001uh [Music] good evening everyone as chairman of the board of hartford border bed i hereby call to order april 19 2022's regular meeting i wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present and to our television viewers the board superintendent and i are pleased that you have joined us to celebrate achievement review information make policy decisions related to the effective operation of harford public schools this is a regular meeting and all items that will be discussed or voted this evening have been posted as required by state law as hartford board of education we are here to set goals listen to the reports of the superintendent approve budgets contracts and personnel appointments in addition make policy for the district we are not here to make management decisions or solve the problems of individuals management is the
002responsibility of the superintendent the monthly meetings of the board are open to the public there are a time when the board conducts its business of governing the school system in a public arena therefore comments from the audience will be confined to the time designated for public to address the board the quorum and courtesy are important elements in effective public meetings please silence your phones or communication devices and refrain from talking while others are speaking since it is legally mandated that proceedings be accurately recorded i may have to ask for order periodically should noise begin to interfere with our recording capabilities i am pleased that you have taken this time to join us this evening we are very proud of the school system and thank you for your interest at hartford public schools now this will
003be read in spanish buenas noches el presidente de la junta de educacion de hartford esta union individuals hartford thank you before we begin this meeting we have a very special and deserving presentation from the superintendent [Music] thank you we're actually going to start by celebrating our students our families and our staff we have been laser focused on student engagement specifically absenteeism prior to the pandemic and we doubled our efforts in the last year to lower chronic absenteeism and boost average daily attendance right two areas that have significantly impacted uh have been impacted throughout our district state and even beyond as a result of covet impact and in the past couple of months each of our schools hosted a series of exciting initiatives to encourage students to attend school each day to improve their relationships with
004one another with with the adults with families and when omicron variant hit this winter our absenteeism went up to 47 in january as of april 8 is now down to 44 our average daily attendance is now up 87 percent after being 82 in january now by now you should know that in hartford public schools we don't shy away from difficult and complex situations right we really work hard and while these numbers are not where we want to be we recognize the tremendous efforts that all of our students and staff have made to create this positive momentum moving us into spring so shout out to corinne clark barney our executive director who is the district-wide attendance lead for organizing these events and so we want to do a little celebration because in february our teams invited
005all students in pre-k through 12th grade to create a video or poster theme with attendance all day every day so they had to incorporate the the words all day every day into their projects they had to show what makes them want to come to school creativity thoughtfulness all very impressive and so we asked our community partners our families the entire district to vote on their favorite video and poster so lots of votes and now we have some winners so uh miss barney when i call your name if you can join us and let's let's have some celebration here in the best video category receiving honorable mention is the team from capitol prep grace hill jaden senior and ashoy frey demetrius mack shout out to them so come on up and i see proud principal dr
006ferguson here as well leadership matters dr ferguson thank you for all that you and your team does i'm going to continue in third place is west middle school josh schreder and mr colleen grimes from west middle are they here yay [Applause] congratulations second place is my sixth fourth grade at tanza's learning lab can we clap for first place or just thank you i mean second place second place well i think they want a picture just by themselves um t west middle step aside for just no the oh no the other way i think they want a little love just for them for a minute first first place first place with the best video in our attendance challenge with 48 of the votes parkville community school nicholas houchfield and christopher fitzner congratulations [Applause] congratulations board members
007please go up we'll take a group photo real quick we may have to do rolls uh maybe the students in the front so we could do two rows and the adults in the back or the shorter students okay all right [Applause] ms santiago do you have a visual for us so can we look at the winning video please send it [Music] we're glad you're here we love you a lot we [Music] it's cool put a smile on your face [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's cool put a smile on your face [Music] it's our favorite place it's cool put a smile on your face [Music] so [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] so great now for the best visual poster awards receiving honorable mentions our breakthrough north and lady amber elise and elia daily from naylor congratulations [Applause] because
008this everyone is what it's all about [Applause] ugh just because [Applause] [Laughter] and let's call down now in third place mcdonough middle school i believe proud principal this rice and her [Applause] all team and following behind them second place kenny ortiz fifth grader from sanchez school [Applause] and in first place with 31 of the votes the dances learning lab congratulations to second grade students our second graders div yakate and myla garzan [Applause] and maybe we can see the winning poster on our screen one second and now we could go up to take a photo as a board [Applause] get you to work excuse me he's over here all right congratulations to all of our schools and a big thank you to our students and our staff and of course our families we're so proud of
009all of your work and you should be all proud of yourselves as well and we can see the visual so [Music] before everyone goes i just want to give another acknowledgement a round of applause for all the winners today everyone that participated [Applause] thank you again um now we'll move to on to public comments uh board member aj johnson thank you so much uh chairman we as the board in collaboration with the superintendent in district leadership are committed to cultivating a culture of excellence at all levels of hartford public schools we thank you for taking time to attend tonight's board meeting we appreciate you coming out to learn more about harford public schools and for sharing your thoughts and concerns we have established a protocol to track and respond to concerns raised we want you
010to know that we take your concerns seriously and to that end staff will follow up within 48 hours if follow-up is required via the preferred method of contact the speaker has indicated on the sign-in sheet we will follow this no contact method of follow-up for the time being adhering to safety protocols as a reminder you have three minutes to speak at the two-minute mark the bell will ring letting you know that you have one minute left at the second bell please wrap up your comments now this will be read in spanish and our first speaker is lindsay pasquale [Music] hi hello i'm lindsay pasquale i'm here with hartford pflag hartford p flag we're in the organization of lgbtq people and allies we specialize in education support and advocacy i'm grateful for hartford p flag because
011they were there for me when i needed support i'm here today because i wanted to not to complain about anything i wanted to say thank you to superintendent leslie torres rodriguez we wanted to thank you for uh centering students under that are under your care for providing them with a safe environment to learn and to grow without hiding and that's all i have to say thank you very much and i was glad i got to see the video it's a hard thing to follow [Applause] michael downs my name is michael downs i live at 74 rosemont street in hartford i'm president of harvard federation substitute teachers i notice the love your block grant item 5.5 on the consent agenda concerning a mural my good friend uh carrie saxon perry i knew her well when she
012was uh mayor of hartford for three terms and i worked with her uh often uh when she was the several years that she was president of the greater hartford branch of the uh uh naacp and uh she was a class lady and she deserves every bit of honor that we could give her and i certainly urge you to pass this uh item on the on the agenda secondly i had a informative meeting with my union leadership had an informative meeting with the central office human resources division and we look forward to uh negotiations in our upcoming contract this year and usually i stay here until the end of the meeting but tonight i have a medical procedure at the veterans hospital in west haven so i have to leave early but i will see you
013next month thank you [Applause] david olio good evening my name is david olio i'm from amsterdam connecticut i teach at the university of connecticut here at the hartford branch but primarily i'm here as the founder and director of the allen foundation the allen foundation is a non-profit organization designed to advocate and be allies for lgbtq interested students those students who are interested in the arts and social justice the organization seeks to conduct its allyship through a scholarship that we offer each year and we are offering again this year but primarily i'm here to rise in support of superintendent's policies and to encourage those policies to make safe spaces for all students in hartford as somebody who deeply cares about this hartford community our pluralistic democratic society demands of us to make room for every voice
014and i congratulate the superintendent for for that set of policies and would encourage continued systemic and institutional reflection to determine further ways that can support students who implicitly and explicitly face challenges uh to acceptance so thank you very much and i appreciate being able to speak this evening hyacinth yanny good evening everyone board members superintendent as always thank you guys for serving um and i want to congratulate congratulate the kids and the staff for doing a great job and hoping that we can get more student attending school at a daily base what do we do to make that happen we have to put a lot more effort out to make sure that happens uh i'm here because i have a couple questions um i know you won't answer me now but i get a return
015call or something um i was wondering how that project come going with the 2.5 million dollar that we spend um to do um after school program to let our kids catch up and doing better in school since they're not maybe attending school i like to know where we're at with that how many kids are actually there actually serving and stuff like that um and i know superintendent you most likely know that um so i would like to know as a resident as a taxpayer as a leader i'd like to know the second thing i like to know is when um our parents are going to be able to get back into our into the school building into our buildings okay because i know right now parents are not allowed to be in a building so
016i like to know that and board members i would encourage you to adapt to school and adapting a school means you'll go into that school and announce to know what's going on in your building that's the only way you'll hear the truth about what's happening all right so if you do that i know you all have jobs and stuff like that but you need to take that time because you can't go by hearsay and the outside you need to know what's going on our principal continue to need support and our teachers need support because when principles are supported teachers are supported okay when they feel good about things they do good for our children so i encourage you to do that and as we continue to lose our teachers we need to ask the question
017why are we losing them at such drastic rate okay are they happy or are they unhappy we need to know that are they being respected are they unrespected so we need to address all those issues because hartford public school are losing their staff members and i want to congratulate all the new principles that got appointed you know why because you are going to need support you're going to need a lot of support okay and so if there's anything i can do to make sure you guys get the support please let me know i'm an advocate for education because i know education can take our children out of poverty okay so that's really important to us is a community thank you [Applause] jackie harris stone good evening my name is jackie harris stone pronouns they and
018them first from the trans and non-binary community i want to give a shout out to the amazing kiddos who have been brave enough to be their real selves and the amazing families who support them you make the world a better place nowadays the advance of medicine and awareness means our trans and non-binary kids have the opportunity to stop puberty changes that are wrong for them have have time to think of what puberty changes are right opportunities my generation did not have this is life-changing life-giving and literally life-saving 42 of trans kids will attempt suicide yet with support of school and at home including starting puberty occurs this elevated risk can be eliminated i'm here because of a specific situation and to thank you for your support in it i understand that the administration has been
019sterile in a response to the situation and and for that i highly commend it i would imagine with this supportiveness you would be open to reviewing the research proven steps to prevent a recurrence there are four found in glsen school climate survey the two i would like to highlight are a trans and non-binary policy which the board could pass and training research that came out this summer shows that a specific trans and non-binary cult policy cuts acts of discrimination in half that's significant i'm sure if you had to a chance to flip a coin and have tails magically erase the incident that happened you would and so briefly there are two part policies you should look at cape has published one that sums up the state transgender guidance and glsen has a more comprehensive one
020both include clear guidelines on privacy the second is training like with policy trans and non-binary kids experience significantly less bullying and have better attendance performance connection with the school with more identifiable eyes in the school we've seen this past month that those are needed the most effective step in correcting allies is training i would encourage you to do a district-wide training for nurses with tony fariolo i would also encourage you to engage tony or some of the other trainers available in the state such as peer pride new haven pride the regional ymca program and q plus for all district personnel some are free all are willing to work within budget in the face of a very strong anti-trans act the district taking these steps to lower it would be both meaningful and impactful i hope
021you will follow up your exemplary response so far with action to prevent this from happening again thank you for your time [Applause] ace rigger hello my name is ace ricker i am here to make sure that there is a adult voice that are supporting our young lgbtq plus and non-binary youth i myself am a trans man uh so i was i tend to identify as a man and was born female and for myself growing up and dealing with the massive hurdles of trying to figure out the struggles not only with the curriculum that i was doing in school and finding my way through education i was faced with lots of hurdles and unfortunate policies that were not put in place when i was young and the harassment and the lack of education to staff and
022teachers and to students caused lots of trauma i unfortunately found myself in statistics that you just heard feeling that i was alone and unsupportive and i applaud you on the steps you are taking to make sure that the lgbtq plus community is being shown that they have been supported and that they will continue to be supportive because right now along with this pandemic these young kids that are coming to be our future are dealing with so many struggles and one of those is their identity and i applaud the work you're doing and continuing that work because of the struggles i face i don't want any of these young kids to have to deal with those type of struggles and what you've heard now with training and consistent education i'm a board member of q plus
023and do trainings but whoever you go with make sure this education and these conversations are consistently had that they're not just stopped at this conversation at this public hearing because not only as a trans person i'm a person of color and more obstacles that each individual faces gets harder and harder to even sit down in a classroom and educate themselves when they're already facing so much that shouldn't be in front of them when they're sitting down to just better themselves as an individual i'm fortunate to be a part of the queer community and stand up for the queer community and grown up to be a person that can be a voice for those who have been shut out graduating from uconn have a great career and i'll make sure all of the youth the youth
024that were here that were honored today the youth that can't be here to hear my voice and other voices that we stand behind them and i'm glad that you're standing behind them too thank you male corner i have to stop signing up after you [Music] i have to follow that so i'm mal i use they them i'm the founding executive director of q plus um i could just echo everything y'all said q plus does a lot of different queer youth programs and groups including friday night activities open mics all kinds of things call me um we also do a lot of professional development and consultations with schools including helping folks to rewrite their policy so again call me and i usually come to these things to kind of like bully the school administration but today
025i'm going to echo a few other folks and say that i'm here to say thank you for doing what you should be doing you're supporting and protecting the trans youth in your schools i will echo a few stats trans youth are about 40 or about 40 of trans youth attempt suicide the risk is up to 90 when those trans youth are supported by even one adult in their lives and that can include your teacher your parent whatever that risk can go down to as little as four percent it's a huge difference so supporting trans youth is super important and literally life-saving so it's not enough to just like stop at this one event or make sure that this one young person does not come into contact with this one staff member again because any one
026young person could be queer non-binary trans and not out yet anyone could be affected by that so you're doing the right thing by protecting all of your students and by affirming all of your students so i'm here to say thank you for that and i'm here to say keep doing that [Applause] jennifer quay hudson hello oh can i can you hear me through the mask yes my name is jennifer koi hudson and i'm the movement builder uh building and external affairs director for connecticut voices for children i'm here today to testify in support of the superintendent's action to protect lgbtq plus young people in hartford public schools connecticut voices for children is a research-based child advocacy organization working to ensure that all connecticut children have an equitable opportunity to achieve their full potential in our
0272018 report promoting positive identity development for youth we found that adolescence is a critical time for the development of sexual and gender identities evidence demonstrates that the early teens are a time when many youth begin to understand and label their sexual orientation and expressing their identity to friends and family almost 14 percent of middle school and high school students identify as having a sexual orientation other than straight and about three percent of students identify as having a gender identity that does not correspond with their uh their birth sex actually i'm gonna take this off unfortunately many youth experience harassment due to their sexual orientation and gender identities some youth have had to leave their homes due to rejection by their families because of their identity in 2015 more than half of connecticut queer youth sec
028in secondary education reported experiencing verbal harassment 16 reported being physically harassed and 5 reported being physically assaulted all because of their gender expression more than 8 in 10 reported hearing negative remarks about gender expression at school queer youth are already at heightened risk for negative mental health outcomes including chronic sadness thoughts of suicide compares to heterosexual youth the trevor project found in 2021 that 42 of queer youth uh seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year including more than half of trans and non-binary youth i'm actually going to skip ahead the presence of supportive and affirming teachers including teachers who share queer identities and teachers who share sexual identities with queer students however increases queer students attendance academic outcomes and self-esteem while there is no official estimate of the percentages of the teaching workforce identify
029as queer estimates hover around three percent increasing teacher diversity increasing the tools teachers have to support students and enacting policies to ensure that young people experience a positive climate at school are all critical pieces of improving a queer student school experience young people are in school buildings more than a third of their day educators and school building staffers are more than just people who meet students academic needs there are children's caregivers mentors and protectors the district stood up for our children and stayed true to its mission of creating a safe and welcoming environment for all families and for that we thank you [Applause] stephen wilson good afternoon everyone um my name is stephen wilson i am a proud parent of two weaver high school kids go here um i want to kind of want to
030come down and show my support for sneakers a little tall here give me a second um i wanted to show my support for the appointment of tiffany webley um i think her appointment is a shows a concerted effort to provide excellence here at weaver high school stability consistency something that our kids surely need i believe weaver high school is a unique task for a leader to which i think she's uniquely qualified being from this community and the kids from what i hear uh they love her here and see um but we need to support her um as a community administration board of education over public schools um all stakeholders we need to support not just her but all our principles so that we can reach a common goal as a community and that's providing excellent
031education in our high schools for our kids so that's basically why i want to come down here i would also like to talk about really quickly um in providing support you know not just to principal but also to our teachers um and what that support looks like right resources um being able to keep teachers and seeing how we can do that obviously someone else brought it up that you know we're losing teachers at an alarming rate um and i think that's something that we that really needs to look into needs to be looked into um so providing that support and those resources i know that here at weaver high school um there's another point here at weaver high school we have a beautiful radio station tv equipment but one of the plans here at weaver
032high school was to provide a curriculum for our students to be able to take advantage of the radio station and the tv station um but we don't have that yet and i know that you know there's been a lot of fluctuation with the opening of this school but that's something also that i would like the board to really take an interest in and take a look at because it's something that you know what's the point of having our tv equipment and our radio station if our kids aren't taking advantage of it i'm a graduate of weewa high school i was on the radio station i loved it every kid wanted to be on the radio station or know about it 89.9 and they provided for the kid it was more a club back then but
033they provided a lot of opportunities for kids instead of being outside or having dreams of you know um working in the industry it gave them their first step into that um i think that's we can do 10 times better than when i was in high school based on the resources that we have so i'd like to see a concerted effort um in bringing that curriculum to ewa high school once again congratulations tiff [Applause] carol gail good evening members of the board and superintendent my name is carol gale and i'm the president of the harvard federation of teachers i come before you tonight to speak on the role of the union and my position within it unions are democratic organizations whereby members elect their representatives and those representatives are accountable to the members the hft executive
034board has 11 such elected officers our job is to listen to our members and advocate on their behalf we represent approximately two thousand members in six different chapters spanning a dozen or so job categories upon hearing our members concerns we provide information referral advocacy or intervention concerns may be individual or district-wide this often brings us in contact with various administrators in central office at times we successfully resolve the concern thanks to efforts of chief avila senior executive director banks attorney wilson chief negron and others sometimes we are not able to resolve matters to our members satisfaction for issues that are outside the language of our five collective bargaining agreements that we oversee and that are not satisfactorily resolved we have at our disposal our first amendment rights to address these through the freedoms of the
035press speech assembly and petition although all of our members have such rights many are not comfortable exercising them for fear of retaliation we as union officers can be their mouthpiece an officer of the union can speak out because our positions are not subordinate they are equal to management when you hear an hft officer address this body or any other public audience we are speaking on behalf of all hft members whatever message hft delivers it is as a result of listening to the needs of our members when we say our school-based staff are overworked and under too much stress it is because every school in our district has brought that message to their union when we say fully fund our schools it is because we listen to other unions representing every other unionized position in the
036district and they share this need do my 30 years of classroom experience help me in this role yes does having worked in district schools magnet schools north and south and elementary middle and high schools helped me yes does being raised in hartford raising a child of color in hartford and now being a grandparent of two beautiful and capable grandchildren of color help me yes but the greatest skill that helps me succeed in my role as president of the hft is that i listen and regardless of what some may say about me or the hft i will not stop being a fierce and outspoken advocate for union members and for every student in this district because no one knows better what students need than the professionals in our schools thank you [Applause] john walton and as
037the last speaker he is exercising his right to speak twice good evening superintendent and distinguished board members first i'd like to acknowledge all the students here which my daughter happened to be one that received awards for their uh achievements and i'd like to acknowledge the unions that are here too superintendent local 566 would like to thank you for the appointment of the chiefs specific to facilities and food service office of talent management and community partnerships the chiefs have been vital in facilitating leadership meetings to address our local concerns in addition their appointment has allowed the structuring of vital of a virtual job fair which has provided opportunities to the community their involvement has led to the process of implementing a potential yearly youth partnership program that will be a great benefit to our hartford students
038families and hartford public schools in the lion's opinion the chiefs you have appointed in these specific areas are executing your vision and mission of developing our departments to enhance hartford public schools district model of excellence it is evident to the union superintendent that the appointment of the chiefs to overlook our department specifically indicates two things one you have identified there were issues in our departments and two the leadership personnel in these departments were and are incapable of dressing of addressing these issues although local 566 appreciates the chiefs answering and addressing our concerns many of these concerns predated their appointment the leadership that was in place over the last decade were responsible for the direction in which the departments will go our directors should be capable of answering and our answering and addressing our union's questions
039and concerns let me start by acknowledging food service direction which has addressed our concerns and is currently moving forward in a positive direction one example why this is happening is their ability to yearly train develop update our members adversely facilities direction has been moving in an opposite direction this brings us to why the union initiated the theme of reflection which is character behavior and investment in the union's opinion over the last decade or more based on the unprofessional and compromised relationships between department leaders and local 566 leadership has contributed and these department leaders lacking in these qualities let me explain how character and behavior has negatively negatively affected investment you may be asking yourselves what does this mean let us start by asking this question question number one in the last decade has facilities had
040any professional developments or trainings for our members to update and enhance their trades question number two is the training of is training available in the facility's budget for personnel question number three do we have enough mechanical and structural workers to maintain and support all of our facilities and question number four do the vendors that we use for structural and mechanical maintenance train our personnel to be capable of supporting our facilities projects in march the union asked several questions about investment it is our opinion facilities direction has underdeveloped our members so that they would not be capable of performing maintenance necessities this behavior has led to work being outsourced unnecessarily everyone here needs to ask themselves this question why is hartford public schools facilities department incapable of internally handling and supporting most of its projects why
041are we not able to utilize other city of hartford services to help support our facilities department it is in the union's opinion that the motive of underdevelopment has directly led to these high-priced contracts that facilitate inappropriate and unprofessional relationships between department leaders and vending companies we believe that operations is parallel with academics we feel that the direction of facilities department has been moving in the wrong direction the union is recommending that there should be a survey or a vote of confidence or non-confidence of our department leader as done by many other committees throughout the district this survey or this vote would provide harford the harford community and the board of education an opportunity to review its operational direction this oversight process would give stakeholders of the harford community the ability to evaluate and understand how
042our financial resources are applied and who is responsible for making these decisions this process will also incentivize department leader to make transparent and ethical decisions it is the union's opinion due to nepotism between vendors and department leaders vendor behavior mimics facility department leaders behavior in a negative aspect in conclusion 85 percent of our membership are the harford community stakeholders and are dedicated to seeing harford public schools operations function efficiently economically ethically and successfully again thank you board members and superintendent for your attention that concludes public comment thank you we now move on to the report of the chair in an effort to make a good use of time tonight we will skip the individual committee reports however full reports as well as attachments are available on board docs under each committee as a reminder all
043committee and workshop meetings are live streamed as well as viewable after the meeting the youtube links are saved in each meetings agenda board on board docs and i encourage the community to view the meetings and read through the reports when possible if you have any questions please contact christina santiago our board liaison at santiago at harfordschools.org last month the superintendent shared attendance data attendance data dashboard the data and the sharing of that data is important to us the tools help us increase transparency raise awareness within our communities and really serve as a as a as our true north as we look to engage with parents and students we anticipate this information will build greater support and understanding for all of us we often hear the superintendent talk about continuous improvement data cycles and this is
044our opportunity to observe progress on more on a more frequent basis and to understand where our schools and students need support the superintendent and her team will be implementing a communication strategy for our community which will include online learning about the dashboard elements as well as forums and focus group to understand your interest in further developing these tools during her report the superintendent will give a brief visual overview of the dashboards i do want to note that these dashboards that we will be reviewing today or tonight rather are the same dashboards that my colleagues and i use when when having pop when having policy discussions with the superintendent as it relates to what i would call our strategic partnership committee assignments i do want to make a note of board members and their assigned committees
045correct will be kim oliver cabe and jomoke academy will be pastor aj johnson harford public library will be tyrone walker achievement first will be francois ledger and lastly we will be appointing jahira escobano to hartford schools and building committee now we'll move on to the report of the superintendent thank you and before i go into my um report i do want to take a few moments to just acknowledge that as many of some of uh some of you might know that we we have received a lot of media attention in recent weeks both locally nationally and i've learned even internationally regarding a staff member that was placed on administrative leave and while i'm not going to discuss that specifically tonight i do want to share that you know since that story was reported there have
046been biased hostile dishonest responses from select groups some of these responses questioned our district's policies and our values and even went as far as to accuse our staff of criminal activity the district has received threatening messages the majority of those directed at myself harford police continue to investigate the threats so students and staff might notice added security on school grounds this is a decision that has been made out of an abundance of caution and because of this reaction i want to make it abundantly clear what our policies and our values are per policy 5152 our staff are prohibited from administering any sort of medication to students without written consent from a medical provider and a parent or guardian administering medication without this authorization would be both a violation of our policies and is also illegal
047we work in partnership with our parents about all matters affecting their child's well-being it is and it will continue to be our mission to do right by each and every one of our students we know that we need the support of our families to accomplish that per the proposed policy 6144.1 says that the hartford board of education shall permit curricular exemptions as required by law specifically upon the written request of a parent or guardian received by the school district prior to planned instruction in very specific areas this policy is actually scheduled for first reading tonight this is work that we have began doing already the vast majority as a matter of fact the overwhelming majority of our staff strive to create welcoming caring and inclusive environments for our students and for their colleagues so that
048everyone can thrive this includes accepting students identities whatever they may be and making sure that every single moment our students feel safe physically and emotionally i know that there is no doubt in my mind and there is no doubt in my heart that we will continue to dedicate our lives to our students and that there is nothing more important to us than seeing them succeed and we will be there for each and every one of our students even through the struggles you know this board and i and our staff will continue to focus on becoming a nighttime racist and an anti-biased organization that work is actually never ending through policy through resource allocation through our professional learning through our support of one another so we will continue to do that work and that means that
049when we talk about equity and anti-racism and anti-bias we are going to have difficult conversations and we're going to look at the challenges straight ahead we're going to stare at them and then decide how are we going to collectively push each other to make it right for all of our students and for our staff for our families and for our community i will now shift to my report i want to highlight that selected third and eighth grade students were invited to participate in a free four-day academic academic session as you know our inter session for english language arts so about 135 students average attendance every day so i want to just thank our educators our students and our families for not only dedicating some of their saturdays to professional learning but also showing up for
050our students during the april break some good news the national association of music merchants foundation awarded us the 2022 best communities for music education award is a is an award that is a national recognition based on a variety of factors within a district including standards-based curriculum having a certain number of music teachers with master's degrees or beyond the number of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch and the diversity of courses that we offer so i want to pause and congratulate our music teachers for continuing to bring high quality music education to our students an update on uh some of our recruitment efforts specifically the pasua paso the step by step um you know we had a target to bring on uh 10 that was the goal that we had our audacious goal was
05115 want to report that we have accepted 17 bilingual educators as you know the district has a partnership now with three universities in puerto rico and many of those educators already certified and will be focused on tesol by lingual elementary math special education starting next school year so you know shout out to our external partner travelers for funding uh this uh initiative and to uh daisy torres our director of services for multilingual learners learners world and dual language programs doctrinal ground dr curtis and even our senior advisor in the communications team for uh last minute marketing efforts i think we heard in public comment that there was a reference to our virtual hiring recruitment virtual open house for recruiting non-certified staff including para educators our school security food service substitute teachers and more so i
052want to just lift and acknowledge the hard work that our talent management team and all of the departments who were there to represent and speak to their departmental needs congratulations there an update on increased staff incentives and for those staff that are either here or are at home if you have not received the email tonight you will tomorrow morning but it is um specifically focused on recognizing the importance of investing in our dedicated and hard working staff so we are increasing the incentives not only to celebrate our collective accomplishments but to promote attention to promote retention and uh continue to recruit and retain the best in our district and so you'll see um details and board members who receive a copy of this later tonight or tomorrow morning increased staff incentives we we know last
053year there was a year-end gratitude incentive so we'll have an increase on that one employee referral bonuses have increased to fifteen hundred dollars uh returning bonuses for next year uh increase in the team mentor stipends and the cooperating teacher stipends and then specifically for summer school because as you know we are already uh you know on the way to establish the summer programming for next for this summer and so we have also increased summer stipends across all of our staff from teachers to counselors to power educators custodian food services again we encourage everyone to apply soon so that we can make sure that we have staff needed for for our summer programming and as our chairman of the board referenced of the dashboards ms santiago if you don't mind just a quick visual for our
054community and so this uh so last time i did give a quick visual on the attendance dashboard and so we you know the board has their dashboard that covers all of our major and secondary goals and so christina if you go to yeah all the way just so that i can walk you through a quick visual and this by the way will be included this link this is a live link that anyone can access um and so if you can scroll down a little bit so that we can see that visual it's just an overview of our major and secondary goals through 2024 which is right the three-year strategic plan and as you go across the ribbon on the top we have enrollment but then we dig into each of our major goals and so
055um again it's where we currently are how we're trending and of course data are disaggregated by our subgroups because we want to continue to stay focused on our students that are that need uh additional supports across to you know from literacy to math to chronic absenteeism this was the the visual that we shared with you last time and uh you know across the ribbon are all of our goals that align to our four priorities um i do want to acknowledge and thank our school leaders um we did um for for several reasons one because they have uh several of our school leaders have been part of focus groups with uh dr silver and and her team to inform the development of the dashboards uh that they also are using so we have a number of
056dashboards that we're using across the district and most recently we did engage our our school leaders because we wanted to hear feedback from them as to um you know what were their hopes and fears from sharing uh this specific dashboard with our community um and so do want to thank them for the trends in their feedback which included you know that they wanted to make sure that uh the data were not um and i'll use the word uh quote their word weaponized uh to uh you know paint this negative narrative as to are schools not working hard are leaders not working hard and so i wanted to acknowledge that that was a concern that they had and their recommendations several one of which was to make sure that we build capacity that we take time
057to provide training for our community for our families to really understand the meaning of these data and how to monitor and be partners in our improvement work so just wanted to pause and acknowledge the feedback that we heard from the leaders and that we are taking that into action and dr silver along with our communications team will develop not only the communications team but focus groups with sgc's and even parents um you know as we as we end the school year and into the summer and um that concludes my report chairman thank you superintendent i was very robust and i appreciate the partnership and the effort as we again move forward on our goals that we've outlined as a board we will now move to the business agenda item 4.1 administrative appointment of sorry sorry
058okay item 4.1 administrative appointment of izzy figuero no i was just saying before usually there's a pause and there's a space after the superintendent's um report i don't want to i do have a comment i don't it's not going to be like a back and forth it's something i wanted to mention for the record if i could sure so pertaining to because we're not it would have naturally came under the committees but because we're not discussing um committees this evening there's just um two items that i think should be a part of a committee at some point in time one being it's a cng easement at 415 granby street which is they're trying to connect the university of hartford to a fuel cell and they want to have a gas line put under riva high
059school so that's being in the discussed in the community but it's not being discussed with the board so i would like to put that out there the second in the school building committee there was discussed about the closing of the weaver project like due to the construction being completed but for anyone who has been paying attention weaver high school in in committee we've been discussing the fire alarm system and what went in and what was out for bid et cetera so i'm a little bit uncomfortable that we would be closing before we get the project manager the construction guys to answer the questions that are still on the table that's two the third i just wanted to make a comment that i don't think the general public knows that the board cannot board members is
060actually policy that we cannot just show up at a school unannounced i would love to show up at our school's unannounced but maybe that's something that could be revisited in our policy committee because we have to make an appointment to visit a school which never lets us have the see the natural environment because we all know there's announcement when certain people are coming to the school and there's because i worked in school so i know there's like a someone's coming you know get on your best behavior and even some incentives that go along with that um that still happens today because i do still have a child in a system so i wish we could so i just wanted to get those three points on record thank you um board member uh i'm sorry is
061anyone else that wants to no that's one point if i can get a just point of clarification could you just recite again that that line going under weaver high it's referred to as a the cng easement at 415 granby street and we know we were high i went through i graduated from weaver so 415 granby street is like engraved um but that's what it's referred to and i believe um city council have discussed it um but it's so connecting like fuel cells this is not just unique to this project i've heard of it on homestead so i don't know if they can connect it in west hartford and bring it to the university off because they're actually in west hartford but it's to come i'm assuming from the granby street side to go under to
062the university of hartford so it's referred to in everything i've seen as the cng easement at 415 granby street and i was like we have not discussed that and i just didn't want you know the general public to think that we've just said oh we don't do what you want we have not discussed it and it is not on our radar and i just wanted to let everyone know that that's not something we've not bought to the public i understand okay appreciate that um i think it is worthwhile to that you have brought that up and let's make sure that we discuss that in an appropriate committee um just moving back again to the agenda uh business agenda item 4.1 administrative appointment of easy figueroa the motion at the border that the board approved the
063superintendent's recommendation to appoint easy as figueroa to the position of principal at parkville community school superintendent thank you esmeralda azifa garowa is a proud graduate of harper public schools having attended burns cork myrtle and harford high as part of the classical magnet program she went on to pursue a degree in psychology while also earning her elementary education certification from the university of saint joe's st joseph's she earned her master's and six-year degrees from central connecticut state university in remedial and corrective reading grades k-12 and then went on to obtain her 092 her administrator certification through the educational leadership program she has dedicated her career to serving students and families for the last 22 years as a teacher in magnet and neighborhood schools having taught in third through eighth grade dean of students culture and climate
064coach assistant principal and now the acting principal at parkville community school i want to remind everyone that this appointment before you and all the other appointments tonight you know were part of our process and and policy and and guidelines with regard to the suc uh at the school and uh i know that chief avila you might have additional um things to say i'll i will do a quick overview and then if there are any questions you can also answer she has con acting principal figueroa has completed extensive district training with implementation in restorative practices particularly well in her role as a school culture and climate coach at mcdonough middle and assistant principal at maria sanchez through her efforts and collaboration with staff through community building daily advisory meetings developing respect agreements using restorative circles to
065repair harm we have seen that the discipline referrals and suspensions have decreased over had decreased over a three year period she created opportunities for students to be exposed to unique experiences such as participating in peace jams developing robust and rich enrichment programs and she has found ways to collaborate with staff in order to celebrate our student attendance as we saw today she's really focused on implementing the instructional vision based on high expectations with students at the center leaving the school with new staff and you know a focus on making sure that there's fidelity to our curriculum and betting a strategies that allow students to access the curriculum given the high multilingual population of students at maria sanchez where she was before and currently at parkville and i can go on and on let's see increasing
066average daily attendance has been a highlight especially during the last six months at parkville leading the efforts in our ace team having including weekly grade level incentives you know we we know that the efforts resulted in parkvilles being number one during the march madness attendance challenge cond they concluded with a 92 percent average daily attendance clearly miss figueroa has been deeply committed to harvard public schools and so she she has and continues to show that she will commit to continuingly create this school community where students families feel seen heard respected and valued so i'll pause there in case there are any questions back to you chairman thank you um before we continue with the um with the motion that's on the floor i just realized that i did forget a step so i do apologize
067um again i'll repeat item 4.1 administrative appointment to appoint um izzy figueroa the motion is the board to that the board approves the superintendent's recommendation to appoint izzy figueroa to the position of principal at parkville community school do i have a motion second okay miss figaro will you like to come up and chief alvaro have anyone do it yeah so with that um i wanted to see if the board had any questions pastor aj johnson greetings miss uh figueroa it's so good to uh see you um i've read your resume and it's very impressive and it seems like you have uh facilitated some leadership around sgc's which we hold as as the gold standard here right if the sgc doesn't want it we don't want it either right so um do you mind just sharing
068um your experience working with sgc's and how do you plan to keep that positive momentum and energy at your uh at your school good evening is it working though okay good evening board members uh so my collective work with school governance councils has been ever expanding having been a part of the school governance council as a teacher having served at breakthrough magnet school prior also serving in a leadership capacity through being an acting principal it is essential and it's important that we have all the voices and the representations of all of the members of the school governance council we know that that includes our parents whose voices absolutely need to be heard and we need to have a equal representation of a diverse school governance council so that we are hearing all voices um inclusive
069of that would also need to make sure that we have the community-based organizations that we have that we're able to draw from and and work within our communities and of course our teachers our teachers are valuable members also of our school governance councils and the way that i imagine envision how we would collectively work is to continue to drive at what our data is indicating as to what our needs are in our buildings um parkville community school is a very unique population we have 104 brazilian portuguese speakers native speakers as well as 106. um native language um spanish speakers and so we need to ensure that those voices are are res you know are resonating through all the work that we do it's important to look at our data i love that dr torres rodriguez
070alluded to the different platforms that we're using to be able to share data and i had to admit that when she shared the word weaponizing right when we look at parkville community schools data it is concerning our students are fearing um and are having difficulties within their student you know their student achievement data and that is a very complex situation particularly at our school and i would imagine that for our school governance council including all of those members that that would be concerning as well and so i would want to continue to vision um to work collaboratively with our school governance council members to really get to the bottom of in what ways might we continue to support our students providing those accessibility strategies so that our teachers are well prepared with how to better
071leverage their capabilities of bringing the curriculum to students we know that right the pandemic has clearly impacted students particularly our brazilian families and our brazilian students that have arrived didn't have the opportunity to attend virtually when they were in brazil and we continue to have students come to our school we just had four students just register this past week and when you compound that reality of the fact that our students are arriving and have not had education for the past two years um but then are right put into a third grade classroom that is um concerning and so i really want to work with all of the members in our school governance council to be able to draw out and look at all of that data it is complex we need to be able to
072collectively work to have a very strategic plan to create a strategic plan that again addresses those needs so again i just see myself really being able to leverage all of those voices and for us to collaboratively work together to come up with a strategic plan and vision out how we're going to support our students our families and our teachers mr walker thank you mr chairman um so can you hear me yes so um first uh congratulations of miss figueroa your um credentials are impressive so from your past comments it appears that you seem interested in maybe placing students based on their educational needs versus their just their age in terms of where they start in the in the educational process so i guess i have two questions one is a follow-up to that which is
073do you have any strategy in using their heritage language supporting their heritage language maybe using that as part of the pathway to to giving them instruction in those initial periods of time uh two since we now have a sealed violation still about literacy within the district uh from your standpoint do you see a value in in supporting heritage speaking amongst your student population where they don't lose it and and maybe uses a way for their own cognitive development what's your opinion on these things i am bilingual also so i understand the um just the importance of being able to be empowered and to be able to be able to speak another language it's been a tremendous opportunity for me to be able to communicate with our families i'm a hundred percent an advocate of all
074of our students native languages and really being able to build on what they already bring within their native language i'm just very proud of the work that we have done collectively as a district we have a ton of support at parkville community school and we do have portuguese teachers resource teachers that go into classrooms to support and i do find that looking forward to the visioning of what could be possible at parkville i would love to be able to see a new arrival program um so that we're able to do exactly what you speak of to really just leverage the native language already that the students have to be able to then right teach them the english skills that we know are also going to collaborate you know in unison provide that by literacy opportunity
075for our students and even try literacy because in some cases it is three languages and so i am working collaboratively with um dr uh well with daisy torres um as well as members within to make that happen and to really take a look at what other programming changes could be done at parkville if i am able to continue to lead there thank you board member brody hello usually i love when there's an appointment and i actually experienced the candidate like it really makes a difference so my oldest daughter and it's like a setup cause i'm gonna ask this question of all the candidates but for you i think um the experience um that my child when you worked in a school that my oldest attended because i use that school as the bar for what
076families should feel and experience in a school so my question um would be um if you could speak to the importance of that when you walk into a school building how staff is supposed to feel how parents are supposed to feel how children are supposed to feel so if you could speak to that and the importance of it absolutely so when i think about that and i think about when you walk into a building what makes it magic right so what makes it magic is that you have staff members and the entire school community greeting one another each and every day by name making sure that right we're making that connection that community members our parents feel that they are welcomed even if they do speak another language right that we have at our at
077our at our leisure that we have staff that is then able to provide that right um that connection with making sure that they're able to be heard in that moment and so one of the key things that we have done at parkville is that i reserve the first 45 minutes of the school day just to be at that front door each and every single day being able to then talk with our parents if they have a concern that i am able to see them and that they don't necessarily feel like they have to have an appointment set up that i am available and along with that ensuring that then we are also making our kids feel seen valued and heard and so again another piece of that is how are we welcoming our students and
078when our students do come in late are we you know are we making disparaging remarks to our students or are we celebrating the fact that they made the effort that their parents made the effort to arrive um that has been one of the key strategies that we have been using at parkville is just you know we're so happy you got here we're so excited that you're here and i think you clearly saw within our video i mean it yes that was a lovely video right and it was produced but it generally is the way um that i want our our school to continue to work with our families for our children to truly honestly feel each and every day that we have something that they want and that they are able to come and feel
079excited about the learning that's happening that their classrooms are vivacious places where they feel accepted where teachers are really working hard to meet them where they're at and move them along their continuum of development so when i think of all of those things that's what i think of of of an environment that is just um really oozing welcome you know just really turning that net you know that notch up each and every day and ensuring that everyone is feeling that connectedness because when we feel connected when there is relationship then we are able to make those strides in terms of our academics and everything else that we want to achieve really builds is built on that thank you and i did i didn't not on purpose mention the school was breakthrough it was breakthrough magnet
080school under the um principalship of norman newman johnson so that was the bar for me that i will always set i and when i when my children attend other schools and i'm like this ain't it because i cuz i was like i know how you're supposed to treat me i know how you're and knowing each student by name is just it just was my first experience as a parent and it was a lasting experience thank you you're welcome boardman bellow hi i'm behind the camera um but i just wanted to uh just voice um just an appreciation of your your your uh your preparation for this moment and for the next chapter um and i think the students in your school have already benefited from you uh from your from your preparation but um i'm
081excited about the next few years under your leadership and your guidance i do want to make a shout out to meeting you across in the 90s so thank you for being one of those uh older guides and um keeping us knuckleheads in line appreciate it it was literally life-saving when there was a lot of choices we could have made differently so just a shout out to your path thank you thank you [Applause] seeing no other questions emotional floors that the hartford board of education approves the superintendent's recommendation to appoint esmerelda figueroa to the position of principal at parkville community school all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any nays abstentions the eyes have it congratulations thank you if i could share a couple of words of gratitude i would love to be able
082to do that um so i want to express my gratit my i probably should take my far away glasses off and put them up here because they don't help when i'm reading i would like to express my deep gratitude to dr torres rodriguez chief avila mrs barney the board members a special thanks to my family who give me my space at work to work at home and who support me even though i stay up at late hours and rise way before anybody should be awake oftentimes at four in the morning when i get some brilliant idea um to my mother who has always reinforced the message that i should or that i could make all my dreams come true gracias mommy [Applause] i also want to give a huge shout out to my lifelong mentor
083whose very class i sat in 33 years ago whom i had the pleasure to go back and work for for 14 years at breakthrough magnet school your belief in me and your mentorship saved me thank you norma newman johnson you are my dear friend and have been my life coach all throughout i also want to thank my um oh my gosh i'm losing my spot sorry i also want to say thank you to my former principal evelyn mendoza thank you for your counsel and always being available again at odd hours to answer all my questions while we're on navigating budget and platforms etc and i also want to thank my entire parkville community it was not an easy feat coming in mid-year coming into a brand new school of which i had no real relationships
084with a lot of our staff i am blessed to have had such a tremendous welcome um and to my current partner mrs wilson my assistant principal thank you for all you do for our school community i would not be able to do this work if it weren't for you parkville is a unique school community that serves a high population of amazing multilingual learners whom we want to meet where they're at we want to empower them to have a voice and we want to work together to provide high quality integrated education and experiences around our roar character theme i am honored to be considered to continue to lead the school and i know that with all of you alongside me we got this because as you hear me say in our morning messages our morning announcements
085every day at parkville we can do hard things thank you everyone i would uh encourage your your fan club here to come down and take a picture with you mom included okay so sorry guys nope not a problem all right i like to get us back on back on track [Music] [Applause] i know right [Applause] thank you moving on to item 4.2 administrative appointment of jeffrey mosley motion that hartford board of education approved the superintendent's recommendation to appoint jeffrey mosley to the position of principal at buckley high school do i have a motion so move second superintendent thank you i will do an overview mr mosley has earned his education credentials in florida he has dedicated his career to education across the last 19 years as a teacher department lead teacher academic coach assistant administrator
086assistant principal principal and most recently executive director supporting schools he has led initiatives that have focused on the whole child highlighting equity and diversity establishing partnerships turn around and increase parental and student engagement most recently in his current role he has led district processes and procedures around teacher effectiveness quality instruction and the whole child some highlights from his teaching days he established after school programs supported the establishment of after school programs that engage students in areas that areas of interest while promoting the importance of education through action facilitating student-centered clubs and organizations while serving as an academic coach and supporting working alongside teachers and the administrative staff he opened the first sixth grade academy that was a standalone as a part of a middle school program this was the first model within the district's history
087and that afforded him the unique chance to support two schools and an ability to lead multiple family engagement events his support while the well having the academic coach experience range from curriculum writing supporting teachers with their lessons modeling lessons and teacher training some highlights from the principal as a principal and instructional leader making sure that he works collaboratively with students teachers parents and community staff and community ensuring that they build community uh establishing mentoring programs and creating uh safe environments where learning opportunities continue to be the priority i can go on and on but i'll pause there because you might lift questions that address some of the content in my in the background back to you chairman thank you any questions board member brody i have the same um question but i will make the
088comment that um your credentials are encouraging like um i'm impressed um but the same question um to the um previous um candidate um in regards to the environment that you because you're you're going to be the leader that leads in fostering this environment and providing your staff um with an experience that they want the children to have this great experience so if you could just speak to the importance of the environment in a school and how you know families but especially students should be received thank you greetings superintendent board of education thank you all for having me um this evening speaking to environment for me environment goes hand in hand with relationships when you walk into a building you should feel that learning is taking place there's a feeling that you naturally get when you
089walk into luna where there's there's family there's love there's engagement um and and for me my personal experience has been um going into schools where that hasn't been the case when you walk in the front doors you automatically know whether or not that students are happy staffed they're happy and that you know there's a level of love that transcends the front door to the back door i'm opening car doors in the morning because i want parents to understand that i'm here for you i'm greeting you i want students to see me to be in that first phase my teachers understand like i'm here for you because there's a relationship that we have that we extend we build together i am focused 110 on making sure that the relationships the relationship building starts first day because
090that's what's going to carry us into everything else that we have and that we have to make sure that happens in our building a feeling of being valued is something that is essential it's something that is what helps transform the environment it's something that helps parents realize i have a place to come that's safe it helps students understand it's a place i can come that's safe and also teachers know that this is a safe place for me to come to work and it's a place where i can come and i'm happy and i know that i'm here for students but also my principal and my administrative staff they care about me and they're here for me and that's important to me it's important that everyone knows that we're here for them and that we're here
091to support them in any way possible um i'm known to be the person to pressure watch the front steps when it's neat when it's needed um that builds relationships that builds trust that builds those things that people are looking for um i'm relentless i don't give up i don't give in and i don't lose because we win on purpose and that's something that's really important to me so when you think about the environment you think about the things that make it what it is it's one of those things that we are we're going to establish in the very beginning we're going to continue to drive forward the relationships we're going to continue to show like i'm here for you and you're here for me and i value what you say um and that's that's kind
092of how i kick that off and how we continue that that relationship building that and that engagement in that welcoming environment thank you board member of a ledger good evening and thank you for being here can you hear me okay thank you so good evening and thank you for being here this evening um it's very inspiring to see oh can you hear me now okay thank you for being here this evening it's very inspiring as a parent as an educator to see an african-american male as a principal it has made a difference i will say in my kids lives my son in particular it really just makes a difference because young people will be looking up to you they'll be identifying with you and i know that you'll be identifying with them as well i
093have a question with regards to social emotional learning what is it that you're doing in your building to address those needs and of the students as well as the staff thank you for your question um i currently oversee the district's initiative for social emotional learning um and so what i have done in every school is i've i've increased staff supports and so what i've done is i've taken surveys i've take we've had focus groups we've gone through different meetings and just kind of asked students what they need as well as ask teachers what they need um we were able to then i individually with every principal and discussed a specific type of person that would fit their unique need in the school and so with that we were able to put either therapists in some
094schools or to put additional counselors in some schools some schools got psychologists it just depends on the individual needed at school on top of that we have worked through restorative circles we've done different things to kind of help support students understanding how they should respond and how they can respond in current situations when i look at scl seo is something that has always been there we it's just become a heightened thing i think over the last couple of years due to the pandemic i oversee counseling for the district as well as social work as well as truancy so all those work hand in hand when i go to a student's house and i ask them why aren't you coming to school when they're saying because i don't feel safe well why don't you feel safe
095and what would it take to make you feel safe so it's a little more than just me saying okay i'm putting a person in the building it's also having conversations i have summits with students and we talk about how they're feeling and how we cope with those things i bring in speakers to make sure that our teachers are well equipped to identify the needs or identify the different things that students can exhibit so that we know how to help them and support them moving beyond that i've also made sure that we're able to support our parents with understanding what their students are experiencing at home and providing that through our parent university as well so not only is it just staffing it's also training and support from the student to the educator to the parent
096and the family and then creating environments where we can celebrate our successes in our small wins finding things to make us happy and laugh i'm big on celebrations i'm big on making sure students know like it was it wasn't a good day but you got to have tomorrow you have tomorrow and we're going to get there being the parent of two boys i understand the unique challenges that they face and so it's really important that i'd make sure that our students have a very solid emotional state when they're coming in our building because they will never get to the academics if they can't be present in the moment and that's important to me so thank you so much board member johnson thank you so much to you mr chair um thank you so much for
097uh applying and just being a part of this process i want to share a board member um francoise uh sentiments it is is good to see a gentleman of color before us as it's very far and few between that we have an opportunity to uh to have this dialogue and to extend leadership in one of our schools to a gentleman of color all right so my question to you is um buckley high school man can you share um some of your uh not challenging moments but can you just share how you've turned a challenging moment into a moment of turn around in the school um so yes thank you for the question and once again thank you all for your comments as i look at a challenging moment that has to be turned around there
098was a particular school that i went into and they viewed themselves as their words precisely the red head stepchildren that was how they felt they were in the farthest part of the district the building was not in the best shape they did not feel like they were valued they did not feel seen or heard um so immediately my 30 60 90 day plan was to go on there in time and be very intentional and that was one of the first things i did that we all choose we chose one word um we put that word outside of our door um and that's kind of how we started that when i look at going into to buckley when i look at that experience the things that helped me turn that experience around or help support that
099unique challenge was that i engaged with love i showed them that i was there to support them i made sure that they understood [Music] that i was a part of the team i became the instructional leader i wasn't the principal i was the instructional leader and that's how they referred to me and that was how i refer i'm here on the team with you how we turned it around was we became intentional with our academics in terms of our communication we over communicated we made sure that everyone understood what was happening in our building our student government's council was very uh instrumental in that but i also built partnerships that was probably the biggest part of my 30 60 90 day plan that was um the most pivotal um building those external partnerships and having
100people come into our buildings and and invest in our students and invest into our teachers and invest into our community my community saw me in the community i was at all community events i was in apartment complexes i was on in on weekends i was doing things with associations housing associations there were just different things that i was present at and they believed in me as a result we removed our barriers and i said we're here to teach we're here to learn in that we were able to take away all the fluff we were able to be accountable accountable and so there's a way to have accountability um where everyone understands like we're in this together and we're making a choice to be accountable and that's what we did we were accountable and the turnaround
101was that we had the largest academic gains um not only in our state but within our district in the history of the district academically we turned attendance around um i had the highest teacher retention um and we were able to i went from over 30 plus percent of teachers leaving when i got to the school to less than four teachers the next year and i had a staff of about 1617 teachers and we're talking in that particular school the school of about a thousand students so in those spaces i was able to leverage the community leverage the relationships um and turn it around in a way that academics naturally changed when we changed how we addressed and how we approach and respected each other hope that answers your question board member bella good evening it's
102a pleasure to hear you and and and put some 3d behind this resume that's super impressive i echo my the comments of my colleagues here um so i just want to sort of engage the heart for a little bit and i'd like to hear what's your b hag what's your big hairy audacious goal as you enter this position i mean my goal is to make sure that everyone understands that buckley is number one um like that that's ultimately what it comes down to you know that's that's in the simplest form like that's what it is um i want every teacher to return every day i want my teachers to return every year i want to make sure that students show up to school every day without being asked because they want to be there as
103a place where they're valued and it's their community that they have built and been a part of so when it comes down to it it's about engagement relationships um i'm doing this i'm choosing hartford because hartford's choosing me and i think that's important to me um that's something that you know i could have gone anywhere but when i look at your initiatives i look at what you're doing i look at your goals i want to be a part of it because it's going somewhere um again buckley will be number one but in that process we all support everyone else along the way um i'm just saying but and it's no offense to anyone it's never any offense it's just a matter of making sure that we all um understand that we're here in this together
104and as long as we're able to take what people see as a obstacle and turn it into an opportunity then we all win any other questions for member walker um thank you i um yeah so what you previously said is exactly what's needed at buckley so lacking cloning yourself so because right now you're taking over a school that's in two locations with a football team that split between two different schools there's a there's trying to get that all into one vision one purpose so let me direct that your energy right to your instructional staff because what i want to hear is your vision of you have a school of black and brown students and an instructional staff who doesn't look quite that way so what's your vision and how to equip that staff to to
105better educate relate and connect with your student population and do you have ambitious goals to bring more people who look like you into that space again thank you thanks thanks for the question when you think about currently i'm in a situation where it's 70 as they would say black and brown students in my current district and its flip on the inverse when it comes to our instructional staff it's about how we equip our staff with understanding cultures and where students come from i was very intentional in one school with getting an esau endorsement it was one of the things that i thought was important because we had 77 of our students where english was a second language and i needed every student to understand that you have to understand the culture to understand how to
106respond and communicate with a student and so as as the instructional leader i took the endorsement with them mind you i'm from florida so when you graduate you have to have it already but it was important for me to go alongside them for that entire year to get that endorsement that i cover at the cost of the school and that was a way to kind of help people understand a population of students that they may have never experienced it's really big on being able being building trust because when you build trust you can have difficult and courageous conversations you can ask difficult questions and you can address things in a way where it's coming from a place of love not from a place where you're being scolded or penalized for for not knowing and i
107think we have to take an approach of a lot of times people do because they don't know anything else we have to take an approach of let me help educate you on the things that you don't know that i'm single that i'm observing i'm kind of up front i'm going to call it how i see it i'm going to make sure that we respect students make sure that students respect adults and we respect each other that's extremely important to me going into a location a school that has two locations is very similar to a current high school that i support that has three locations we have our main high school we have our performance learning center and we also have our residential treatment facility that's also all high school so in that capacity we have
108to make and the staff looks different in every building but the students also look different in every building so while i have in my residential my residential facility students that may look be of one uh nationality and ethnicity the staff isn't so i had to do the inverse as well and so it's really about education it's about professional development i'm really big on that i'm really big on us having those conversations and i think building a a system and building a culture of trust really helps us to move that needle where we feel like we can have safe conversations in our building and we trust each other that we don't take it personal and then we also give voice everyone has to have voice families parents um our students and as well as our teachers
109and so and and combining all those things together um to me it's a no-brainer because it's it's bigger than how you look it's what do you believe it's what are your morals what guides you what gets you up in the morning what makes you move and we know that some people need a little more support in those areas than others that's just the way of our world but it's something that i've had to address i continue to address and i will continue to address sensitively but also fearlessly thank you any other questions the motion on the floor is at the hartford board of education approved the superintendent recommendation to appoint jeffrey mosley to the position of principal at buckley high school all those a favor signify by saying aye aye aye any nays abstentions the
110eyes have it congratulations if i can just take a moment um to thank chief thank the superintendent thank the board and your amazing staff um that i've had the pleasure of meeting everyone that knows that has seen me pro on virtual calls it has been definitely a journey but it's one that i would not have wanted to take with anyone else your kindness is amazing you all have been a great support system in this transition and i just thank you and i'm looking forward to relocating so if you know a good place to live let me know thank you [Applause] moving on to item 4.3 administrative appointment at tiffany webley motion that hartford board of education approved superintendent's recommendation to appoint tiffany webley to the position of principal at weaver high school do i have
111a motion so moved second superintendent thank you some background here after migrating from jamaica ms webley attended several schools in hartford until graduating from weaver high school staying in connecticut and uh earning all of her credentials from uconn the university of saint joseph's and central connecticut state university and like several of us right while she understands the adversities and disadvantages of being an inner city child she's made it her mission to give back to the community that groomed her into the woman that she is today woman and leader that she is today so for nine years she served students at of harvard public schools as an english teacher at harford magnaturity college academy before returning to the school that she proudly attended and graduated from as a high schooler as assistant principal and now acting
112principal so as a teacher she has worked on different committees behavioral instructional supports or sort of justice team as an assistant principal working on our high school design team you all know that work that we have taken that journey over the couple of years from you know supported from the bar and ct rise through the design work of implementing designing the freshman academy model implemented and led at the school with focus on increasing our ninth grade on track rates and also supporting strategies for the student success center working with the team at our central office to ensure that the student success center is up and running and we can continue to remove barriers for our students as acting principal the focus this year has been on rebuilding uh weaver's legacy and establishing a strong culture
113and climate right we know that serves as a foundation for academics and um and collaboration so with that strong push for stakeholder voice right inclusive of our pto as you see in grade level student councils have all been established to increase community and stakeholder voice there are as you uh might or might not be aware several partners at weaver that are part of the strategy to continue to improve outcomes for students from blue hill civic association to higher heights ready ct industry boards and so ms webley understands how important it is to lead and create those inclusive and partnerships that are focused on one single mission right and that is to make sure that we deliver on our student outcomes and so i will pause there and see if you have any questions thank you
114any questions from the board i'll say my same um miss brody thank you um mr chair my same question i too i'm graduated from this great school here that we're sitting in and i'm by far not even going to compare that experience but i did have an experience going to school in this building had it not been for educators in this building um a couple in particular i would have never gone to college i would have never dreamed because i came from a family that loved me to pieces but they didn't have an experience to give me that they didn't have or understand themselves so just if you could speak to the importance of environment [Music] and how that is important to the students that you've been serving here thank you hello everyone go beavers
115i know we talked about the bulldogs earlier but beavers so speaking to that i think that is very very important um just having those relationships with students is key and as a weva student understanding how necessary it is to have people in front of you who look like you as well as people who show up every day for you when they don't have to um and they show that they care um so when you walk into our building you are greeted by our great social workers um and that is intentional so that they can kind of see what's going on see if there's a need um when you walk past the social workers um who are cheering them and welcoming them in the mornings you're seeing different staff in the building you're seeing myself you're
116seeing other leaders other people in the building um and we are there just trying to figure out and decipher what is it that our students need um because we being here we understand that there are several barriers to our students um their lives and them coming to the building every day is not easy for them there are a lot of challenges that they face so when they're coming to school late or when they're coming and they're wet understanding that they may not have transportation so connecting them right there at the beginning of the day with someone our fcssp who can give offer supports to the families um so constantly trying to get to understand who our students are and being a person in their corners rallying them at the basketball games at the athletic events
117not just with academics but understanding the whole child and i think that is extremely important when we think about our kids um so this year we focused in on conte connections before content and that was an intentional push for every single one of our teachers and our staff members to get to know our students and share who they are share their upbringing and share we were once young too um we were high school students we look like you we we dress like you we weren't just these perfect cookie cutter people we had we had lives as well um as teenagers so getting getting our teachers and our staff to be open with our students to build help build those relationships is key um because we we know that our students need people in their corner
118who are going to constantly root for them um cheer for them cheer them on help um to motivate them to come into school every day when they know that it's it's difficult to do that when they know that they have obligations outside of school that could sometimes prevent them from being here every day um so that is huge for us here and it's just pushing our staff and pushing every single person who's a part of our building every single partner that we have to connect with our students and give them more thank you board member johnson thank you mr chairman do you mr chair um miss tiffany how are you doing well how are you awesome all right so uh i i'm excited about this um because in the community a lot of people have
119said i have told me that you are the the person for this responsibility because you're from here because you have experience here and you have some real connection and uh i'm just wondering can you just get give a piece of your connection to the school and why this position is important to you at this particular moment so thank you for that um this position is it's for me um because of my deep connection to this community um it is a choice um to come back to hartford and really serve and i think it's important for my students to see that we have so coming from hartford there are so many barriers um in your way to kind of prevent you from succeeding especially if the narrative is you go to weaver you're not much you're
120not going to go far things like that these negative perceptions that are out there um so it was important for me to to show my students that yes i've had these obstacles yes i've i've gone through challenges just like some of you i've gone off to college i've accomplished these things and i've come back to my community so you don't have to go out far we don't have to go seeking for people outside our our community grooms it grows people right here um so it's important for me to stand in front of my students and say like i am one of you um i am no different from you my walk of life hasn't been any different from you i've come from the same challenges i've come from jamaica coming here as an immigrant um
121so being able to speak to a lot of the challenges that they're faced with and understanding that um the same thing having parents who who didn't necessarily have the path and have the knowledge of what education what education is supposed to be they know that they send you to school and you're supposed to get one but they really can't guide you on the path to college and things like that so understanding where my parents are i'm understanding where my students are so i think it's very very important that i can share my story with my students and they can understand that i am going to be here as a representative of what they can be and what is uh opera what is a potential um future for them if they take the path of education
122seriously thank you uh do you mr chair one one more statement and this goes for the the beavers and the bulldogs uh in the owls we we expect championships okay not second place i'm saying this on behalf of the chair not third place but championships and i'm honored to see that the baseball team is back going after multiple seasons not being uh not being active thank you thank you board member walker mr chair um congratulations uh miss webley uh thank you if there was ever a person who was born for the role that they're playing it's you it it appears that you can actually still walk to school to the place that you actually are now the principal so my question though is well i congratulate you and the role in the moment talk to
123me about your vision of how to now engage that instructional staff you have folks who well they probably have taught as long as you've been alive so um i've worked in the in a cooperation with this that come with a generational vibe between uh millennials and baby boomers and so how are you going to see those people how they're going to see you and and how do you connect them to your vision for weaver moving forward thank you for that um the beauty of this position the beauty of me being here for the past four years is that i've had that challenge um i've actually um i oversee some of the teachers that i've had um currently um when i went to weaver high school so i think that my staff and they can speak
124to this they trust me enough to understand that it's not about the age it's not about um the difference or the fact that they are older or the fact that they um were here before me but them understanding that i i have the heart as well as the knowledge to be able to move our students and our team forward so they have trusted me and they aren't they are part of the sgc committee and they've they vocalized how much they want me in this position to be able to help move and change the trajectory of our school and shifting that narrative of weba high school so as a committed unit we are working to do everything that we possibly can um it's weaver it is challenging i can't i can't lie about that i can't
125sugarcoat that it's a challenge in school um we are there are a lot the school is complex um so it can be very challenging and how we interact and how we engage and how we move our students but i think the basis is if we show that our students that we care about them um and if we are committed to coming in here and where we we we have the growth mindset that our students can perform they can do better um they will do better as long as we are committed to providing high quality instruction staying late doing everything that we can everything in our power to do that our students will succeed so once again just pushing that pushing that sense of urgency that our students have to do better because of us they
126will do better if we're we're showing them that they can any additional questions board member ledger thank you it's more of a comment um as opposed to a question i just want to commend you and thank you for being here thank you for your role thank you for your commitment and dedication to the city of hartford it definitely makes a difference when there's a teacher an administrator a person of color who was in the building who is in the position of leadership and you have removed the excuses so when the students see you they can't say well you're not from here you don't live in hartford you don't know what we go through you don't know you can't understand us you you have removed all of that and so just by being here you're an
127inspiration to many i just wanted to say that thank you so much for remember thank you um similarly i'm just uh sorry i'm like leaning but um similarly and just uh and and for all the candidates tonight really in awe of your path and and for those that chose hartford and all of you have uh some of us have grown here and continue to look for ways to serve here i just really like that touches my heart it's like it's like you're the um you're the uh epitome of of what i believe uh we hope for uh for the future uh standing right here in front of us in reality and so um i always think that things happen for a reason and um and for all of those that are seated here today that
128are taking on the challenge of leadership uh with which it which i think is unique for the principal role is unique um i i just really appreciate sort of that servant leadership that you're you're stepping up to so i'm gonna ask you again like just generally you know just to get a sense of how you will how this position will fulfill you what is your goal what what do you hope you achieve in your term here so thank you um i would say that what fulfills me most is coming into this building every single day and being that person for so many um my staff can tell you that i am one of the last ones here every single day because although i try to leave i have two young boys they're up in the
129corner um i'm trying to leave to go home to my children my babies here are out there they're performing they're on the football field they're in the in the gym at having a basketball game and i need to be a part of that so i'm like okay i'll run home since it's so close i'll run home grab my kids i'll bring them here that is fulfilling being there being their cheerleaders every single day outside of the classroom inside the classroom just being here in support of them at all times and seeing them walk across that stage that is something that warms my heart i know there is one other person that's going to go off and do great things so being able to work with my staff and work with my community partners and the
130parents and families to be able to help move our students forward giving them every single thing that they need we have this building we've partnered with blue hill civic association we've partnered and they started an after school program where we have 100 students enroll right now they actually just took 15 of our students um on the tour of dmv um to morgan state and other colleges to just expose them to different things outside of connecticut we have ess clinicians in the building we have higher heights we have so many partnerships so being able to wrap our arms around our kids and give them every single thing that they need is something that fulfills me and i would say my goal my largest goal is to make sure that i am doing the most that i
131can and i am building a staff that is willing to pour as much as we can into students so they understand that there is life outside of hartford there is life within hartford um outside of our streets and that there is a bright future if every single one of our students actually see that and understand that and they understand that they are capable and they have the confidence to go out and actually perform that is that is my goal go harvard [Applause] [Music] seeing no other questions or comments uh the motion of the force at the hartford board of edge approved the superintendent's recommendation to appoint tiffany webley to the position of principal at weva high school all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any nays abstentions the ice habit congratulations i would
132like to say thank you all so much thank you first to dr torres rodriguez and chief avila for the opportunity to lead in hartford and trusting me with that as well as edsl torrey niles she has been in the quarter in my corner as a huge cheerleader as a huge support a listening ear um every single day and she's been committed to doing that um the staff the staff who are here and they show up every single day for our kids um although it's challenging and although they have to be here at 7 a.m tomorrow they're still here um so i want to thank them for that people who support me um it's not easy my family and my friends they know that this this job is challenging um and they know that the work
133is never ending um but they pick up and they help with my children everything like that and i would like to finally say um to retired principal sheldon neal he was the first principal to actually give me an opportunity um he was a principal weber high school and gave me an opportunity here as an assistant principal um and he has taken on the hat of a mentor although he isn't being paid to do that um he is in my corner and he is a person who i can reach out to and talk to every single day if i need to um just a constant support and constant person who is guiding and leading so i want to be able to say thank you to every single person who shows up continuously for me and helps
134me because it's not one person who leaves this school it's a whole community so thank you all for this opportunity thank you [Music] [Applause] superintendent i think you wanted to make some remarks i did i just want to um highlight that we've had six principal appoint appointments and um two tonight and three others before so five out of the six have been part of our principal leadership development pipeline that was work that was started in 1819 and so i just want to highlight that those are investments that are made that take time and over the years right we continue to pour resources and investment and support so not only am i acknowledging them but also the board for your support way back for those programs because we can see today the readiness that our leaders
135have thank you thank you for those comments moving along item 4.4 contract extension education resource strategies motion that the harvard board of education authorizes the superintendent to execute a contract with education resource strategies for the terms delineated in the contract ending december 31st 2022 at the amount not to exceed 375 thousand dollars do i have a motion so moved second superintendent thank you i know that the background and talking points are lengthy but i i do think it warrants um me spending a few minutes here and i know that representatives from ers ms santiago are online in case we need them so we are seeking this continued partnership with education resource strategies the contract is to operate through december 2022 with the gates foundation supporting a portion of the work 25 000 with the option
136for additional funding for high school related staffing and scheduling support and to provide support on three key strands of work one of which is an area that you as a board has have lifted that we dig deeper into and that is assessing our strategic plan in implementation and the return on the investment of the resources to inform change for next year so they'll support with analytic support to connect the investments and their intended outcomes to make sure that we are able to make decisions on resources with like a return on investment lens focusing the work would be identifying any changes that we would make to esser and arp budget areas and a second area of support would be targeted design work for any new s or spending areas that we identify specifically around financial sustainability
137including our multi-tiered system of supports and identifying the need to explore new programs and options to keep more students in hartford and attract more students in hartford it also includes support for financial modeling and resource implications for our virtual school pilot and lastly a third area is the work that's going to happen later on this was discussed i believe in the finance committee ms oliver brought up the question as to what is happening toward the the later part of this contract uh support and it would be conducting an analysis and planning for potential changes in response of the comprehensive school choice plan if you recall ers did support us with understanding specifically this year the potential financial operational and equity implications as a result of the chef comprehensive plan and so we know that financially
138it's not necessarily a good outcome financially for us unless we uh change some of our programming so we want to prepare for what that means for harford public schools now and so you know there would be some engagement deep engagement with our community to help inform recommendations that i'm able to make to you as a board so they would bring data and analytic support and communication support as we internally engage our stakeholder stakeholders throughout this process so i'll pause there and obviously if you have questions for me and or ers thank you um any questions from board members okay seeing none the motion on the floor is that hard for butter sorry excuse me the motion on the floor is that hartford board of ed authorizes the superintendent to execute a contract with education resources
139strategies for the term delineated in the contract and the december 31st 2022 at the amount not to exceed 375 000 all those in favor signify by saying hi i nays nay abstentions steam abstain the motion fails moving on to item 4.5 acceptance of the funds makini vento the motion that hartford board of education authorizes the superintendent to accept funds from the state of connecticut department education children and youth 2 grant and the amount of 397 thousand dollars sorry 397 612 dollars do i have a motion it's a move second superintendent yes the some background here the [Music] program provides federal funding to local education agencies leas we are considered an lea this is to address the urgent needs of children and youth experiencing homelessness so we know that the pandemic has caused a surge in
140the number of people experiencing homelessness across the state especially here in hartford and so funds will be used to restock on basic human needs items that we typically don't have the funding on hand for and so from backpacks to hygiene kits to undergarments we will continue to support our students and their families we also plan to use some of the additional funding to support a few other areas such as hotspots and cell phones having reliable internet and cell phone connections we know that we want to continue to have our students remain engaged no matter where they are and finally the opportunity under the grant to implement new strategies to streamline the process and we want to make sure that there's additional staffing support as needed so the expected funds by the way are over about
14118 months from january through july of 2023. any questions comments not just a question through you board member bellow um just a question on i understand that these funds would support students who are experiencing homelessness i'm wondering if the funds also support or does this connect with addressing the root causes of the homelessness with families i will have uh chief black burke uh respond to the root causes but um before you do that chief black park just um wanna raise that you know through our the work that our attendance culture and climate engagement teams do our ace teams you know we're able to get at some of that data ms vegeo the root causes for specific students and so that's when we pull in the social workers the family and community support providers to be
142able to assist and then the specific staff that are dedicated in the welcome center for this specific group good evening and thank you chairwoman excuse me board member bello for the question um in regards to root causes for homeless and displaced families it does vary and as mentioned in the introduction by the superintendent given that we are in covid we have seen a rise in homelessness as well as displaced families and that could be um the rent moratorium being expired during the earlier part of this school year we saw several fires in the city so that's also a reason why families become displaced and then other reasons that may not be as apparent whether it was a domestic situation or a loss of a job so those are some of the root causes as well
143as understanding that folks are transient and moving in and out of state if they are coming into connecticut and not necessarily having a place to live so just wanted to share some of the most common causes as to why some of our students and their families become displaced but definitely information that we do track through our homeless coordinator thank you board member walker um thank you mr chairman this is um probably much of a comment than a question i just wanted to uh say for the record um um from committee we definitely support this type of funding because we anticipate too as your data showed in an increase of families who may be dealing with housing and security but if it is approved i just wanted to say that we did request that the budget
144be reassessed to to really determine if we need another headcount you know to be administrator and whether or not we can use the money just for its principal mission and that we also talked about looking for ways to partner with other state programs that are distributing wi-fi internet connectivity to families just to make sure again we maximize the use of this uh money it seems like a chunk of money but you know the need often outstrips the uh what families need from us it's more of a comment board member aj johnson thank you so much to you mr chair um i just want to say uh i want to support uh mr walker's sentiments um i have a pleasure of sitting on the committee uh and this stuff is absolutely needed for our community so
145i'm in full support of it but also want to give kudos to your team i've had reports of your team actually going out and knocking on doors in our community and so if we're responsible with that and responsible with this i think we're in a good place but i want to give a kudos to your team actually being in the clay arsenal area around last week sometime um you were visible and seen so this is absolutely new for our community thank you are there additional questions or comments and mr chair if i may thank you during our fce committee meeting as well as during the finance meeting it was raised in regards to the additional staff member as a part of this grant in thinking about the increase in homeless families just wanted to ensure
146that it's shared with the full board that we do have one fte that does support the homeless and displaced work in our district but understanding a district of our size and we pride ourselves in the office of family and community partnerships in our welcome center to respond as quickly as possible so if a family shows up at 4 pm on a friday we want to do everything in our power to ensure that educational services for that student would not be interrupted with the new strategies that have been laid out what we are hoping to do is add an additional person to assist in maintaining that piece of expedience and efficiency for the work totally understand that we need to look at how we sustain that in the future and so that would be a conversation
147that we would look to have with our finance department but really wanted to just add that last piece that we are looking to really ramp up and continue to serve our families as efficiently and expediently as possible and thinking about how we can use a piece of this funding that has been granted for the purpose of ensuring that we are meeting the needs of those homeless and displaced families we thought this was a great opportunity to add that and i love the piece about looking towards sustainability to having dedicated staff an additional dedicated staff member in the welcome center to support homeless and displaced families thank you mr chair thank you for that additional content super helpful seeing no questions or comments the motion on the floor is at the hartford board of ed authorizes
148the superintendent to accept funds from the connecticut state department of education children and youth 2 grant in the amount of 397 612 all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye any nays abstentions the eyes have it thank you thank you moving on to item 4.6 second reading adoption several policies 5131.6 5141.25 6164.11 the motion that hartford board of education adopts the following policies 5131.6 5124 51 41.25 61 64.11 do i have a motion so moved second pastor aj johnson yes um before we get started i just want to give a shout out to our staff liaison uh dr bethany silver uh for her hard work and time on this not sure where she is and where she went there she is hello um so i don't necessarily want to go through each but
149i will give you uh an overview overview policy adoption is one of the three responsibilities of all board of education members in connecticut an effective policy manual supports the school community with processes and protocols to follow for commonplace and novel circumstances aligned to the state and by federal laws policies serve as uh thoughtful guides to inform decisions and actions each policy in the manual is carefully read by the policy committee members and thoughtfully shaped to reflect the values and spirit of our community the policy committee brings the policy to the committee in full board for two readings this is done to ensure that the board members have adequate time for opportunities to review and shape policy the policy committee members review the policies in advance and bring their questions and improvements to the committee meeting
150our board members are invited to suggest refinements to policies during uh policy committee meetings all right so there are a couple policies up for tonight that i just want to just quickly run through and i'm sure board members have had the opportunity but i just want to point out um five one four one point two five fifty one forty four uh forty one point two five this mandate mandated policy was last updated in november 2016 almost nearly 16 years ago and aligned with the priorities welcoming culture nurturing climate three engaging family and community partnerships and four skillful staff and effective operation revisions to this policy are comprehensive um so i just want to just highlight our food allergies and um just one more just for public consumption uh that's very important which is number one
151administer uh administering medication 51-24 i just want to draw your attention to that this mandate policy mandated policy was last updated november of 2005 almost nearly 17 years ago aligned with priority force skillful staff and effective operations revisions to this policy are comprehensive there are substantial changes relating to the administration of the life-saving drug epinephrine the training of eligible staff and administration of medication and the significant number of new definitions these revisions were advised by our district medical advisor dr mcgilpin hopefully i got her name right please forgive me and uh the health services coordinator deborah comedies these are the all others can be reviewed but i just wanted to just highlight uh those two at the particular moment are there any questions thank you board member johnson are there any questions from our colleagues
152on the board okay see no questions the motion on the floor is that hartford board of education adopts the following policies 5131.6 5141.25 6164.11 all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any nays abstentions the eyes have it thank you moving to 4.7 first reading several policies 61 71 6171 6171.2 61 44.1 this is the first reading so noble is required pastor aj johnson uh again i just want to just elevate our policy committee during during this time for first reading is special education 6171 the hartford board of education recognizes the value of special education and its responsibility in ensuring that all children with special needs enrolled in hartford public schools have the opportunity to participate in programs and services which they may benefit this mandated policy communicates our commitment to support the inclusion
153of students with special needs in the general education classroom and curriculum into promoting the collaborative and collective practice between general and special education to improve the learning and achievement of all that is 6171 preschool special ed program 6171.2 this mandated policy communicates the harford board of education's commitment to special education its responsibility in ensuring that all children with special needs enrolled in harford public schools have the opportunity to participate in programs that they may benefit and finally this is for first reading which obviously doesn't require vote but just so folks hear it exemption from instruction the hartford board of education permits curricular exemptions as required by law upon written request of a parent or guardian prior to planned instruction in the following eight areas substance abuse education religious medical bilingual education a dissection of animals
154family life and education instruction hiv aids or sexual abuse and assault awareness and prevention program just wanted to lift these up so folks know what we are working on and this is the first reading of it thank you moving to section five cassette agenda items on the consent agenda are 5.1 appointment of board member jahira escobano to the hartford school building harford school building committee 5.3 approval of the e-rate application 5.4 acceptance of funds school security grant 5.5 application approval love your love your block grant 5.6 acceptors of funds family resource centers 5.7 approval of several budget transfers and 5.8 approval amendments from march 15th board meeting any comments or questions on the cassette agenda board member johnson just really quick i know our folks are ready to uh get moving but i have to
155say on 5.5 uh just taking a look at this i think it's amazing to have uh mayor carrie saxon perry on one of our schools she has contributed so much to our community and i think for that particular school for us to choose that i think that's amazing thank you thank you board member johnson see no other comments or questions do i have a motion to take the consent agenda up as one item so move their second second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any nays abstentions the eyes have it now that the consent agenda um sorry now we'll move to executive session for executive session uh do i have a motion to enter into executive session i'm so moved second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye nays
156the eyes have it we are now in executive session and will be inviting superintendent torres rodriguez dr tiffany curtis attorney madeleine kaufman and attorney laurie mizak [Music] so thank you [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Applause] do [Applause] do so [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] do [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is don't come to the by the foreign so the
157older cars it is a lot of feedback [Music] do i have a motion to come out of executive session and reconvene in a regular session so move second all those in favor signify by signify by saying aye aye any extensions the eyes have it business gender item number seven or section seven rather item seven point one approval a proposed collective bargaining agreement with the harford federation of paraeducators local two two two 2221 aft afl-cio motioned at the hartford board of education approved the proposed collective bargain agreement with the hartford federation of para educators local 2221 aft afl cio do i have a motion so moved there's a second second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye eddie nays abstentions the eyes have it before we conclude i do want to bring up a
158point of clarification regarding business agenda 4.4 the vote final was three a's one day it's two abstentions and following robert's rules the yeas have it the motion passes could you repeat that point of clarification business agenda item 4.4 final vote count three a's one nay two abstentions following robert's rules the yeast have it motion pass okay thank you the april 19th hartford border education meeting is now adjourned thank you enjoy the rest of your evening [Music] you