Board of Education Meeting - January 25, 2022

001[Music] good evening everyone welcome to this regular schedule meeting the westwood board of education tonight is tuesday january 25th 2022 we are meeting in the town hall chambers alan can we have roll call please yes chairman kerry good evening everyone mrs de roberts here mrs drew mr healey here mrs granado here mr lacavoli here dr reagan leferve here mr vile vice chairperson mr cassio president chairperson mr kerry president and weathersfield high school student representative ms laina yusello all present thank you all if we could rise for pledge allegiance to mr craig and the students of red lead us please allegiance to the fight from the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you great job guys mr um

002student staff recognition yes thank you uh mr kerry good evening everyone i'd like to welcome our friends from webb elementary school up to the podium to provide a presentation on the makerspace is [Music] um here we go this is a board of education presentation about the maker's face welcome from the student ambassador team hello we are the student ambassador team we are a team of sixth graders that help with with decisions around the school and help out with problems that may be hard to solve our mission is to make the school a better place we have put together a slideshow presentation to show you the things we have done in the maker space why is the maker's face important the makerspace is a very important place at web it allows kids to express themselves with

003the many different materials and opportunities that are given to them they can make any project they want and then be proud of it which can help them boost their confidence and that can be a good tool for later in life us kids need our 21st century skills you might be asking what are 21st century skills 21st century skills number one critical thinking number two creativity number three communication and number four collaboration the maker space allows students to work on each of these important skills the makerspace came to webb because the staff and principal thought that it could be more than just a computer lab they all started to come up with different with design ideas for the layout of the makerspace there is lots of hard work put into it our makerspace committee even visited

004other schools who are successful this initiative projects what have classes worked on in the makerspace the top picture is made by 5th grade classes and is a bridge to hold the most weight the bottom pictures are made by the 6th grade classes and made irish irrigation systems to water plants [Music] more projects the pictures the picture top left and bottom right are pictures of the irrigation system being built by 6th grade to water plants the picture in the bottom left and top right are pictures of other projects built in the makerspace materials the bins that you see are bins though use for projects in the makerspace the screwdrivers and pliers are used to break apart things more materials in the top left there are imacs that we use in the makerspace to code and produce

005songs and music the top right is tools for our breakers space to break apart things the bottom picture is books to inspire kids and use their creativity to build things thank you at this time we welcome any questions from the board of education from all of us here thank you for listening to our presentation about the makerspace and what we do the makerspace is a great part to our school so for one nice thank you thank you for being here and listening to our presentation have a great rest of your night great job everyone anyone from the board have any comments or questions can we get the lights thank you mr roccavoli awesome work everyone you should also be proud of the fact that you got up here and spoke uh that is an accomplishment

006in and of itself what's the most fun part about this i think the most fun part about this was that we all got to work together and have a great time doing it mr cassio great job and uh i look forward to seeing you guys sit up around the board so anyways i have a question is this something that once you reach sixth grade you get to do is this a program that all sixth graders wait to get happening no anybody in web school can use the maker space okay and how long have you been doing this program oh we just started this year perfect thank you good job mr granado um i want to ask the question about the details like is this a classroom or is it a traveling maker space is it

007um something that you can write to get into and be able to use during your free time can you just explain those details to me um this is something that you go like with your class and you work on projects that your teacher has like assigned to you guys and you get in groups and you guys work together on a project thanks thank you anyone else yes dr regan lafave well done to all of you um something you you mentioned a few of you is that these are really good skills that you're building for the future but i just want to remind you that you're building them for right now you know that life doesn't start when you finish high school or when you finish college sixth grade is pretty hard and it seems like

008you guys are doing a really great job so congratulations and thank you for sharing your work thank you mr emmett yes mrs roberts are these projects initiated mostly by the teacher or by you so the projects are made by the teachers and assigned but sometimes there's a lot of gray space so we pretty much just get to use our imagination like if we're using legos or something you can just take charge and do whatever wonderful thank you good job nice job great job everyone mr emmett i just want to say to the students a uh heartfelt thank you for coming out this evening i also want to say i had the opportunity to go to the maker space on friday when i was out visiting schools and i saw this very group of students deconstructing

009a computer pc and for the entire time i was in the maker space every one of those students were engaged there was lots of collaboration there was lots of talking and at one point in time mr craig said it was time to go and win block was almost over and i heard a collective sigh from every single student working on that pc so i appreciate the collaboration and i will tell you that room as you guys remember that room was packed we had lots of students in there doing lots of different activities and what a great way to repurpose what used to be the old style standard computer lab with 25 computers now that we're one to one we've been able to free up this space and be able to rethink it and reimagine it

010so thank you students thank you parents and thank you mr craig mr any other student staff recognition on this evening sir thank you moving on to the approval of minutes do we have a motion to approve the january 11 2022 regularly scheduled meeting of the board of education so moved do we have a second second thank you any comments questions seeing none with a motion in a second all in favor say aye aye opposed abstentions motion carries thank you public comment anyone in the public wishing to make comment please step to the podium state your name and address and you have five minutes seeing no public comment public comment is clues mr emmett communication yes thank you mr kerry good evening again just a couple of items for you uh this evening as you can

011see by tonight's agenda there's been a lot of activity going on by our board of education and our subcommittees including our teachers and our administrators we have a series of action items related to curriculum and instructions evening as well as a action item for the approval of a five-year contract for transportation which has gone through our finance and operations committee also this evening you'll have the opportunity for a presentation from our colleagues from keen on kids with regard to the after-school programming and we'll also invite up a a group from the weathersfield youth voices count survey to provide a presentation on the results and then finally with presentations this evening the the downside we saved the worst for for last and that's the uh bi-weekly covet update although the numbers are starting to trend more

012favorable um just a couple of other items that i want to bring up i do want to mention again uh how proud i am of the partnership that we have with the weathersfield public works department um as i had stated last week on martin luther king day we had a situation at webb where we had an inch and a half sprinkler head burst at about 2 41 am and proceeded to dump more than 3 000 gallons of water all over the hallway down the stairs into the kindergarten classrooms into the media center into the main office down the hallway all the way down to the nurse's office i got a text message from the town at 4 42 a.m and by the time i got up there later in the morning the cavalry was out

013from our custodial staff not only web but custodians from across the district and multiple public works department employees and mr craig rolling up wet carpets and hauling them out to make sure that we got that building in tip top shape so that it could open on tuesday so again i want to say thank you very much for the response rich bailey and paul schoening and the entire crew our custodial staff as well as public works so we were able to save the day and get the kids back in and learning on tuesday the 18th so with that that's communications thank you we'll give it a minute for the projection to go up [Music] moving on to action items mr healey i believe you have a motion for us uh yes there are several uh all

014concerning curriculum mr chairman so i'll go through each one of them uh first i'll make a motion uh that we approve the news course proposal from creative writing level one do we have a second second rick and lefev and we will have discussion mr emmett yeah i have this evening uh dr christina's latin and siobhan o'connor here to answer any questions that you may have does anyone have any questions about creative writing level one yes i just wanted to make comment as i was reading this that um the writers workshop style continues on and i'm so glad because the students are so um [Music] savvy in it in learning how to have a voice in writing that to continue this into the high school i think is just a brilliant idea and um i'd love

015to see some of the work that comes out of this class thank you any other questions or comments yes mr roberts with the creative writing also um i i agree with bobby uh mrs granado i also think in the times that we're living in with covet this is um a really especially positive experience for the students to be writing their own experiences um i so i really think it's the perfect time to bring this in too thank you anyone else seeing none with a motion at second all in favor say aye aye opposed extension motion carries mr hilly thank you mr chairman i've not moved that course deletion ecs english 1010 seminar in academic writing reference 2a in your packet do we have a second second thank you any discussion comments or questions seeing none

016all in favor say aye aye opposed abstention motion carries mr healey thank you mr chairman under number c i'll move that new course proposal ec e english 1007 seminar in academic writing and multimodal composition level ap that's referenced to be in your packet we have a second second thank you any comments questions or discussions seeing none all in favor say aye aye opposed abstention motion carries mr healy under number d a move that uh recommended motion course modification to delete ece english 1011 seminar writing through literature and add ap literature and composition and this is a level ap course reference to c in your packet do we have a second a second any questions or comments seeing none all in favor say aye aye opposed abstentions motion carries mr healy under a i moved we

017uh approved new course proposal forensics level one that's a reference to d in your packet do we have a second second any questions or comments this will probably be the most uh popular new course we're predicting but i think it's a great uh addition and um before well that was just my take on that's it thank you yes mr roberts um i also think that forensics course may be a way for some students who don't see themselves as being science oriented to find out otherwise it could be of great interest to a lot of students and really be a really wonderful introduction to a world that they hadn't thought about thank you anyone else seeing none emotion in a second all in favor say aye aye abstentions motion carries mr healey thank you under f

018i will move the new course proposal ap physics c mechanics it's a level two ap a level ap course uh reference to e in your packets do we have a second i yes second any questions i'm just really excited about this one yes seeing none all in favor say i just had one comment is that and i'm pretty sure that's the one where it said that when this wasn't in existence this particular course the students were self-studying for it i have to tell you that with the most impressive remark on this whole itemized piece here that was awesome yes i believe it at the meeting they said physics itself you don't get ap credits but you need the mechanics part am i right about and so that would be one that would automatically get you

019credit so that's why they have the self-study to take this test in order to get accredited excellent any other questions or comments uh just one other thing um you have a choice there of textbooks one is an e-text and another is a hardcover are you deciding um is this up to the group that's working this the teachers anyone else seeing that all in favor say aye aye opposed abstention motion carries mr healey yes thank you under g i moved what's your thing move to a course modification honors chemistry uh honors levels a reference to f in your packet excellent do we have a second any comments questions seeing that all in favor say aye aye opposed abstentions motion carries thank you mr healey thank you mr chairman underage a move to course deletion honors integrated

020science this is an honors level course reference 2g in your packet do we have a second second any comments questions seeing none all in favor say aye aye opposed abstention motion carries thank you mr healey under i i moved course modification we are to add an honors level to band and orchestra honors course reference 2h in your packet do we have a second second any comments questions discussion yes well on this honors course i guess they um we'll have to have a um audition in order to get into this i just wonder how many hours that's going to take as has that been considered in this and so um feels like he has enough time to really execute because a lot of the students do a lot of work outside of the band classroom in

021order to get that honors credit as well and i believe our another board member mentioned that our programs and services committee but he feels very strongly that he can do it and if he needs to make adjustments moving forward but he really we're really trying to drive the passion around the instrumental music program and really improve that right now and so he feels like well and i'm i'm so glad the band gets to have an honors course that's excellent so i know it's mr bose right yes so the discussion bobby was exactly that was there's honors course and there's other honors and this had no honors credit available so he felt strongly that our students should have that opportunity and then dr reagan lafave did have we had a lengthy conversation about the amount of

022work it's going to put on the teacher but he's created the class himself so he assured us that he could handle it good but there was a lengthy discussion about the amount of pressure he's putting on himself very impressed any other questions yes yes um not question but just you know to be an honors band these are obviously very serious students music students and these serious music students are highly trained and they exemplify the commitment um to rigor that's an essential part of becoming um a continuously evolving artistic and critical thinking thinker i just have great admiration for everyone in the music program and then to go through the process of being in an honors program is really commendable great thank you we have a motion a second all in favor say aye aye aye

023opposed abstention motion carries mr healy finally uh under jay this is a i move a course modification and this is simply a name change from string ensemble to orchestra uh level one uh reference two i in your video we have a second second thank you any comments questions discussion before we finally move on this last one i just want to say i just want to commend um siobhan o'connor her staff all the teachers that met with us at the committee level the discussion we had and uh if i'm not fear of being contradicted one of the points account was uh these courses were a collaboration effort that they came from the students who expressed a great interest in them they were they were generated by their interests and uh i think this sort of works

024worked very well with our leader leader concept of of working together so i just wanted to pay tribute to their excellent work and these additions to the curriculum i think are really good across the board and create a sense of vigor and aspiration that we need here that we continue to strive for here so thank you thank you anyone else seeing none all in favor say hi hi opposed abstentions motion carries thank you mr cassio do you have a motion for us i certainly do it's a lengthy one and we have a background board members have read the background regarding the award of transportation services contract for 2022 23 through 2026 through 27. it seems so far away but it'll be up on our doorsteps we'll be driving buses all of us anyways the recommended

025motion is that moved at the weathersfield board of education approve a five-year contract for in-town regular education in-town special education in town magnet in town parochial athletic late bus extended school year in field trip transportation services to autumn transportation commencing on july 1 further moved that the wethersfield board of education approve a five-year contract for out of town special education and out of town vocational school transportation services to autumn transportation commencing on july 1 second excellent emotion in a second mr kazakh do you want to come up and talk about the process a little bit that's okay good evening you may have noticed in the friday packet there was a spreadsheet with some small font that was a summary of the proposals we received back in november we posted an rfp for the transportation services

026that closed on december 20th we received three proposals including two of our incumbents autumn transportation and access transportation solutions in january we met with the finance subcommittee committee and provided the results and administration was charged with negotiating with the contractors and what you see here are the best and final pricing from the three proposals at this time autumn transportation is the lowest cost per diem in aggregate and they also have the added value of securing 31 new vehicles for weathersfield so that is the recommendation from administration based on negotiations we also secured an additional 90 000 in aggregate savings over the course of the five years and autumns who we use right now for incorrect correct autumn is the incumbent for in town access is currently providing out of town any questions or comments from

027mr kazakh i just have a clarification i read furthermore do you want two separate motions or do is it together two separate two separate so you did the second one nice second so do the first one again and i'll second it okay so we're amending the motion right no no just you know we have to amend them i have to amend the motion move that we amend the motion repeat [Music] can you retake can you repeat normally [Laughter] move that the weathersfield board of vacation approve a five-year contract for in-town regular education in town special education in-town magnet in-town parochial athletic late bus extended school year and field trip transportation services to autumn transportation commencing on july 1 2022. mr haley the second the second the amendment motion thank you any other questions or comments

028to mr kazakh yes dr reagan lafave i'd like to thank mr gonzalka for keeping this so tightly budgeted obviously the budget is always tight perhaps this i should say for board comment but i do hope moving forward beyond these five years the board can look into how we can have a greener transport system in keeping with our district's policy on wellness and ensuring that students are healthy and safe school bus admissions are really not great and school bus is idle that's what they do they pull up to schools they idle it's not a great situation and when places like middletown are moving towards electric buses i'd like to see weathersfield being creative and thinking about how we can do that in a cost-effective way when this five-year contract were to expire so that's not really

029a response to any of the work you've done which i really appreciate but something that i hope as board members we can think about because we have a commitment to wellness and school buses aren't great in contributing to the overall wellness of our students thank you any other comments mr kazakh what is going to be the increase then for next year so we're looking at about a .36 increase year over year compared to our current budget which is somewhere in the 200 to 225 range correct which is substantial when you look at the spreadsheet the type one bus is increasing about eight percent year over year and then the remaining four years is three to two percent the last sheet that was in the friday packet is a comparison of where we currently are and

030then the next year rate compared to about 32 other districts and we're still well below what could be the perceived market value and well below the mean so we're getting value but unfortunately the first year is going to see a little bit of an increase thank you anyone else seeing none do we have all in favor of the amendment motion say aye aye aye opposed abstention motion carries mr casio furthermore moved at the weatherfield board of education approve a five-year contract for out-of-town special education and out-of-town vocational school transportation services to autumn transportation commencing on july 1 2022. do we have a second second any comments discussion seeing none all in favor say aye aye opposed abstentions motion carries thank you mr kazakh great job thank you thanks matt thank you mr emmett reports and

031discussions yes this evening we're going to start off with an update from the keen on kids after school enrichment program judy and carolyn come on up good evening to everyone my name is judy keane 126 broad street this is a great opportunity for me to thank the board of education especially mrs bobby granado for serving on our k9 kids coalition and mr emmett mrs destoli for all of their support as well as school administrators and staff i don't think we could do any of this without the staff in the schools for your support for the k9 kids after school enrichment programs and now for the hands-on learning in the elementary schools carolyn fizzina has done a stellar job keeping our programs viable during the pandemic and has done it with her usual determination passion and

032excellence our programs were limited last year but carolyn will tell you about the very successful comeback thank you carolyn for all you do for the children of weathersfield okay i was told it's okay if i take this down because i'm i got a lot to say although i told judy i wouldn't make it too long because i'm uh i can tend to talk a lot about these programs because i'm so excited about them but what um what we'd like to do we haven't been here in a while we used to come every year and kind of give our updates and we haven't obviously for certain reasons so i we just wanted to come in and kind of give you an update of what we had done through the pandemic and what we're doing now so

033in 2020 we held some virtual programs we held um some during that wednesday where the children had basically like no formal school so we had some virtual programs then then we also were able to hold some virtual programs with the fifth grade only what we we did two different programs and what we wanted to do was try and enforce the skills they need in their um next generation science standards and in the science tests they take in fifth grade so we went in and did an engineering program in an adaptation excuse me program they were super successful actually we didn't go in we did them virtually they were really really successful the kids loved it um and from that um i'll talk a little bit about how that kind of turned into one of our

034new programs right now we just finished our fall session so it's our first time back since all this has happened we had less programs than usual we had a bit of a slow start and covid availability of instructors kind of had us start start slow which was not an issue we had 570 enrollments and 363 unique enrollments which means unique students the winter spring session which is what we're actually in right now uh the registration opened on january 5th i have to say that this is actually the first session that i think we've had the most max programs that have reached their maximum as far as number of students we can hold which is amazing and so exciting i think what we're seeing is these kids and families are really eager to get back to

035school fun um being with their friends that sort of thing so we're i think that's what we're seeing so we're really excited we we have great enrollment right now um we continue to work hard um to make things equitable between all our students we also have two musicals that will be happening this spring frozen at highcrest and the wizard of oz at webb and so we're very excited about those programs they each have about 30 kids in them so that a lot of kids are partaking in those um see if i can go to the next so whoops yeah so one of the things we have noticed though in the fall session was that we weren't we didn't get great enrollment in that session and i had visited a couple pto meetings and what came

036out of it was i realized we had actually sort of quote unquote lost two grades fifth and sixth grade had left the elementary school during the whole coven pandemic and we got two grades two grades of new families kindergarten and first who really knew nothing about potentially knew nothing about our program and one mother said my daughter's in first grade and this is the first time i've ever been this year's our first time in the school so it got me thinking that we really needed to kind of step back and almost think about that we're starting over as far as getting the word out about our program so what i did was i created this you'll see an example here on 10 facts so basically it's 10 facts about our program it introduces the site

037coordinator this is the general one which has a picture of the our five site coordinators that work after school it also this is the general one but each one specific for the school has times what happens after school where do the kids go who watches them what that sort of thing i know especially for parents of younger children that this has come up before just wanting to feel secure that their kindergarten is going to be not just left to find their way to wherever they need to go next but we really do have a process for that um and then um the other thing i started is sort of what i'm calling a new partnership and that is with um the school your school and family school family community partnership liaison which for elementary school

038is jesse pickett he works with ken bauman so he and i are working together to get the word out about our program kind of communicate the benefits of after-school programming for families we're talking about how to reach brand new families to the district and the best way to get the word out about our program so it's great that now i have sort of a comrade i should say someone i can work with to get another person to help me get the word out about our program so that's the after school program we received um this summer a grant from the weathers fields greater tenet together community fund of eight thousand dollars one of the things we realized when we did that virtual fifth grade program and it was so successful that it was something that

039kids were really really interested in it was an opportunity for us to provide additional enrichment and this is science-based enrichment to the students in wethersfield elementary schools so we have partnered with the school district specifically we worked with sally destoli and anne malloy and we are proud to say we will be serving we're hoping to serve every weathersfield elementary student with science-based in-school field trips these field trips were these programs were developed with the school district to connect directly with the curriculum science curriculum for that grade so we basically went through the curriculum and picked out sort of the topics that we felt would be the most interesting to create a hands-on experience for the kids but also helping them build skills that they won't that they'll need for testing or just different science skills

040that they will need so we've created some hands on what i believe are exciting skill building and supportive programs this is just a quick i won't talk too long i won't go through every one but these are the programs that we have come up with for each grade and a little bit of a description they should be in your packets as well um i will say that we have a phenomenal instructor for this program andrea glico she has been an instructor for our after-school program doing bit her she developed big time science she also does a gardening program she does many programs actually but she is the one that actually put together the programs themselves after she met with the school district's representative these these programs um so we go into the school uh the

041lessons are about 45 60 minutes long we're creating a monthly schedule that we will we've already been and i'll show you we've already been in all the sixth grades we're working on the fifth grades so we're working with the teachers we're developing schedules and we communicate directly with the teachers to find the best time to come in we were not completely funded our total amount that we needed so we started from sixth grade we will do our best to get to first in kindergarten that might be uh programs that we do kind of collab like with everybody maybe outside at the end of the school year when it's nice and we can we can do something altogether um and we also when we're in the school obviously are following all the covid protocols as well

042um so i just wanted to a quick this is our sixth grade program was where do calories come from i learned all about calories from making uh they made butter from heavy whipping cream um let's see if i can get this to run real quick wait a second it's pretty funny to watch actually so they've made butter from whipping cream and um so that they could visually understand milk contains proteins fats carbohydrates that sort of thing they learn about different caloric values of fats proteins the kids i will say were phenomenal they had they actually um one class sent us a slide presentation and every kid wrote a slide um i don't i could like i said i could go on and on but every kid learns something different we did it right before thanksgiving

043some of the kids made butter for thanksgiving they went home talked to their parents they they said oh my mom didn't know that this so that's really our goal is not just to come in and do this program but have it facilitate more thinking outside of school and take that home with them get them thinking they asked about food their food that they make the different ethnic food and how did that relate to calories and that sort of thing so it was really really engaging we had a great time um and then this is um let me see if you guys a little nope come on there we go uh fifth grade we did the engineering process we use only paper and scissors and the kids were given a series of tasks to help them

044learn about trial and error one of the big things is that you can make mistakes and part of the end that process is you make a mistake and then you keep continuing um the boy holding the paper with all the triangles they had to only cut make 10 cuts in a paper but get 20 triangles and that was the only instruction so they had paper they all tried to do it with a sheet of paper then slowly they started to realize they had to fold the paper we did tell them they could work together because that's part of the process is collaboration so they started to figure it out the other one is they had to make something that two pieces of paper no more than two pieces of paper that could hold their shoe

045and then you can see a lot of them took it even further they were holding their chromebooks their shoes their water bottle so they were figuring out how to construct those um so it was very it was a lot of fun the kids loved it um we you can see that they really are craving this sort of interactive type of program so we are really excited to be able to sort of branch out from after school to in school we appreciate very much the collaboration with the school district to let us be able to do that i think it's something that we're all really the teachers have also communicated that they've really enjoyed it as well and lastly i just always encourage people to reach out with any questions or suggestions that's how our program

046has grown and how it continues to flourish we have that's the web the email we have an instagram page and a facebook page as well so we welcome any comments or suggestions going forward and i'd like to thank you very much thank you you're welcome any board members with questions or comments yes dr regan lafave thank you so much um i want to applaud you on a really excellent program and thank you for saving my bacon so many times with your after-school program and i'm not sure if you appreciate that many parents cobble together after-school child care by putting together different after-school programs especially i have several friends who are teachers and they're like oh if i can just get that extra hour i don't need to hire somebody like a babysitter to pick up

047my kids and i don't need to send them to the y and your program is extremely affordable it's really fun my daughter's done like seven or eight different ones she's done yoga she's done photography she's you know everything she's an afternoon athlete right now yeah so it's great it is like a nail-biting experience of logging on on january 5th to see if you're going to have spaces for the ones that you need so any earlier that that could happen i know that's working with parks and rec as well yeah that's pretty much there um but i i probably shouldn't say this in an open forum but i think there's a way that you can make a wish list so i've heard of parents making their wish list and loading it up with the classes they

048want so that eight o'clock in the morning on january 5th they just have to kind of push a couple buttons and they're they're all but yes i have heard that um it it can get quite dicey we actually the first year we did this we started um we did it when school um what it was like uh we we conflicted with something so it became i think it was later in the day or something morning and it just became even harder because parents had to get their kid to school and then go back real quick and if yeah so we've adjusted a little bit but um yeah i am i'm thrilled that your daughter has enjoyed it and that's really what we want them trying so many different things to see what they like to

049do that's the idea i mean it's a lifesaver in terms of affordable great after care for a lot of kids so so yes thank you so much you're welcome thank you any other board members yes mrs granado um i would be remiss if i didn't thank our fairy godmothers but being on the keen for kids coalition group this doesn't happen with a magic wand this happens through a lot of hard work and a lot of organization and i thank you i thank you for letting me be part of it i thank you for giving so much of yourselves to weathersfield and i am going to give a shout out to weathersfield because i find plays for children one of the best ways to strengthen their literacy and we have two of our elementary schools doing

050a play and i would love somebody to come forward and help with the other three so that we all can be part of a literary experience in doing a play but i have to tell you i am in awe of keen for kids so thank you you're welcome mr cassio thank you it's great to see you ah you too everyone looks good thank you so much uh great program i remember when it first got off the ground and everyone was like oh boy yeah and looking forward to our fifth year so we're excited where we are we've been through congratulations thank you for everything appreciate it mr roberts um i just want to comment on the quality of the programs um they certainly are worthwhile and just i really uh commend you for the work

051that has to go into that the planning um it was really impressive thank you yeah i do try to make sure that we have a good wide variety of programs that will meet not every kid wants to be an athlete some and then so we try i try every session to have a good array of programs um to choose from for each kid and i do work hard to make sure that our instructors are you know they're quality programs so um yeah thank you very much anyone else do i remember i didn't start off in one or two schools only yeah so we were a pilot program at charles wright um the p it actually started with a bunch of parents who um wanted to bring some enrichment to the school and they didn't necessarily

052have the funding through pto so they went to the keene foundation and got a grant to hire somebody to bring the fine programs and bring them into school after school at charles right at the time i had students there i was part of pto i got hired to do it there and we were really really successful and the foundation saw the success and at that time they were having their pro after school program at the community center but we're we're only reaching about 30 kids or so and i think we had like 300 or 300 enrollments so maybe i don't know a couple hundred kids or 150 kids at one school and they saw the opportunity so we that's how it started yeah and then they have committed now to um really this is the

053sole commitment of the foundation is to make sure that this program lasts forever and um we can potentially grow or you know just make it available to as many kids as possible so um yeah that's how it started yeah a lot of hard work on your end right now yeah no it's a labor of love so yes no we appreciate it and you know my daughters yeah i know your kids have been in everything actually so yeah thank you thank you miss keene it's been awesome yeah thank you very much thank you mr emmett yes next i'd like to invite up to the podium for a presentation uh bonnie smith and alyssa gilbert and we also have allison and uh erica from uh the youth services department here in town as you may recall back

054in the fall you approved the administration of the weathersfield youth voices count survey and they are here this evening to provide you with an overview of the results of that survey [Music] okay good evening board of education members and superintendent my name is erica texair and i'm the assistant director of social youth and senior services for the town of weathersfield i'm also joined here tonight with allison nadu the new prevention coordinator as part of the drug free communities grant as well as bonnie smith and alyssa gilbert from our youth voices count survey consultants we come before you tonight to share the results and the key findings from the confidential youth voices count survey that was administered online this past november and december to all 7th and 12th graders that attend sdms and weatherfield high school

055by conducting this survey social and youth services was looking to solicit student input and perspectives regarding substance use and at-risk behaviors the data will be used to best guide future planning provide prevention programs and promote overall community awareness we appreciate you allowing us to come here tonight and share this important data i will now turn it over to our prevention coordinator allison nedu she'll be sharing additional information regarding our drug free communities grant and our work of our coalition thank you good evening everyone hi everyone else my name is allison nedu and i'm the prevention coordinator for the town of weathersfield social news services and i was hired under the drug drug free communities grant do you mind if i take this off i talk too fast my job is to facilitate the weathers field

056helping others through prevention and education coalition which is also known as we hope and work directly with the youth advisory board the drug free communities grant financially supports bi-annual assessments data collection and analysis this tool helps us determine not only what prevention programs we need to provide to the weather's field use youth but also what educational programs we need to provide to parents and the community at large the youth voices count survey produces data that strengthens local planning to address youth behavioral health issues as well as help with the applications for competitive data-driven grants the data collected in the 2019 survey supported the highly competitive drug-free communities grant that i am excited to announce that the social news services in conjunction with the weathersfield youth advisory board and the we hope coalition was awarded in

0572021 and will continue to do for the next four years the drug free community funds has also provided weathersfield with the opportunity to collaborate with scouts collective to build the weho brand and coalition website which will be live in a few weeks the grants funds also helped with professional development and training from established prevention organizations such as the community anti-drug coalitions of america organization and also it helped purchase the we hope swag items that are in front of you i want to close with this we hope's mission is to be a community coalition dedicated to engaging and mobilizing youth parents and community members to reduce youth alcohol and drug use and to create a safe and healthy community if you're interested in joining our efforts or learning more about our work please feel free to

058contact me my business card is also in all of those cups as well as a qr code with a link to our website now i'd like to welcome bonnie smith and alyssa gilbert to present the data thank you thank you alison thank you all for taking the time to see these results tonight as alison mentioned i'm bonnie smith i'm haven't actually seen all of you before i was here in 2019 to present our results um i am a parent in town circumstantially i get to do a survey in my own community along with the others that our company does i do want to caution for the purpose of the recording in the room we will present some material tonight that can cover some sensitive topics for for youth ears um go ahead and get started

059and then alyssa will chime in on some specific topic areas so allison told you the survey occurred this past fall grade 7 through 12 in the middle and high school this survey was done completely online and students will provide an instructional video to avoid teachers and administrators having to instruct the students themselves on how to do the survey and actually allison did that along with some other partners but a really nice response rate of 88.45 across all grade levels the last time we did the survey was about 91 so really great to see here this slide covers the student reported race ethnicity as well as their gender identity so the majority of students reported themselves as white at 66 percent and going on from there the largest was hispanic 21 percent and then asian at

0604.4 percent and black or african-american at 3.81 percent you'll note that there's some other categories listed that have a smaller number of students and in the full report that you've seen there's analysis done by these various categories so you can see where there may be groups experiencing different situations gender identity i just want to note that when we talked about this report with mr emmett he noticed that students that identified as non-binary trans gender or i'm not sure right now went up since the last time we did the survey and he was correct upon further analysis 2.75 percent of students in 2019 responded that way and for this round of survey it was six percent for our slides because i know you have a full agenda i'm going to note sort of the high notes

061but you have everything in front of you i know so youth time alone on weekdays most students in middle and high school reported one to two hours with a few students more than four hours and some none especially in that middle school level hours of sleep on weeknights you'll notice that it goes down a bit from the middle schoolers mostly reporting eight hours and those high school students reporting more of that seven hours and there's some outliers there getting nine or more hours good for them and uh some reporting getting one to two hours we ask in the survey about gaming in terms of assets and consequences what's good or bad about your gaming behavior online and the majority of students report feeling more connected with others because of gaming and then some students are

062reporting feeling or sorry seeing things that their parents or guardians would think were inappropriate and then beyond that we see that some students say they don't get enough sleep because of gaming we look at a somewhat parallel question regarding social media and there's a similar pattern with students feeling connected to others because of social media and i also want to highlight that many students report they feel better about themselves because of social media but many also report they feel worse about themselves and it's possible that you could select both of those answers in your response to this question because one day it might be good and one day it might not be so good on social media looking at bullying the data don't look much different than 2019 they've stayed quite even but 57 percent

063of students reported they had never been bullied before which is good to hear we have those small number of students saying almost every day they're bullied those are students of course i would be concerned about i think we did a calculation i think that comes out to about seven students that 1.3 percent or the um total i think it was seven students when we did it though types of bullying being called names stands out especially for that middle school and you'll see middle school sort of pops out here in the green exclusion stands out and rumors for middle school high school it's all about that same pattern but just a little bit less of it and the places students report being bullied the classroom is the top choice for middle school students and high school

064students followed by hallways and the lunchroom and online is there as well looking at emotional health i know this is a big interest of many school leaders and teachers and certainly in the work that alyssa and i do day to day and we do see an increase since 2019 from 20 percent of students reporting almost always are always feeling anxious in the past year to 27 percent of students in this year saying that and later on we'll look at some covet impacts on youth mental health the sources of stress look very similar to the last time we surveyed academics standing out and that high school is in the blue purple is the middle school oh sorry i'm going to say that again um high is that blue purple is medium so we put those together

065and high school definitely at the top for academics but the same feelings for middle school students there post high school high school planning of course for high school stands out as being a higher source of stress than middle school and then you see schedule as well home and family life kind of hangs out in the middle and we see that uh financial security and social media are even and the lowest reported sources of stress these are a host of other emotional health indicators and here we also see an increase in students over time having some negative impacts so in 2019 you'll see 7.8 percent of 7th and 8th grade students reported considering suicide and for 7th and 8th grade here we see 10 percent and for ninth through twelfth grade it went up this time

066from eight point four percent to nine point three percent saturn hopeless in the last two weeks we're also seeing an overall increase since the last time we surveyed thoughts of self-harm to look at my detailed notes here but those remained actually about the same in terms of comfort seeking help parents and guardians are the number one choice by students of comfort seeking health followed by friends and then having another trusted adult in their life school staff about 21 overall of students said school staff would be a source of help thinking about having a trusted adult and overall feelings of safety we have over 90 percent of all students agreeing that they have an adult that they can share with in their life and they over 90 percent feel safe in their community and just about

06785 percent feel safe at school alyssa is going to take over with some substance use hello everyone so first we'll take a look at the lifetime use of core substances so what we're looking at here is when we ask students have you ever used any of these substances this pattern looks pretty similar to the previous time we did this survey but i want to note everything is down some a lot some a little except vaping and gambling has actually ticked up a little bit may not be surprising yes can i just ask you a question as i was looking at this how are we supposed to use the word lifetime well i can understand that lifetime is have you ever used so ever in your lifetime whenever and yes at all have you used it

068at all and then next we'll look at more current use so these numbers are much higher but then when we look at past month use here it's the past 30 days from the time they took the survey thank you sure so for past month use you'll see in the middle school all of these substances are below one percent um in the high school it's higher of course uh most commonly alcohol is the most frequently used substance seven point five percent of the high school students five percent of the overall population that we surveyed followed by marijuana 5.3 at the high school level 3.7 percent overall and then followed by vaping products using nicotine when we look at this data by grade we expect to see kind of a stepwise approach as you get older your

069substance use may increase you'll notice gambling makes kind of a funny shape i'm not sure of an explanation for that it's just something i think we're going to keep an eye on and again you'll see here the 7th and 8th grade use is very low very close to zero for almost everything this age of first use refers to the age of initiation so at what age did you start using these substances every substance you see here the age has increased since the last time we surveyed so people are starting to use substances at older ages this is progress alcohol and vaping stayed about the same however notably non-medical use of prescription drugs increased by about a year it used to be 12 and a half now it's 13 and a half i know so is

070that is that for those who responded in the lifetime as a yes of those who report using substances yep at what age did you start or the person what do you classify as gambling because 11 year old is starting to make look i'm a little concerned i think included in gambling is lotteries and scratch-off things um so that is probably explaining some of that but it's also online gambling and poker things like that so do you see the age going down since 2019 or we the age has gone up so everyone is starting everything a little bit later so in 2019 we were gaming at 10 years old uh i don't have yeah it was actually it was 10.95 wow how does a 10 year old get a scratch next we'll look at perception of

071risk and harm so what we're asking here is how much do you think people risk harming themselves physically or in other ways when they use these substances so we want these to be pretty high and this looks similar to how it did in 2019 you'll see that marijuana is the lowest and prescription drugs are the highest so overall 66 percent of students reported they perceive moderate to great risk from using marijuana and compared to almost 88 reporting moderate or great risk for non-medical use of prescription drugs this refers to how easy it is for youth to access substances of those who reported using substances how many reported that it's very hard or sort of hard we also want to see these nice and high all of these substances are perceived as slightly harder to access

072than in 2019 alcohol remains the easiest 62 reporting that it's hard and prescription drugs remaining the hardest 86 reporting that's very hard or sort of hard looking at where youth are acquiring substances where are they getting it most commonly vaping alcohol and marijuana they report getting from their friends and peers tobacco and prescription drugs they report getting from home without a parent's permission looking at where they're using substances you'll see vaping products alcohol marijuana are all most commonly used with friends at their home or at their friend's home followed by at a party non-medical use of prescription drugs is the only one that is most frequently used at home alone for use at school and this includes school events including sporting events and things like that it's actually quite low and it's less than in

073previous years however vaping kind of persists that the high school level about five percent report using at school that's down a little bit from 5.5 percent previously we're seeing less driving under the influence overall however i want to note that more youth report driving under the influence of marijuana than alcohol it's almost double and or more than double in each of these measures you have a nice complete list of this in the packet i'm giving you an abbreviated one and i'll give you an abbreviated version of this even when i speak but just so you know this is a list of experiences and perceptions that are statistically associated with lifetime use so on the left you'll see middle school and high school youth who have used any substance in their lifetime are more likely to

074have thoughts of self-harm and have acted on self-harm behavior to have considered suicide in the past year feel less comfortable seeking support from a parent or guardian or teacher and then over on the right for high school youth who have used any substance in their lifetime they're more likely to report having been bullied in the past 30 days experienced anxiety in the past year so much so that it makes life difficult feel sad or hopeless for two weeks or more in a row they're also more likely to have report having had sex under the influence of drugs or alcohol and have experienced more violence discrimination and worried about food and we'll talk about both of those topics in the next sections this is a look at the trend data from the high school in particular

075high school youth nine through twelve you'll see 2016 2019 and 2021 data and then the percent change from 2019 to you'll notice everything has gone down except as we discussed e-cigarettes nicotine are kind of remaining the same and then gambling has gone up a little bit although those are very small numbers 2.3 percent to 2.5 percent i also want to point out that marijuana experienced quite a reduction from 7.6 to 5.3 percent that's a 30 reduction so i think that's going to be a point we're going to watch going forward knowing that the climate around marijuana has changed this is that same data but visualize so if you're more of a visual person like i am you can see how some of these things are really declining e-cigarettes may be remaining more stable um note

076the methodology change in 2016 we just asked about using e-cigarettes and then in 2019 and 2021 we separated using nicotine versus other things like flavored liquids and then again to me gambling kind of stands out here is maybe not going down perhaps going up and then the last substance you slide we'll talk about today is other substances so these are less commonly used but we like to look at them just to keep an eye on things that could be emerging trends or also because they're particularly dangerous cbd is here not because it's illicit but because it's part of the context that may be informative six percent overall of the sample reported using cbd products ever in their lifetime 2.2 percent report ever using inhalants 0.2 report using heroin and fentanyl so you see here that

077this section pertains to only students in grades 9 through 12 middle school students were not asked these questions about sexual behaviors so we see actually a little bit of a downward trend in students reporting yes that they had and been involved with sexual intercourse or had oral sex in their lifetime last time we surveyed it was about 14 yes to both and now we're at about 12 0.5 to 12.7 percent with about 84 saying they had not students who had said yes to that question then went on to answer some questions such as this what was your age of initiation we see that age going up from 2019 last time we surveyed uh we saw 15 as the most common age to begin engaging in sexual intercourse here we see most students report age 16.

078my fault oral sex we ask the same question and we see the same trend the last time we looked at this it was closer to the 14 side and now we're more commonly seeing age 15 as the age of initiation all students in the survey were asked about having talked with their parent or guardian about what i'm going to call safe sex and 43 said definitely yes and 7 said not sure and about 50 said no they had not had that conversation with their parent or guardian students who were engaged in sexual behaviors were asked about their use of products to prevent stis as well as to prevent pregnancy so that darker blue shows you that about 30 percent engaged in these behaviors did not use products to prevent stis and about 25 percent did

079not use products to prevent pregnancy conversely though we do see a nice range of always and almost always in those same categories and if you put those together you get closer to about 50 percent of students saying that especially with pregnancy prevention getting closer to 65 percent even we ask about barriers to safer sex activities and we look at that by male female here so females are worried about parents finding out with about 47 percent and then males are more concerned about cost as opposed to females embarrassed to buy the males and females are pretty close and then i want to point out just because this is board of ed and as folks interested in education there's a good chunk of students who don't know what products to use or how to use them with

080about 17 percent of females reporting that and 16 of males we have some questions that we looked at this year about covet impact on mental health and substance use so looking at mental health we have um how much did you feel in terms of anxiety being more or less in this time and we use sort of a vague sense in this time of covid feeling down sad or depressed and then feeling lonely so 54 percent of youth feeling a little or a lot more anxious and then you have those youth who say i feel the same there's no change and that's about 28 percent and then some youth report less anxiety too 46 feeling a little a lot more sad or depressed same pattern though with some having no change and then 47 percent feel

081a little or a lot more lonely and then you have you know the 31 percent who had no change in that looking at problems with family or friends as a result of this covered time most students said they had no change in that regard with 46 percent and then you see that combination of a little and a lot more at about 19 of students saying they had more of it access to mental health supports very nicely not seeing a lot of change there so our mental health providers really stepped up i think and our school supports perhaps and then a few students saying 12 saying a lot less it was important that we looked at substance use because that's one key component to the survey and how covid may have impacted use and access so

082we see that most students report no change in terms of alcohol e-cigarettes marijuana or thc but then you see that 14.9 to 15.4 percent who say a lot less use of those substances occurred which may account for the reductions that we see since 2019 and it's something we'll be keeping an eye on as we go forward use of prescription drugs follows that same pattern as well as overall other substances mostly no change we asked students about access because of course our lives were very different in this time period and you see again that about 15 percent to 16 percent reporting a lot less access to substances which mirrors of course a lot less use which we see in our reduction in 30-day use rates and possibly lifetime rates and then that no change certainly stands

083out in the middle for this is alcohol and other drugs noting that's marijuana and vaping this year we piloted a couple questions about toxic stress and that's referring to being a victim or witnessing violence in your school neighborhood or community have you experienced discrimination and that had to do with certainly race ethnicity sexuality gender identity or other things having housing problems and worrying about having enough food so food insecurity uh 30 of students reported having seen or been a victim of violence in their community neighborhood or school and about the same reported having experienced discrimination six percent reported having housing problems and about eight point six percent had trouble with food insecurity this is grades nine through twelve we went ahead and laid this out so you could understand the combinations of the toxic stress

084indicators and how they sort of hang together so looking from the top experienced four is about two percent of high school students having all four of these occur in their lifetime having experienced three it's 3.65 and you can look across the purple and see where those combinations work together and that's where you see experience violence food insecurity and discrimination at one point seven percent having experienced two it's very clear that that's exp that's 13 percent of students and that's the violence and discrimination combination and then the one mirrors what we just looked at in the last slide and most students experiencing one that's 28 of the students i know this is a complicated table we walked through it mr emmett but i felt like some of you might want to see how these hang together

085and then lastly we ask the students do you want to see the data when we have it and this is the highest number of students we've ever seen saying yes they want to see the data uh 56 of students usually it's like 50 but 56 percent of students so i'm sure alison will find a way to incorporate that into her messaging in the community so that was a lot of talking we're happy to answer questions or clarify things for you thank you so much any board members with questions yes mr lacavoli first off i want to thank you for doing this and for presenting it in such a concise and clear manner as you as you explained it and as you presented it i really appreciate data you can see a lot through it um

086i actually have two questions did you say that you've done this in other towns you've conducted a similar survey oh yeah um did you see when you look at our numbers and the numbers in other towns um were they coppable or or were there certain certain things that were going on here that aren't going on elsewhere or vice versa i'll let my team jump in i'll start with that when we look at comparison data we always like to look by community type or the old sde drg so i would say of surveys of comparable communities they're falling right where we'd expect weathersfield falls where we'd expect for comparable communities yeah um and also were there any numbers that you noticed within our town that surprised you either here in weathersfield or compared to those other

087towns i wouldn't say i was surprised but i was saddened to have the confirmation about students mental health indicators increasing around anxiety and depression alyssa do you have any no i think that's what stands out to me too the change in some of these mental health things particularly anxiety um suicidal ideation those really jump out substance use going down is great the mental health challenges going up is not but this school is not alone in that true thank you any other questions or comments yes mrs granada um who else sees these results what other organizations this is school system i know you're presenting it to the board but does it go to like our curriculum people does it go to the police department who else gets this it is up to allison and erica so

088our goal is to take this data and bring it back with our team and make some implement some focus groups to get a better comprehension of the data and get some anecdotal data and then our goal is to begin to work with different community community partners so such as the police department and then also have ways to reach out with the community and facilitate education on what's going on within our community and also using this data to build programs specifically off of the core measures that we see here so we really want to get this out into the community as far and wide as we can so people are educated on what's going on could you come up there i missed you i'm sorry no that's we want to get it you know this information

089out to the community we want transparency and i know we'll work with mr emmett to get it out to school staff um in different you know various ways but the goal is to get it out there so people are aware and you know can have a pulse on the community we have our analyst with us tonight in the audience he has a comment so you might have you stepped on a mic please thank you so people tv can hear you what's up so the tv can hear you oh yeah yeah so i'm lucas smith 126 meadow gate i had the pleasure of sitting inside this data for the better part of two weeks and one thing we do when we present it is we want to keep it at the highest level for presentations that's

090why you see it cut by middle school in high school and overall and then you saw a couple slides by female and male but at the end of all of this we go through every single one of those questions and we look at it by mail we look at it by female and we look at significance is there a significant difference between male answers to this question female answers and then we also do that by race so you saw that at the very front of the presentation we had race we do it again by race and then we look at it by students that have used substances in their lifetime and then mr emmett made the observation in an earlier meeting about the gender identity population being larger so when you do this type of

091work you don't want your population to be so small that it's so specific because the numbers are too small for statistics but it's also potentially identifiable and the most important thing is that the students know that they cannot be identified by their answers um but on the gender identity front we were able to cut it again so create another population of students and look at the i can remember the exact language we use but i get these non-conforming gender verse um traditional so it just from planning purposes it's they can get really focused to the groups that need to to hear this stuff so i just wanted to highlight that could i ask a quick follow-up on that just that little bit there did you find for example without compromising the anonymity of the survey

092whether students who were gender non-conforming or who were trans had higher rates of bullying and also of poor mental health so alyssa and luke did really in-depth analysis on that and we have a list of the risk factors identified in the survey alyssa do you want to highlight some of the points you found sure yeah so when we're looking at the students who identified as non-binary transgender or unsure compared to their cisgender peers we do see in particular they're they report they're more likely to have been bullied ever have been bullied occasionally been bullied frequently and been bullied almost every day they're also more likely to have felt anxiety have had thoughts about hurting themselves have considered suicide those depression symptoms and then also they are more likely to have felt some of those emotional

093health in impacts from cloven 19. those particularly stand out not a lot of differences among substance use um and then we're also interestingly seeing more gaming which was kind of a surprise for our team it kind of makes sense and it kind of doesn't as far as gaming culture but we are seeing more gaming among that group any other questions or comments thank you so much thank you thank you thank you thank you everyone mr emmett covert 19 update all right you want to wait till he shows us up absolutely yeah mr bearbolt come up to the podium thank you everyone all right just drive my cover 19 update thank you sir uh you've received an awful lot of data this evening so we have just a little bit more anecdotal data to share with

094you with regard to covet 19. so as of this evening the district has seen a total of 791 positive cases from august 30 through today that breaks down to 653 students 138 staff members and staff members that's weathersfield public school staff that's chartwells employees that may be a bus driver from autumn or access and again we're seeing numbers across all schools i will tell you as we look at the data we continue to see a lot of spread among families so it is the entire family that is getting sick so earlier this week i had reported i believe it was 29 cases yesterday across the entire district that encompassed saturday sunday and yesterday i will say that for example over at one of our elementary schools we had multiple cases and all of those cases

095were connected multiple pairs of siblings so we're seeing a lot of that at this point in time from the quarantine standpoint right now currently as of today we have only 14 students in quarantine and again that tends to be exposure from within the home environment we have not seen any discernible outbreak within the schools i will say having been recently over at celestine middle school the tendency for the masks to be down is frequent there were a lot of reminders but overall we're not seeing the spread within school so again i think it speaks to our mitigation strategies and making sure that they continue to be in place i do also want to let you know that with regard to the testing kits and the masks we have a an ample supply right now of

096uh n95 masks mr barabal has been instrumental in getting those out to schools and in addition to that the covid test kits we have them over at stillman we have them distributed out to all of our nurses so any student or staff member that is exhibiting any type of symptom whatsoever here's a kit get yourself tested so um we are expecting additional resources coming from the state we got an email from uh the state this afternoon uh we'll be partnering with our municipality to get additional kits and masks out into the hands of our teachers and our students i will say also with the mass distribution we got the first batch of masks they were the teal masks they were the n95 they were terribly uncomfortable we received the next shipment they were honeywell um

097very similar actually what mr carrie's wearing modeling it this evening so they are much more comfortable and we've seen many more staff members wearing these as opposed to the the teal model so um from a vaccination standpoint as you know every friday and the friday update i provide you with the latest data on what's going on at the state level and you know it's interesting over the past couple weeks we peaked in weathersfield with 225 cases per hundred thousand a couple weeks ago and then last week we dropped out to 169.5 cases per hundred thousand so as i said earlier during the meeting the trend is now downward so this afternoon i reported uh in my communication it went out at 5 15 today today we had a total of 12 cases and only one

098of those cases was a staff member so we are seeing the trend going in the right direction in talking with charles brown who we meet with on a weekly basis you know charles also sees the trend handing heading downward so i am hopeful i am cautiously optimistic that we're moving in a direction where we'll see the numbers really start to drop off so um mr bear ball anything from your perspective i know you're still out and about in all of the buildings i'm all and about we're getting we're actually placing over with with anthony mr dignotti and he's gonna uh send it in tomorrow we're going to get more tests we have an ample supply our nurses are doing a great job of evaluating students anybody who's sick they're getting the catch to who needs

099them um they've parents have called so my child is home sick they come to the school they give them a test kit it's not just being a home so we're being very proactive getting the test kits out to everybody we're getting more we have an ample supply i'll get more out to schools i have the mass out to the teachers um anybody who wants more i get them out to them um like mr remmitt said today we reported 11 students one staff we're starting to see the trend down from where it was at the high point it's a good sign it's a good direction and again like i said we mirror what goes on in our community in the state and we're starting to do that now so we're going to continue to do what

100we need to do i'm going to get more tests out to the school so we have that tool in our tool belt to fight this and keep our sick people home so we can mitigate that and we'll keep doing what we're doing i think we're headed in the right direction so hopefully we can turn this corner and get back to more normal things where we can you know go back to early october we're reporting zero on a day and just worry about educating the kids that that's the main purpose here but we have plenty of supplies and we'll keep doing what we're doing we'll make sure that the schools and the nurses and the parents and the staff have what they need to test and make sure they're healthy and ready to come to school

101yeah thank you mr bearville i do want to let everyone know that um you know i had said before we lost our nurse supervisor club arbrowski who was instrumental in the reopening process and really kind of our our eyes and ears from a health perspective and we did uh advertise that position and ultimately we made a decision to hire and promote from within so very pleased to let everyone know that elda marcellinus currently the nurse at charles wright elementary school has been selected as the next nurse supervisor for the district right now at this point in time elda will continue her work over at charles wright to maintain the level of continuity of care at that particular school elda joined us approximately three years ago after 19 years at hartford hospital as a registered nurse

102and honestly after khloe left elder really picked up the day-to-day operations in terms of coordinating with the nurses and ensuring that all of the cases were accurately reported to the department of public health so i'm also pleased that we had several of our nurses involved in the interview process and we are very excited to think ahead to the future where the nurses are hungry for more professional development we heard that loud and clear so alda will bring that to the district but in the interim she will step into her role immediately in terms of nursing supervisor duties and again mr bearball thank you very much for stepping up uh mr barabal and khloe babrowski were the co-liaisons for the coven response so mr barabol has been instrumental in um helping to get us through this

103and as i said i'm hopeful that we're getting to the point where we are on the downward slide and we get back to the more sense of normalcy absolutely last but not least um obviously we are waiting to see what happens with the executive orders the executive orders are set to expire in mid february so stay tuned once we know what the updates are we will get the information out to the community so with that we stand ready to answer any questions you may have thank you mr mr bearbell any board members with questions i just was hoping to have it clarified so the tests are in the schools yes ma'am and when a child comes down to the nurse the nurse cannot test them but they give them the test kit and it goes

104home absolutely correct and if a parent you know has a sick child at home they can they want we're we now have the ability with the quant the amount that we have they can call make arrangements to pick one up from our nurse we'll send it home with them okay thank you they have the availability yeah great question mrs granado that was one actually we had several parents that had raised that question and our nurses need a certification called a clia certification and school nurses do not possess that certification so as mr barabolt said we give the kids right out to parents and directions are on them and they're able to give them up thank you any other board members all right thank you mr beverly thank you thank you sir moving on to meetings

105held students programs and services on 118 22 mr healy i think we pretty much covered that with all those motions we did also have an update uh from mrs o'connor um i'm blanking on what it was it had to do with um the school improvement plan government plan which we i hope was circulated if not i'll make sure everyone gets a copy was uh pretty informative i won't belabor it at this meeting uh self-explanatory actually i'll just add we had a good discussion about the leader leader model and how it's blossoming at the high school under ms o'connor's supervision leadership yep thank you moving on to the correct council okay one 1922 miss granado so the correct council met on wednesday january 19th in a zoom meeting the correct council and i have this memorized

106now as the capital region educational council of which weathersfield is a member along with 35 of our surrounding towns the council is responsible for the regional magnet schools and project choice and they've organized and they run the hartford head start our meeting started with an overview of student services their programs include farmington value diagnostic center the polaris center river street school sound bridge strive and their summer program made in the shade committee reports we heard from the legislation committee on their focus for this year's general assembly session and then we heard from the finance committee and both committees are focused on the tuition issues and resources for capital improvement executive director dr greg florio and the council's chair lydia todone spoke of the need for the state to focus on the tuition for the magnet

107schools and they both applauded the correct staff for their passion to teaching and working during this challenging pandemic the consent agenda was voted on and approved for our 21st century community learning center program which is a program that provides homework assistance academic enrichment and recreational opportunities to children after school as well as literacy and educational services to families tim sullivan who's the superintendent of correct spoke of the successes of the social and emotional curriculum that's in place as both students and teachers have struggled with the anxiety during this covet crisis and any information about crack and council meetings can be found on their website thank you thank you ms granado facilities and maintenance one 1922 mr cassio thank you so much chuck the facilities and maintenance committee met on wednesday january 19th at the stillman

108building 6 30. we had a full house with committee members janice myself jim bobby and matt lacavoli joined us that evening as well so what we started with was where we were the committee got a complete overview from the ground up as to what was happening what we've done and how we got to the point where we are today and uh besides that in your report uh there was in the superintendent's report it's pretty much a outline of the entire meeting of what happened pretty much word for word but for those that did not attend the meeting we did a geotechnical boring were done at hamner and high crest these reports were in our packet the site assessment requirement to submit school construction grant will be completed by the month's end the enrollment study update

109is expected to be completed mid february and the document is necessary if your communication aspect for the project as well as submission to the state school construction grant educational specs for hamner and high crest are being worked on the superintendent and their both of the schools have worked together in collaboration highcrest and hamner staff faculty as well as a retired administrator from south windsor we discuss shifting the referendum to the fall in order to allow enough time to be able to be effective communication with the project while avoiding any potential violation we have not received word from the state as to whether they intend to visit the site for new builds so there's a lot of things ongoing a lot going on that are uncertain at this time but the good news is that we're

110maintaining a positive uh movement and that's what we have to do and so there are some different changes within the state of connecticut as far as who has reports who talks to people so there's a lot of new shifting of uh personnel that we're dealing with um the good news is that we are being very transparent the superintendent has had conversation with bonnie therian the acting superintendent to inform her of the update and timeline referendum and to request a timeline from the bond council so that we have further refined our schedule there are funds in the two percent reserve to cover the costs of the referendum so we're trying to make it happen make it work keep positive and overcome the kovic obstacles that we've been working with right along and board members that were

111present you want to add anything or have any concerns or questions um no just the the one concern that came up um it was like a red flag for me was when he said they may need architectural renditions of the the buildings and we all kind of like stared at them because that's a cost that usually is put into the referendum um as to who the architects are going to be and how much that will be but um that was a red flag for me that night i hope it gets by it well the good news is that i think everybody at the table felt the same way and we basically looked at collier to find out you know is this part of the program how are we going to do it and our other

112districts suffering with this same question so john to that point just so that i can be clear here it is still our intent to move forward full steam ahead with the grant application going before the state of connecticut on the 30th of june so that we can get on the priority list the idea of pushing out the referendum as you said gives us a little more time to be able to provide a deliverable and what that deliverable is right now are the scenarios in the update with the uh enrollment report in addition to that is what bobby said is there are some leadership changes at the state level and there is some question as to whether or not the state would require schematic drawings that would require us then to go and to seek out

113an architect to provide that drawing my suggestion at last week's meeting was that we get all of our data together as updated as possible including educational specifications which the two schools are working on right now in addition to that the environmental assessment which i received the draft of yesterday you'll have your packet on friday 250 pages per elementary school for both hammer and high crest in addition to that i want to be able to bring forward the updated enrollment figures so we can meet with the state and get a clear commitment as to them supporting our effort and again i think the key piece is here we want to do it right we're not you know this is not a sprint this is a marathon it's going to take a lot of time but i

114want to make sure we're doing it right and as you had said mr cassio we had the geotechnical borings we did review those at the meeting and found uh with the cursory look at each site both hammer and high crest there was nothing that would preclude us from being able to build on either of those sites so the other thing is that people need to understand this is going to happen tomorrow this is a long range project this is 10 years in them working and the group has been meeting for the past five trying to figure out what we're going to be doing with our schools elementary schools at this time so it's a work in progress you got to keep positive and that you we're becoming very enthusiastic and you know every there's a

115lot of bumps in the road i guess that's a good way to say it and that we're moving in a positive way and with the leadership of the superintendent and the communication with the town manager and the town council i think that's imperative that it has to be a community environment so thank you moving on to meetings scheduled policy and planning 124 22 which has already happened mr emma do you want to give us a quick update as mr riley is not here yeah absolutely be happy to um the policy planning committee actually did meet last evening over the stillman building i had a series of policies through our council shipment of goodwin that needed update and attention so we've added those policies as a committee and i am pleased to say that these policies

116will be coming before you for a first read at the february 8th board of education meeting thank you continuing on meetings scheduled community and public relations 127 22 at 6 pm we also not listed is our first budget workshop for the board of education that's on february 5th 2022 at 9 00 a.m at stillman building there's weather for early childhood collaborative on 2 7 22 at 4 30 p.m and there will also be a finance meeting on 2 8 20 22 at 6 pm before the next board meeting there's no unfinished business [Music] public comment anyone in the public wishing to make comment please come to the podium state your name and address and you have five minutes seeing none public comment is closed board comment any board members wishing to make comment yes mr

117roberts yes i just noticed that um in reading the friday packet that the weathersfield high school's winter musical is going to be cinderella i've seen this it's an updated version of the traditional cinderella story and it's a complete delight and perfect medicine for covert weary coping weary community perfect also i noticed in the hartford current let's see this was monday of weathersfield senior had um on the opinion page had a op-ed column on why you need to visit your local movie theater very well written explaining why we can't wait until covet is over because then the movie theaters might be gone by then and have some movies are you just have to see them on the big screen but in any case just the fact that ivana rodriguez put herself out there and was published

118i think that's really remarkable and she deserves a lot of praise for that thank you anyone else wishing my comment all right see none do we have a motion to adjourn so move to second second all in favor say aye aye aye opposed abstentions motion carries thank you