're on okay there you go so you know from you know speaking to the other board members I think
064that sort of figuring out how we create a framework for really diving into those three themes that we said we spoke about during the opening statement which is which is looking at curriculum and and how we actually you know how our curriculum evolves in terms of introducing racial issues in a developmentally appropriate way Kate as well looking at staff diversity and openly and then the third item is really looking at our our policies and and you know I know there's a tremendous amount of work that goes on in each one of those areas and then the question is how do we actually kind of raise it to sort of how do we kind of create a framework and a task force that we that that kind of looks at this again from a number of
065different perspectives and and maybe comes up with a few recommendations to think about after getting input from a broader set of constituents so I don't know where you want to go with this conversation board or or or bill or the principal's or anyone else online but but from my perspective I think that I'd like to have a more methodical approach where we actually look at those themes look at where some of those gaps might be and be very specific about actions we might take to do to do better I mean I would like to hear from the board and the principals and I and Ken have talked about this at length we did have a very I think strong curriculum council meeting last I'm not sure if Taffy's back online one thing I'll say is
066I do think a task force would be important I think a task force that is not led by the administration but the administration is coming to the task force to respond to questions in inquiry I think I would recommend there be a board member leading and I think it's a good opportunity to reach out to the community I have a community member it's my suggestion you obviously you take her to leave it and that it follows the three areas Tony that you've laid out it'd be time to limit it because I think the community wants to know there's move in here it's not just hey there's a task force as opposed to a task force listening asking for information and giving recommendations by a certain time back to the board itself back to the district
067kind of the community I mean this is very much a shared approach and I think then within the curriculum area I'm confident we are going to bring forward from our teachers and our SILS administrators evidence of a lot of good work and listen to suggestions from a task force the curriculum Council meeting and I just by chance have been on these issues since the start of my career it was an incredibly thought full deep intelligent passionate conversation from several of your sills a lot of districts would not have had as thoughtful of conversations we had around these issues I can guarantee you that and I'll back that up with fact but I think it's important the community know that you've got incredibly thoughtful educators on this who know we have to have some difficult conversations
068back within they don't to have them say that in a public board meeting as quickly important we need to have those difficult conversations back within you've got teachers and ministers who know this subject matter this work this emotional layer very very well so I think a taskforce hearing that but then giving advice on the diversity recruitment I think hearing what we have been doing the last several years because we've had grants and active work on that gen Ryan's been part of that not even with since Lewis has moved on but hearing what we've been doing getting ideas I think a critical idea to share is it will be a very steep climb to have faculty and administrators of color join us but we should look at other ways to leaven who's in the mix with
069our students take advantage of this distance technology we now have why not have guest artists guest musician guest historians death scientists come in and 211 what's going on while we're in the search for a more diverse faculty and staff and third on the issue of incidence I think the board should listen it's about you asking the administration to review our policies on discrimination make sure there is strong and and zero intolerance and then what are our procedures and practices for following up there are privacy issues there but that all should be looked at by a task force with recommendations so I endorse that I think it should be run separately from the administration with us coming to including the superintendent us come to report out and then hear recommendations later that would be my view
070other board members yes I I just want to echo something that we briefly touched on during the curriculum meeting and yes I think if members of our community could hear the passion that our sills have about embracing curriculum just my new word changes different books like addressing a broad spectrum of curriculum we can be more inclusive about what we're covering I think they would be very impressed but I think this particular issue you know you have to be very cognizant that this is someone's feelings and you can have policies you can have curriculum and everybody can do everything by the books but at the very core of what we are as a community and as a district is how we handle someone's feelings how we respect feelings and how we can encourage our students to
071be able to discuss those feelings in a respectful manner and it's a challenge for young children to be able to have a discourse about their favorite sports teams how are they supposed to have a discourse about a student heard a particular song on the radio that uses a very questionable word and that student chooses to use the word another student's offended by it how do those students learn to navigate those conversations in a respectful way so that people can understand the impact of their words that's having on someone this is this needs to be the schools cannot shoulder this alone there has to be community and parental involvement as we navigate through this I think the conversations are necessary and I just hope that everyone can be patient and respectful as they share what they're
072feeling as we as a community go through this and I hope that we learn from each other and then we can grow together and that's ultimately like the core of anything that we're trying to do with our students is to be able to engage in respectful dialogue and discourse and grow and evolve into better humans I mean this some in some ways harkens back to one of the most impactful speakers we had here in western and thick with the changemakers I mean being able to tap into how you connect with another human being and how you can change and how you can be better that is the core of what we're trying to get to with this and it's going to take in some instances people looking at themselves in the mirror and questioning ok
073you know where am I in this in this process of becoming a better human but how we Shepherd our children and our students do that at the same time thank you I would just say I very well said Gina I agree with everything and you know I I would just want to look at it from a broader sense as creating a healthy learning environment where everyone staff and students feel safe to you know believe what they feel and be able to you know express that so that's a little bit broader than what we're talking about but that's I think how how I would like to approach it because I think it is broader than than a racial issue I think it's a cultural issue and then the only other you know thought I had is
074is in terms of coordinating with the town on this because it's a it is also a community issue it's not just a district issue yeah I yeah I think I think that's right that the one concern I have is taking on too much I mean that I think that in terms of I think that broad participation is really critical but we have to channel all of that into what as an educational institution is our responsibility ultimately and so so I think that's probably the bigger challenge is that I think you want to make this as inclusive as possible but then you want to take those recommendations and figure out exactly what our role is as educators in in this whole spectrum because quite frankly we all are active participants our parents the community the wider
075community and the schools and I think we have to actually figure out ultimately out of all of this where we want to channel our energies in terms of what is our responsibilities as educators Tony if I may just jump in for a second Mike I would um first of all think is a really important and great conversation I would steer everybody just you know as a basis for what the school community and the perceptions are back to our school Climate Survey that we did that we did earlier this year there is some data in there that I think I know a lot of the schools have have really you know went after and looked at very carefully and I think given you know given you know what's going on in the nation this time I
076think that data becomes even more important looking at how subgroups of students identified within the survey black students Hispanic students and there was a couple other groups I believe in there that it broke you know the results are broken down you know the perceptions of those students and and how and how they feel in school and using that as a point and a basis for conversation as well so I think it's very worthwhile very important and we do have some data to help us get started if I may Tony sorry Lisa I mean Mike it's critical Mike and I talked earlier today and I he was gonna remind you all this cuz we've not done such a thorough Climate Survey here in a long time that gives a baseline for us to go back to
077and look at it because it's a very thorough instrument which we can keep coming we can keep using there's some real data and information we can be using here sorry at least I know I just wanted to say that before some of the events happened this spring when we were looking at the data Mike's encouragement it was important to know that a we're all across the board with the there were no negatives and so while someone might say well that's great there's no negatives like people didn't feel negative towards school what the subgroups did show was not negativity they showed what I would describe is on a Likert scale at the rate neutral so for me that's a concern because we want our kids to love our school we want our our students to think
078that it's the greatest place in the world and that they connect with the students and faculty and everything else so you know in the service and you look at the data and you say there was no glaring thing that that there was a great deal of dissatisfaction by students of color there was more of a just a neutral rating more of an indifference which to me is in essence is a concern not a glaring concern but certainly something that we have to address I don't want a student at the school to feel like schools okay it it's got to be a lot better than just okay I mentioned this during the curriculum committee meeting and I just want to repeat myself again just for all the administrators and teachers out there listening the Western Education
079Foundation you know which contributes to not only the school system but the entire town has reached out to me to start brainstorming on how they can focus their efforts next year on racial justice and equality and education and so for the principals out there that have that has an idea or teachers out there that had that might have an idea please keep left in the back of your mind as a resource to bring you know this idea or this initiative or speaker to Weston because I think this should be high priority and we have in a you know an amazing resource in web so please take advantage of it Oh bill I'm um I think we need to take this way as a board figure out how we you know how we're going to who
080will take some responsibility for shepherding this task force I think it's a good idea to have this as a board initiative we're absolutely going to need a lot of help from the administration but but I think that I'd like to get some more ideas from board members as to scope and and participation as well and and maybe have another discussion about how we get something like this off the ground yeah I think that makes sense it's vital critical work in it but I think really that and I agree with Gina that there's this is a truly a matter of the heart and the mind and the soul mm-hmm and you've got to be to help people connect at all levels and I think some of that just where there's a little bit of space from
081the group that in a sense is being given recommendations ie administration teachers and all I think that that's important so I think this energy coming on this you know from board I think the community side is really important here because I've been here long enough to know a lot of the concerns being raised right now it's emotional some cases around the school but it's very much a shared it's a shared situation between Lesley's it and that we have to share in the inquiry we have to share in the recommendations and we have to share the work yeah if I could just weigh in I mean I think I agree with everything that's been said I think by us in the statement that we put out we we've sort of drawn the first line of the
082of the three planks we want to focus on and I think that you know by delineating where we're gonna focus on and operationalizing the task force and keeping focused we can be holding ourselves more accountable to to what we're setting out to do so I agree little bit with Tony we you can't spread ourselves you know too thin over too many things but I believe it's the right three planks where we can make a difference and show results so as these discussions evolve if there's a fourth plank that we need please give the board you know additional feedback well I think the three you have or comprehensive and I think you know it may branch out as it goes but I think for many of us I mean curriculum is a very broad it's intentionally
083not just the classes but it's your whole framework philosophically and otherwise is how you approach teaching and learning so that gives us a lot of room to our personnel our our talent is the most fundamental in those interactions and you flagged that and then it's those points of paint and those are the incidents where are we and are we connecting and taking those as seriously as we should so I think right now that's a very comprehensive set and I'm a branch out I I think the one thing I think is most healthy as if if it's a task force not of the administration but for and of the district if you see the distinction I'm drawing there absolutely hey we'll take that away there's no other questions or comments we can move on to the
084next topic this is a good news one but a difficult one I ain't can are you gonna handle this this is the discussion impossible addition of a third grade section based on current Ruhlman trends we had advised the board that the good news is and a month number of our grades our enrollment is is moving higher and even projected and we're right up there now so can will lead us into this we have data we have an information and analysis but it's one of those good news yet difficult conversations and right yes and so you know I'm you know pleased to report that right now in our third grade the numbers are trending upward and we're now at an enrollment of a hundred and thirty six students with eight pending for a total of a
085hundred and forty four students projected now for for next year and that puts us at a class size of 24 students in each of the six sections and Patti Albert also knows of a family with with twins potentially also ready to come in so we are right at capacity at third grade and you remember that we you know we budgeted you know conservatively as we move through the budget process with six sections but we are now at a point where every class classroom would be filled and with any additional students we would be over that so also you know consideration of the fact that you know we're planning with CDC guidelines of you know 10 to 1 ratio you know this this is obviously extremely difficult for us to you know have such a large
086classes in in third grade but but you know it's still you know it's at the upper end of the guideline but you know another student now would trip those those guidelines so you know now we're putting out there for consideration for the board is you know when when you would look to potentially at the additional section to go from six to seven sections six to seven sections in third grade that would help for the administration with staffing because you know the earlier we can plan in staff for an additional section the better that allows us to create class lists earlier it also allows us to hire and to get you know the best possible teachers who are out there and I also want just keep in the back of your mind that you know because
087whisks went down by section this year and purl book went up via section we are planning that we if things remain status quo that we would have to move a teacher down to Hurlbutt and we have we have held off making that move because we know that there is the potential for this additional section and so you know we would not necessarily have to make that move we would we would make the hire and we would have that that higher down at the the the elementary school so you know there's a lot of considerations from a staffing standpoint that also are in the mix so I wanted you know you know all the other grade levels you know it seemed to be you know well within the guidelines and you know we're not we're not
088pushing putting pressure as we are in third grade which is again maxed out can what is it really I mean going into the fall when we really don't really understand whether we're gonna all be back we're going to be a B we're going to be eighty twenty forty sixty we have really no idea what what is a you know what is it really you know what if the class size really mean at this point right I mean I normal times I think you know where we're in really abnormal times and I anticipate the need to be even more significant if the discussion that we've had both at the task force in here sort of evolved it sounds like our needs are going to be even more significant than that so my question is we understand
089the needs there but shouldn't we wait until there's more clarity around exactly how we're configuring things to just figure out you know what our real needs are going to be it it it sounds a little premature given the fact that we actually have no idea what the fall is gonna bring I you know I don't know how other people feel yeah we we can speak to that ken can speak to that lauren patter on the lines we've actually thought a lot about that Tony so yeah you know Ken Laura patty you want to speak to that yeah I mean it is significant because you know if we are in a face let's say we're back to normal face-to-face learning environment I mean that that's at the upper end of the limit and we we do
090expect you know based on past history that the number of people coming in versus you know leaving the grade would likely go up based on our past history so you know and you know you know grades k-2 three you know making sure that students have that solid foundation and literacy and reading is extremely important on the other side you know if we're in the you know the the hybrid mode we know that that ten to one ratio is critical so it becomes even more important because now you know rather than looking at you know dividing students into two groups we're looking at with class sizes of 20 for each of those being divided into three classrooms so so you know that's that consideration and then you know again from a staffing standpoint we we do
091have to make some plans regarding stats so this this will have this decision you know whether we if we decide to hold off later in later in the meantime we're going to have to have a contingency to move a teacher down from whisk to robot which you know is the other piece but sure I mean at 144 if we get the twins we're now at two classrooms at 25 so I mean they're big classes but if we do that 10 to 1 ratio we're gonna need a minimum of 7 teachers probably even eight teachers right so right so I mean you know the other consideration too I think it's very early in the summer to have a number that high you know we are getting a lot of calls I can't imagine that number is
092not going to grow even more it is a transitional grade I I would be concerned about having a class you know class sizes that large no matter how we come back even if they're in distance learning you know we're trying to increase the live instruction and the live interactions between students and teachers and you know at the younger levels it's a little more challenging to do that so the more students makes it a little more challenging for the teacher and less time for student and I think especially given the situation we've had this spring where the second graders you know I mean everybody's ear was cut short but it is a transitional year you know and it's a cohort that I think large classes are not in anyone's best interest I think it would be
093very difficult and I would just want to say Tony I mean the fact that this decision would allow us to keep a wisp specifically trained teacher at Witts knowing that whether it's because of additional enrollment meeting CDC guidelines we're going to be adding staff anyway we're going to encounter additional training that's necessary making a decision to know that we can keep an experienced teacher in the building that they're experienced with you know that kind of takes care of one little situation to free us up to deal with the other ones that could come down the line typically how much notice that you've seen there's a parent that's currently in district give the district that they are gonna be moving out of district so if they want to enroll their child in private school do they
094tell you in July and August it really depends on when they move like I've already had some parents who have already said that we're moving so I've already you know since the transcripts already out you know they they they know they're moving but it really is it so okay III just think with distance learning and with the strategies obviously private institutions have you know they're not they're held to different standards they have different strategies public institutions obviously we know what's you know what mandates were held to so I'm just I don't know what is gonna happen I'm just thinking you know with some of the social media posts etc there might be families out there that transitions into a private setting and I just we should just be cognizant of that making any future hires
095we're also getting on sorry we're also getting some inquiries on the flip side of that Ruby where families are saying I've been paying for private school I don't know what distance learning is gonna look like I you know talk to me about your school I've had a few of those already great even better yeah dad actually had a couple parents who kids were in private school and they're questioning paying tuition if it's gonna be distance learning and they've heard enough about what we've done that now I'm talking high school because I have high schoolers but yeah we've also had some families that have Westen's a second home and they've been putting their kids in school in the city or in Brooklyn yeah they said we need to get out of the city we're gonna move
096to Weston for the school so yeah I know I've there's I've had quite a few conversations with good people that are in Manhattan Brooklyn who basically have school age children that are seriously looking moving out so you know I think this is all a good a good issue might my issue really is more about the unknown and you know you're you're going to be you know at the end of the day the budget set right so with basically allocating and deallocating money so and and there's so much unknown so I think it's a question of where the you know when you want to make decision how you want to make that decision given the fact that there's going to be so many moving parts you want to make it incrementally do you want to make
097it with more information you know it's you know at the end of the day it's it's a it's a real app it's a reallocation of resources correct yeah I think Tony again these are all really good questions I mean Laura patty can and I've talked it through I think a critical piece and is that as Ken share with you we're not seeing this pressure in the other elementary grades and let's just double triple check that while we're here with the board hey Lauren Ken on this that the board is through a very difficult budget season you held very strong and and I respect you for that on class size in Weston and we know fundamentally what we're going to need as we had these last three months is a very strong relationship between our teacher
098and students and we've heard we need an even stronger and II know and I mean you're long enough to know that we hire great people but later we get in the summer it gets more and more difficult and so I think we're saying strategically right now there's your one grade where you're up against it well you will go over class size guidelines also I should note cohorts matter this happens this cohort carries some students who have higher levels of need I think that's wonderful we have to meet those needs so if they are groupings that may not do as well in larger class sizes be it in a distance learning mode or not I think making this decision while is that an obligation may require some reallocation as we get deeper into it this this
099solidifies a critical concern a twist in terms of who are the teachers they were working with now to prepare and plan for the fall and given we may also have to add other teachers released ahead of it with this as a definite assigned a classroom teacher so I that we thought through all of these various issues our view while it's difficult Tara Lee is to bring it now to say this is a critical strategic decision now but again Laura patty I'm not seeing that pressure right now and your other grades we may have some ins and outs but I don't think there'll be enough out if you will to not have this challenge in third grade I I think one of the one of the things and and this is I'm gonna be very frank
100here so you're gonna get I'm gonna play this forward a little bit we're gonna go to record of Finance for X amount of dollars because we need so many we need considerable amount of resources going into the fall or to finance we'll turn around said you know what you could have lived with a larger class size for a year to save some money given that you coming to us for X amount of dollars I can see that conversation like coming immediately that's the only thing that I'm sensitive to I'm you know I'm because being a little you know blunt but that's where the conversation is going to go but if that's something where the rest of the board and the administration feels that this is a critical need then I'm fine with it but I
101I anticipate that conversations will be around that I mean you're probably right Tony but I think it's incumbent upon us my position as a board members our class sizes you know that is like the cornerstone in that for the individualization and the personalization of the education in Weston not bedrock that this district is built on is maintaining those sizes and then you add into it that this is a transition year where these kids are you know I'm it's a big leap there's a lot to get used to now whether it and add in the complexities of a hybrid model potentially on top of it I'm sorry I'd be more than happy to have that conversation with Board of Finance good no I just I just I just brought it up because I think that's where
102the conversation is gonna go but I'm I'm you know I'm very supportive it that's where we've wanted if that's a decision we want to make at this point you know I would support it but I think that that's you know that's gonna be some of the conversation some of the difficult conversations we're gonna have in the fall and going into the winter other other board members those are Western students on vacation don't you love the summer I need to hear from the other board members yeah Oh either way no I poured the addition I think you know class size is something that's very important to how we educate our children and I think we held firm on it in a very challenging budget cycle and I think we should stand by our convictions and hold
103firm on it now okay I'm overall very torn on this one but I do I do think that that there's enough compelling reasons to to take the recommendation of the administration the only point I'll make is that it takes me back to the disk you know discussion budget discussions prior where we were talking about class size limits for non core classes right and I think this is a core third grade is at its core but but I'm thinking about we should try to be a little bit more flexible on the non core to balance it out um I this is Ruby I agree with Gina wholeheartedly and I loved the term that she used this is the bedrock that we've built you know our Western foundation on and just speaking personally as a parent I've
104seen a situation firsthand where it is a 24 student classroom and I've seen the impact and the effects on those children so yeah that being said though I I would love to just have further conversations before we go to board of Finance I know budget is set but I top level I do think there might be an opportunity to dig back in underneath the covers and see if if we can absorb it before we go to board of Finance oh we have I mean this we have to absorb yeah okay I didn't know with your with you pushing you know your yeah no I think that's a no listen I I I am all for being consistent I just need to you know just need to remind everyone of the conversations we've had and the
105conversations that we're going to have going forward which are going not going to be easy but I appreciate the consistency in terms of keeping class sizes as as a as you know being strong on where we want to basically draw the line and if we want to grow the line at our class size policy it's being consistent and I understand it yeah and to me I mean when we haven't been and we aren't being disingenuous right like when we had these discussions earlier in the budget cycle it was a different economic climate and it was a different world climate with respect to the the virus and real estate trends were certainly in a different place than they are right now for all the reasons we've just been discussing you know people are moving to or
106are utilizing our schools in ways that they weren't when we were discussing this issue in December and January in February so I think I think we do have a narrative to tell the Board of Finance that is something other than you know oops we miscalculated I mean you know we made a decision based on the facts that we had at the time the trends that we were expecting to see at the time and now things have drastically changed and and as bill pointed out I mean that's a that's a good thing ultimately that's a good thing is a good thing this is not we we shouldn't talk be talking about this as a negative this is actually a really good thing I'm just kind of projecting what what conversations might be like I hear you
107I mean this is a great thing yeah I just think there's a there is a narrative that that can help us it should we should we need to use it okay I just have one request though can the we have the actual enroll as of October 1st 2019 is there any way we can get an updated enrollment chart yes and and what we will do is provide you well each week over the summer we collect that information and we keep updating that and sharing it with the board I think bill we share that each week or every other week but it's it's very consistent over the summer so you can see how it trends thank you yeah yep well right we I mean we we ran that in advance of this meeting so we have
108an updated chart that we could send you after this meeting we typically don't start saying the weekly chart till later in the summer usually around July mid July but we could certainly have for this meeting send you that chart just want to double check a few things but that one clearly shows the information that can presented I'm looking at right now which is that you know we're right there at that 24 but we can we can get that out you go ahead Ken yeah I was just gonna just a little context here the 144 that we're trending towards right now is actually what was projected by Malone and McBroom up 140 for the board was extremely judicious in that you know since that was a cusp number right not in the budget process Patty's original
109recommendation was for this you know seven sections however we pulled back on that to 6 to just make sure that that projection was going to be a reality now I think you're seeing you know that we're hitting that and maybe going you know obviously potentially going beyond that so I think you've been very judicious in you know being conservative at first and then now you know taking another look um so do we want to we want to not to belabor this point too much but let's let's you know if we're all in agreement let's just have a motion and and we can then move on jeana's the master emotions wait a minute let me write it down so I can give me one minute to write it down so I'll be able to send it
110to Meredith when we're done please can we play music in the meantime can I misspoke we had the enrollment as of January 1st 2020 not of October 1st 2019 okay okay let me know if I need to tweak this in any way move that the Westin Bo moved at the Western Board of Education accept the recommendation from administration to increase the number of third grade sections by one second would be second all in favor hi Melissa hi Ruby hi Jenna hi Victor hi Tony all of those hey motion passes okay thank you everyone let's go to the next topic yeah that's the Western high school course proposal can lease are you handling this yeah I can I can handle this and if Lisa wants to jump into as you recall that you know we added
111a new course AP Human Geography to the course of study I know we're all excited about that new course for the upcoming year we did achieve the enrollment that you know we were hoping to have and thanks to Nick Torrez CIL he's done a lot of planning and legwork on that Nick is also here in case you have questions but you know generally after we adopt the new course you know we also look and see what resources are out there that would support the course and based in this budget packet you have the information for the few resources and you know we would look to go ahead and purchase those once we have board approval you've already approved the course now in the resources that Nick and the Department have gone through done the research
112and it would support those students so obliques are Nick you want to add anything I would ask that Nick speak a little bit to the course and what it means I am really excited about this course because I think it aligns perfectly with our mission about you know global society but take it away Nick hi everyone thanks for taking the time to listen to you know my little spiel about Human Geography so this class is it's a geography class but it is really in truth a sociology class it kind of studies social political and economic interactions among groups of people so but what it does is it measures those interactions using Geographic tools so you know for example actually as I was listening to the conversation on the last agenda item you know the conversation
113of the pattern of the spread of the virus the state of the economy and the way it's changed the impact on the housing market and how that's going to manifest itself in the classroom and westin in the next you know five to ten years those are the kinds of things that students would be studying they would be looking at the way that what they see on the ground level in our in not just our society but global different global societies you know how they can better understand those those phenomenon using Geographic tools so you know one of the conversations that Lisa and Ken and I started having when I became CIL a year ago is how to kind of break into a more multicultural more embracing of diversity you know focus in the social studies
114department and you know history is challenging there is a Eurocentric bias in history you know so it you know if I was thinking about something like conflict in a place like Kashmir if I was teaching it in history that conversation might actually start in the 1700s in London but in human geography that conversation is going to start by looking at the distribution of different ethnic groups different religious groups different political parties the military and economic realities on the ground there and at some point the British will come into play but it's not a Eurocentric view it's a very contemporary sort of globally aware class and it helps students build up Geographic toolkits without putting them in a place where it's okay memorizing every country in Africa which may have value but it would only have
115value insofar as they need it for the sociological implications you know what's going on right now in our country and what every district is talking about now is very I think timely to this class coming in you know one of the things the class talks about is urban settlement patterns looking at cities especially cities like Houston Austin looking at their railroad and Interstate patterns and then overlaying those patterns with racial demographics and you can see that roads and railroads separate people of different races in many cities you know looking at one of the big sections of the classes on agriculture so looking at the way that you know students would look at something like USDA maps of dominant agricultural products and then maybe they would overlay that with voting patterns in some of those regions
116and better understand why certain political movements have value in different parts of the country you know it taps into environmental issues there are a lot of major cities especially in Asia that are very susceptible to rises in sea level so they focus on that you know and so this is a really cool class included in the bundle with the textbook with the Rubinstein textbook is also a program a six year subscription to a program called mastering geography which is a GIS system that allows students to actually take hundreds of layers and build custom maps to better understand what they're looking at so it's it's I'm really passionate about it I think it's a great class I think it's gonna be an incredible addition to the social studies department there's so much excitement over it we
117already have a lot of interest enough that you know can all likely that we'll have to have two sections and I only see it growing from here you know the last thing I'll say is that this class is highly celebratory of every culture that it that it is you know looking at and but it's also real so you know it does not focus on the sort of darkest elements of every group that it's being examined but it acknowledges those elements as well so it does not define you know people of the Congo by Congolese genocide but it acknowledges the Congolese genocide and there is a section in the class with religious and ethnic strife and genocides and displaced peoples and things like that so you know these two books are the books virtually every school
118district we use for this class right now endured a Darien and Richfield are the only schools that offer it so again we would be reading on this as a district and so yeah I'll stop talking now Phil I have a very important question can board members actually sit in on classes you're getting a taste of the incredible rigor and relevance in relationships or work in the curriculum committee meeting and Nick and Christine that that's who I was talking about that the level of conversation inquiry depth in this district is hard to match so you just went to college with Nick but also with any of us yes so yes we'll figure out how you can go sit okay but it's so timely and so spot-on there's a technical term for you Nick it's so spot-on
119it's where we need to be so I hope you endorse this board hi I just started digress I just also love your passion and enthusiasm and I just think I mean it just goes to show why Weston is so amazing is the caliber of teachers that we have in this district and you are a fine example of that and I agree with Tony you made me want to want to take this class right so honestly I think this is going to be an easy one so if there's no other questions let's just have a motion move that the Western Board of Education approved the new course proposal for Western High School AP Human Geography second all in favor aye Ruby I'm Alyssa hi Gina hi Victor hi Hilary hi Tony all opposed okay motion passes
120thank you Nick thanks for coming to the board and just giving us a great taste of what you have to offer it to the entire student population thank you thank you for all you do thank you very much I really appreciate it okay next we now shift into a series of personnel items I think principals I know you were looking for a moment to go home so if you want to use this moment you're you're welcome to thank you for contributing so much to the meeting so far I think the board would would be fine with you stepping away at this point I know you're all home but you know you know what I mean but I want to thank you personnel matter before you there is a memo that you've had as a board
121now since the Wednesday posting I would just really at this point see if there any questions about it I would for the public record though say this is a strong recommendation coming from the administration I believe it is a win-win for the district in a variety of ways as well as for personnel in the district and I'm happy to speak to any questions about this recommendation I think we have all the information we have the memos if there's any outstanding questions let's go through them now otherwise let's have a motion well I just want to say as chair of the policy committee I've worked closely with this individual and I think that she's done in an excellent job and in filling Louis's shoes it's a big big task and we're lucky that she was able
122to step up and do this for us and the fact that we're doing it and a cost savings to the district is as bill said it's it's definitely a win-win for the district so are you ready for a motion Tony yes there is a most Gino you see there's language there for me but I'll happily read it yeah I just wanna make sure it's a corrected one that if you refresh it because you need to establish a salary level if you refresh it will pop with the salary level because you both have to do the position and the salary level yeah I'm not getting the salary level in them yeah out of the officers because I caught that sorry no that's okay Ruby's got it move that the Western Board of Education approved the promotion
123of Human Resources specialist to human resources manager and the fiscal 21 salary for the position be set at eighty seven eighty seven thousand five hundred second Thank You Gino all in favor aye Irie b.i.g 'no hi Victor I don't agree all opposed motion passes okay thank you next item bill I'm glad y'all didn't yell at me that I was muted thank you the this this item and the next one are ones you traditionally have dealt with in May but this year because of the delay in determining the FY 2009 budget you quite wisely move this decision into June this item carries with a lot of individuals and we are recommending and you have the motion language if you choose to support this but we're recommending that it would be a 1.9 percent general wage increase
124in that tracks with where wah is and while we usually peg this to ask me this is ahead of the athlete settlement but we believe that this is a good and reasonable level it is lower than in past years but I think it reflects the need for fiscal conservatism on the part of the district in town but it does give a modest increase to these critical employees so if you choose to support this the motion language you have that blank would be filled in by 1.9 percent yeah it might be to add to this if need be if you have questions but anyway that's the yep go ahead just a few words on this first of all the we we've kind of moved to looking at salary and contract reviews both for the month of
125June and July so we're not completely done so we'll probably have some some spillover into into July the complete review of all of our contracts with the unaffiliated employees I think that they're the historically the salary increases have been pegged to the kind of equivalent positions in the bargaining unit as you know most of the employees in the district work in the bargaining unit and while these are financially difficult times those who we basically wanted to be fair to all of them poised to make sure that we treated the employees that weren't in the bargaining unit same as those that were in the bargaining unit and also consistent with the town policy as well who the town is doing the same thing so I just wanted to make sure that everyone understood exactly our rationale
126for this so maybe we can have a motion on the unaffiliated employees move that the Western Board of Education approve a general wage increase of 1.9 percent general wage increase for the positions listed above I don't need to read them all two of them okay we have a second jeanna second all in favor aye Ruby I'm Melissa I Jenna hi Hillary hi Victor hi Tony all opposed a motion passes next your next item is discussion and vote on salary and contract terms for your unaffiliated central office administrators that would be your assistants who pretend of curriculum instruction your director finance and operations as well as your director facilities and the motion language does include terms of contract as well as the 1.9 percent increase which is I'd mentioned earlier is identical to the increase being
127received by the Western administrative Association we have historically in Western pegged these adjustments deep at GW I to the parallel bargaining unit we have a motion you have three separate motions here okay move that the Western Board of Education one approved the contract term of dr. Kenneth cross the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for a new period of three years July 1st 2020 through June 30th 2023 to establish base salary of two hundred and thirteen thousand four hundred and sixty $6.95 representing a 1.9 percent increase to dr. cause cross current base salary and three authorized the chairperson to negotiate and execute a revised contract with the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction incorporating these changes second Jena second Thank You Gina all in favor aye Ruby I'm Melissa I Jenna hi Hilary I'm Victor
128I Tony all opposed motion passes you have it your next motion pertaining to the director finance and operations move that the Western Board of Education 1 approved the contract term for mr. Philip cross the director of finance and operations for a new period of three years July 1 2020 through June 30 2023 to establish base salary of one hundred and seventy eight thousand three hundred and twenty-five dollars representing a 1.9 percent increase to mr. crosses current base salary and three authorized the chairperson to negotiate and execute a revised contract with the director of finance and operations incorporating these changes Gina's second all in favor aye Ruby I'm Melissa a Gina I Hillary hi Victor hi Tony all opposed motion passes third oh man Tony make a comment here please yeah go ahead yeah as the
129board knows there's an adjustment here in the motion for the record the time length of mr. Vieau Mastro's contract he clearly understands this is tied to a restructuring of how these sub-cabinet contracts are handled and this would be parallel to your new director of digital learning and technology that this is in no way as I understand it a comment on mr. dome Astros performance I had advised him that this was a possible motion because we want him to wear OB wherever he is fully supportive fully understanding and and enthusiastic of his ongoing employment here and just considers us a great place to be so I saw is important to clarify in the public record that he understands this adjustment and sees it again an endorsement of who he is and he appreciates that are you
130ready for a motion yes okay a move that the Western Board of Education one approved the contract term of mr. Michael Del Mastro the director of facilities for a new period of two years July 1 2020 through June 30th 2022 to establish a base salary of one hundred and thirty two thousand four hundred and seventy dollars representing a 1.9 percent increase to mr. Dell Mastro's current base salary and three authorized the chairperson to negotiate and execute a revised contract with the Director of Facilities incorporating these changes deccan Jena second all in favor aye Ruby I'm Melissa IG 'no i hillary hi Victor I Tony all opposed okay motion passes I guess this for June is it for salary and contract reviews whatever we haven't gotten to we'll get to in July all right next item
131on the list um I think I'll hand this went over to Phil I believe this will be quite straightforward you have attached materials this is a follow-on to your meeting last week so are you ready um I am how's everyone doing all right well we see you sir [Laughter] all right so yes sir DISA quick recap so the last meet and a special meeting on the 8th the board approved a net reduction to our FY 21 budget of approximately 76,000 839 with understand and that we would be presenting a list of additional items for a total of 43 thousand 161 so we went back in then we pretty much revised her or less them removing the reduction she are ak2 Spanish and we're not presented revised list and their list is as follows sorry reduction
132further salary reduction for of twenty thousand nine ten we're all recommending are proposing a reduction to our electricity account of eleven thousand seven fifty one and also a reduction to our home bond tutors for ten thousand five hundred for a total reduction of 43,000 161 and for total reduction of one hundred and twenty two thousand which will put our FY 21 budget at fifty four thousand 161 for forty three or two point zero five percent increase your video increase uh questions comments I don't know any questions about the proposed reduction it's just more a comment on unfortunately just you know the board of finances unwillingness to consider using our savings from this year and putting it into a lapsing account for us to use for next year I just felt like that they never truly
133grasped the necessity of that because I don't know we're gonna face substantial budget overruns next year trying to get these schools reopened under the kovat scenario and to have had an ballpark of you know several hundred thousand dollars sitting in a savings account ready to go with proper approvals in place and everything to be used for that purpose I just thought it was very short-sighted the town charter does have a very specific limit on the total amount of special appropriations that they can approve so when you think about what we're gonna need and what the town may need considering that that has to cover Police Department fire anything else that they may need to cover I'm just I was a little astounded that they didn't really seem to be very receptive to creating a little
134bit of a safety net I just had to get that into the public record and yeah I think the approach was to use whatever savings to to reduce the mill rate is zero I mean I know that they wanted to do but to what end if that it ends up that between our needs for special procreation and the town's everybody's maxed out and mid-year people are having to cut services because of that decision I get it but that that was not something that was entertained at all from the OP from the onset I I could say I just and but no okay can we have a motion move that the Western Board of Education approved the additional reductions to fiscal 21 second second Melissa all in favor aye Ruby I'm Melissa hi Gina hi Hilary
135hi Victor I Tony all opposed motion passes hey Bill next I think we're on a fill cross roll here Phil this is your right after Phil crush so far as my eyes they were glad we're we know where we are man final lap so the next item that we have on the agenda is is a vote on the 2020 tuition rates so what we have for this year I'm recommending a slight change to how we're pretty much recommended the rates for tuition so my recommendation for this year is to excuse FY the current our current fiscal year as the base year and for each subsequent here year to increase the tuition by whatever the budget increases in this instance the but the increase for a tuition rate is roughly a two point zero five percent
136increase which are the race that you have reflected on on the sheets not review if I need to read all all the all dinah here but um are you ready for a motion Tony yes note that the Western Board of Education approved the tuition rates for the 2020 2021 school year second Ruby all in favor aye Ruby I'm Melissa hi Gina hi Hilary hi Victor hi Tony okay next next item up is is a vote on our 2021 utility and facility rental rates similar to the tuition every year I guess every year or so we present the rates for for rental rates for for the for the builded use this rates rate is pegged to the CPI the CPI that were used in for for for facility is the CPI that we established for our
137FY 21 21 budget which is a CPI of 1.75 percent so the rates here reflect through roughly at 1.75 percent increase your every year increase okay can we have a motion move if the Western Board of Education approved the 2020 2021 utility and facility rental rates second second Melissa all in favor aye Ruby hi Melissa hi Gina hi Hilary I'm Victor I Tony all opposed motion passes next next item up is to close out of the high school windows and doors project state project number 157 that's zero zero five two so just to give a quick background on on on this particular project so back in 2015 again I think this is probably new for everyone here and also for myself when I was trying to and we try to try and with some help
138from June's Ackerson just against them background intimated and for everything that we have back in May of 2015 there was an item on the agenda at that time to close out this project because there are I guess we're to open items there was not a vote the vote was postponed uncertain at a time it was not brought back up since then so this year Rick attempted to pretty much close the project out or to pretty much send the project and for the final audit and he was with a he was advised by the state that the project could not be moved into the final audit process until the board formally accepted this project is being completed so this is pretty much all the information that we have we went back we know that all the
139invoices were paid were paid and I think that's it in fin comes Gina wanted to you know did request that I find out from Rick if the Board of Finance officially accepted the project I did reach out to rank and the normal policy is that because this was a bonded project the Board of Finance normally does not close out the project until the final audit has been completed or final state audit has been completed and that cannot happen until the Board of Education formally accept this project scatter we have a construction project that was managed by the town the last record we have is that there were no outstanding issues before - but we do have approval that every invoice has been paid and there are no open conflicts or anything with any contractors that
140we have that carry as far as we know based on information that we did receive from the town that is a case how does this happen what part of it exactly Tony um I don't know a project this project made to be aware of the process for closeout I mean is that I mean no I mean they going we discuss this project Tony and think um it looks like everything was on track until it hit the Board of Ed for approval but because when it did there was an open punch list Oh Board of Ed didn't accept the project as being complete because it wasn't complete right okay and then essentially the trail went cold right okay now keep in mind a project of this size this is a well over a million dollars what
141if it managed by that someone on the town side probably I'm guessing but that's my guests cuz typically projects that that size are when they finish that process in that punch list the town would have paid all the bills because capital projects are paid by the town right would have paid all the bills they would have resolved any issues with the contractors and then it should have been right out on both sides right that's the part that didn't happen now I asked Phil to not recreate the will on this but to try to get from the town have they paid all the bills any you know any open issues resolved look it is where we are I mean I think we have mean obviously we have to accept so that they can go to the
142state to like officially was it out but yeah yeah everything and try to get as much assurances from the town because they managed this project that it actually was done and that everything was paid and yeah so if the understanding is there's no outstanding issues let's just have a motion move that the Western Board of Education approved to close out the Westons High School windows and doors project state project number one five seven zero zero five two second second oh hi Ruby I'm Melissa hi Gina hi Hilary hi Victor hi Tony all opposed motion passes a bill the last one for you so this is the next item up is 11 FY 25 de ton approval of transfers so this is the 11th 11th month of report so at the end of May we had
143a means let me back up a little bit let me just go through a normal process so we have unit expenditures of a forty four million twenty two thousand eight hundred and thirty eight dollars we have encumbrances remaining of eight million four fifty nine five thirteen we have anticipated additional anticipated expenditures of eleven thousand one ninety and as of May we have an available balance or unspent expenditure of a proc of 580 thousand one hundred and sixty nine dollars I will point out that um based on our projection that we gave to the Board of Finance we didn't we did project that we will we would have an expanded balance of roughly six hundred thousand dollars at this point I I would say that I am cautiously optimistic that we will reach that target you
144know it's still a little bit fluid we're still in the process of closing out open encumbrances and purchase orders and seeing how things progress we still have a few roughly two more weeks left in a month you know I always like to caution that anything can happen at any point but at this point I do believe that we will reach a target of $600,000 so just just repeat a Randi here but balance as of May is 580 169 there are no transfers program for the month of May I think I I want to hold off on our transference until the dust pretty much smells one me next me I guess I thought outfit for the end of your report I will present just transfers pretty much just a clean with all the negative the line-item
145deficits that we have that's okay we're moving to the internal services account we've had good clinic experiences primarily having to do with social distancing as a result of cope in 19 which pretty much has put a hold so to speak and I more acclaimed experience for dental as of May we have claims experience of roughly three hundred and forty seven thousand 261 which will leave a balance if it continues of roughly 1 million 190 and $96 we may see an slight uptick for dental claims from the June as a more states or more as a state and reopened you know as Jenna pointed out we just wanted to find point out that the claim for this year is technically artificially low primarily because of um sort of listens then I'm and it is quite possible
146that we may see a significant increase in our dental claims with the message next fiscal year FY 21 so right now your productive balance through a through year and 1 million one ninety and ninety six dollars and that is the end of the Phillip Stroh and all the updates for the month one month ago yep one more have a motion move that the Western Board of Education approved the 11th fiscal year 20 financial update and approval of transfers presented by mr. Phil cross second back in Ruby all in favor aye Ruby hi Melissa hi Gina hi Hilary hi Victor hi Tony all opposed motion passes and now we have a few first readings on the policy side Melissa as chair may want to join in I'll be brief here this is my first attempt to
147bring Lewis Bray into my body and out for all of you because I think it's the first time before the board I'm playing Lewis break as he took that yes you have three policies before you all are first read so they're no motions here the policy committee has worked very hard on these I'll just do a quick summary on each of the three and then CNO Melissa that's cherry one adding in the first one is a modification or complaint policy there are two reasons for this the existing complaint policy frankly has not been as clear as it could be for the administrators and the staff and importantly I would say for families part of that is the way it currently reads prior to these recommended changes is the superintendent was immediately involved and it left
148no appeal process typically complaints are at related to issues at the school level or lower in departments and it's important that those decisions on the complaints get dealt with at that level leaving families an opportunity if they don't agree with the report and finding on the complaint to have an appeal that appeal would be to the superintendent without this change appeals would necessarily come to the superintendent has already been part of the process which that bias is how it might get ham handled a bit and then brings it up to the board level and a lot of the potential complaints aren't material for a board so that's the recommendation here I say why don't I stop and go one by one that'll be cleaner and clearer so I don't Melissa if you want to add
149anything to this one in any way or not no I think you've done a nice job bill thank you okay and this one is one had been on the list for a while we just were able to now get to it and last so we so that's the first read on that or if they're questions from board members on this no bill I don't have a question but I think that this is a good opportunity to maybe educate our parents a little bit if they happen to be listening about why having these steps in place are critical you know a lot of board members were parents in the district and you know a lot of you know our friends or parents know of a kid in our class they want to come to us directly
150to the board when there's an issue that really needs to be resolved at the building level just maybe take a moment and talk about why it's critical that things go through proper process before it gets to the board yeah that that's very good point Jean and we can elaborate here and this is an excellent example of why it's so critical that we take complaints very very seriously even statements of concern that may not be a formal complaint we take those very very seriously and that does relate a bit to the earlier discussion around racial justice and other things that we we take these any concerns we take them very seriously this is when something becomes a formal complaint it's critical that we're crystal clear on what are the paths a family can take in filing
151a complaint we typically ask those to get dealt with first at the teacher level when that's not possible it then moves up to the principal level and they're the ones most directly involved in dealing with the students who are often part of a families complaint and we want it sorted out and dealt with at that level because that's closest to to where it's occurring if indeed though a family is not satisfied if family needs a place to go with that appeal the current complaint policy before this recommended change made that difficult so now can go to the superintendent the superintendent will hear the appeal because there are a number of issues as this revision lays out that may or may not go to the board level there are certain labor pieces that may not go
152there other pieces it may not go to the board so we want to make sure there's a clear path that's delineated in policy that families can look at understand and study we did have Jessica Richmond Smith review this so that it aligns with all legal requirements and best practice requirements I'm not sure if that elaboration helps anymore if others want to add to it it's just critical that families know clearly we want to resolve matters as close to the teacher and principal level as possible with a formal statement at that level which then families have can understand and if they don't agree with it they have an appeal path it is documented and very clear I also think it's important bill that the public understand that you know and this is I'm speaking completely hypothetical
153right now if we had a teacher that did something inappropriately that could potentially rise to the level that that teacher would be terminated that teacher has rights under their teachers union contracts some of those rights include a potential hearing in front of the Board of Education we have to come in to that hearing not having information leading into it so while we hope we never get into that situation I think that it's very important that people understand there's a very real legitimate legal reason that we should not be privy to certain details too early in a process mm-hmm right other other questions on this particular this is your first read you'll have an opportunity to look at it and come back to and vote on it at your July meeting the next one pertains to
154the use of video monitoring devices and again this adjustment is a fairly minor one but it's important it's focused on the videos that are on our buses and we need to modify this policy so actually we're alignment with other districts and that allows a transportation official or the designee of the Superintendent of Schools to access those recordings to get them to administrators so they themselves administrators can review those we've had a situation until this policy potentially revised that the employees of the bus company which is unlike in other districts and no-wake could access the videos and then handles off if you will to the administrators would handle the review other districts have policies such as this would be modified to again Melissa know if you want to add anything to this or not no and
155it's a it's a change that makes a lot of sense and exists in every other district in our Derk so I think it's pretty pretty basic and part of this adjustment is now that the district does not have and has not had a director of transportation we have to be more aligned with other districts and how any of the video recordings are managed and handed off from the buses the bus company employees to our administrators the next policy is related these two go hand-in-hand and this is if you look at the redline adjustments this is one is that we will remind employees that there are cameras on the buses recording that's part of the red line change but then again the key changes as you see there for storage and security these pages are numbered
156iPod autism my copy but it's a red line under storage security number three again that's just indicating who is able to access those recordings and how they're to be handled in that any bus company employee has to sign documents showing that understand FERPA in the confidentiality policy these are two policies while separate need to get changed together I think fairly basic the policy community view them is your first reading you have an opportunity to consider it and then vote on it in your July meeting great any anything else more so this again is hand in glove with the preceding one nope I don't have anything to add thanks Bill okay yes I promise to be brief there's just a couple quick items I want to mention here one is that we've to my knowledge had
157one a parent asked us to consider the basis that platform we use for your public meetings we've been using the current format the town uses a zoom format we could very much easily consider that adjustment as early as the July meeting I'm assuming our July meeting will also be in this format it may not but I think it's likely it will be August we may be different the town has a zoom account it'd be easy for us and Craig tongs has looked into this you could speak to it I think he's still online it'd be easy to make that adjustment the main difference is that allows observers of your meetings while still muted to visualize who's speaking and I think that is a more accessible friendly way for the public to observe the board meetings
158to my knowledge one parent has come forward with these comments but they're well taken and would align you with the public meetings that the Board of Selectmen doing the Board of Finance do so would be something I don't it's just a discussion point it's not a vote but I would be interested to see if what your thoughts aren't Craig is on the line if there any technical questions about this I agree in terms of I think it's really difficult for people to kind of listen in and understand exactly who's speaking and just it was very helpful to follow all of the Board of Finance meetings over the past few months with them having zoom and us being able to dial in so I would support that I agree completely I mean it's kind of like
159what we've talked about with distance learning you start out and you figure out what works what needs to be tweaked so I'm game yeah makes it and the request had been over the last say six weeks I had held consistent with this is our platform for two reasons one let's get through this significant meeting and then let's at the end veto here so he can help us manage this but Craig is Tonks has already set the stage with the town for us to make this transition so hearing this as a consensus I'll proceed with Meredith and and Craig to see if we can just as of the July meeting bring that technology over and I think it should work well but you know if you know I'll go ahead and work on that next item
160is typically the board has just had its monthly meetings in the summer sometimes not even that I'm just suggesting you think about the need for some special meetings a little more regularly you heard me earlier in this meeting suggest that as much as the task force's meeting I think you probably want to be meeting in some number around that because you are the decision-making body on that the Advisory Committee achieving the task force's advisory but I'll leave that to the chair just to sort that out I'm just recommending that you might need to be a couple times maybe every several weeks meeting over the summer other related item is your committees typically do not meet in the summer but you know I'd endorse your committees as needed meeting the summer because there are a set
161of critical issues i bill I would yeah I would basically say the committee's probably should meet on an ad-hoc unless the committee chairs want to set a regular schedule that's fine but I do think that we're going to have to meet and also we can do the same for board meetings or if people feel comfortable that we maybe should just some put some placeholders for board meetings during the summer so everyone could have it on their schedule that might be just a little easier to coordinate so I would I would basically say we'll put a couple of dates on the schedule for board meetings during the summer that worked for everyone we might have to move them but I would leave the committee chairs to figure out how they want to how they want to
162schedule the the committee's depending on things that need to be resolved but I suspect there'll be more more ad hoc okay so what I'll do is Meredith is obviously listening in taking minutes but I'll ask Meredith to reach out to you Tony to identify a couple dates for the board and then as you said the ad hoc the committees will be ad hoc and the chairs will sort out what they okay last time I had is that this is the final time that Mike and Craig will be in earshot as members of the administration for superintendent report so I just want to thank them for all of their work there have been other ways we thank them but I want to just Express as superintendent because this is the superintendent report my deep deep appreciation
163for all the truth guidance and intelligence and expertise they've been bringing to me in their years working with me it helped the district be as strong as possible and we also have Lois leave us earlier and he's probably out there listening so I want to thank Lois as well and when we go to the zoom platform I know they will be zooming in to watch all these meetings so anyway seriously Mike and Craig you make this district stronger you make our students stronger and thank you from the bottom of my heart on behalf of everything you have done 24/7 more than people realize you are there for us thank you and I'd like to you know just second what what bill said thank you for your contribution both Mike and and Craig and and for
164especially during these difficult times for continuing to dig in and do what's best and what's right for the for the district thank you and good luck thank you thank you committee chairs anything I was just gonna use this time for communications committee to to once again thank Craig for everything that he's done but yeah that's it for communications finance we will be meeting as needed as we start seeing additional pressures on the budget that we finally just approved we will need to be addressing those and planning as we move forward and then also curriculum as you heard earlier in the meeting we have a lot of things that we're going to be discussing whether it's revisions to our existing curriculum to try to deal with racial equity issues or whether it's dealing with further issues
165as it relates to distance learning hybrid learning or whatever the phone might look like so that's what we have on our plates go ahead no I was just gonna say from the policy committee we've been working on the much anticipated homework policy which we hope to roll out in the fall with the you know start of the new school year it's going through the curriculum committee right now just to get that valuable feedback but I think we'll have a new policy by the end of the summer on facilities the one thing that I really want to do now that there's some changes to the building committee is actually really sit down and nail down the relationship between the district and the building committees as it relates for the management of capital projects I think that
166long time in coming I think there's some work to do to really be very crisp and clear about how projects are going to be run in the future and so that's one of the things I'd like to kind of put an Alan over the over the next few over the next few months if we can yeah I just mmm if I could I mean Gina yo-yo set the tone for the Finance Committee meetings and and the cadence of meeting but since bill has assigned us summer school my petition is that we we just allocate a little bit of time if we can or some time to to the budget process from next year so I think I think we have some some foundational work to be done that we can at least start to sketch
167out and I think that starts in our committee so great point Victor oh it's definitely Victor yep next meeting July 27 it's on the calendar agenda to be determined anything else no can I have a motion to adjourn no moved second well that's a second thank you everyone for a very very very productive meeting have a good night and thanks again for all your hard work through the board and engagement end the entire time yeah thank you thanks Mikey thanks Craig thanks my well thanks Bill