January 20, 2022 Board of Education Special Meeting - Part 1

001you got it hello good evening we're gonna call this board of education meeting to order let's stand for the pledge of allegiance thank you so much so great seeing so many people here tonight and i think people are starting to join us online um so let's get started is that me sorry about that um can i have a motion to approve the consent agenda thank you christina i see a second there by miss costin okay all in favor since we're all in person we can just do by show of hands thank you that passes eight zero okay moving on to my favorite part of being on the board of education the student and staff recognitions and we have a lot tonight um i think it's going to be a combination of in-person and online as

002a result dr jones and i have been signing a lot of certificates which we're really excited about but since there'll be some confusion handing it out tonight or obviously hard to hand it out virtually we will deliver all these to the high school uh tomorrow or assuming we don't have a snow day kidding okay um so with that first up is our honoring our director of athletics gus lindeen is he here is he online and i know he's being honored by mr mayo and mr messers i see mr mesker's online and i think mr mayo's online let me get my participant i just promoted ralph great that means mr mayo goes first but let's see do you see gus i'm not seeing gus online because he does the next recognitions exactly that's he's not here

003right to the national merit yeah okay well ralph did you can you find gus [Music] otherwise we're going to have to skip ahead three to um national marriott because the the head coaches are panelists currently for the up for the next two so they could handle their own okay all right so uh mr mayo hold on a second we're going to come back to you we are going to pivot and instead let's honor the girls volleyball state championship team so can we have mr lapham hi good evening can you guys hear me all right thumbs up yeah okay uh thank you to the board of education for recognizing our student athletes this evening i would like to join in congratulating coach heller his coaching staff and the girls swim and dive team for another dominating

004season in the pool as they always do and personally i know we can't find him right now i would like to thank my friend gus lindeen for the 17 years of being our athletic director and supporting the many sports and athletes that have participated at greenwich high school now on to the volleyball team the volleyball team started out the season ranked number one in the state which put a lot of pressure on us but we finished the year and stayed number one the entire season the team won the fcac western division with a 15-1 record and won the fcac championship beating ward trumbull and darien in the final the team cruised through the state tournament beating bristol central wilton darien again and fairfield ludlow in the final we beat them 3-0 our final record was

00526 and one as far as some accolades for the players lyanna sarkissian was recently named as the gatorade player of the year for connecticut lyanna and adele satyu were both recognized as avca all-americans the youngest and the brightest they were connecticut all state members and first team all fciak players additional players maggie celibi lucia spaniel and sophie jones also received all fcac recognition and just by the way last year we did finish undefeated in a shortened season due to the pandemic and that team did not get to get to be recognized but it is now my honor and pleasure to announce the players coaches and manager of the greenwich cardinal volleyball team i don't know if any of them are there i think most of them are virtual so i will just go through the

006list if anyone's there stand up and wave our manager ben bowers uh joy hoodra hannah fisher isabella ersig skyler wilson jennifer andaya [Music] cassidy bonnie catherine ford lucia spaniel maggie celibi captain sophie jones captain lyanna sarkissian and captain adele sachdew i'd also like to recognize our coaches coach megan puff coach eric robinson and coach olivia traynor who did an outstanding job as a fairly a pretty new crew of coaches so thank you for the recognition we appreciate it and best to everyone kathleen can i ask coach lapham a question i think you can how did i know this was coming coach lapham i i do have a question uh could you tell me how many years you've been coaching girls volleyball at greenwich high school that would be 29 joe 29 years and you spent

007a couple of decades 20 years coaching the boys rugby program as well that is correct that would be 49 banquets with a lot of chicken dinners joe steve i am laptop down so i do want to let you know that well i'm very hard sorry to hear that i was going to say a few more nice things about you if that's okay oh go ahead steve uh lapham coach lapham is an unsung hero he's been coaching thousands of students at greenwich high school for the last almost 30 years he's influenced these kids in an incredibly positive way i had the pleasure and honor of taking over the greenwich uh high school rugby team from steve lapra after 20 years of of service to our community the shoes were huge that i had to jump into

008but i hope i've filled them okay steve has affected uh so many kids in a positive way he just it does not get recognized enough because every season just keeps going by and he's a perfectionist when it comes to his craft i am very proud and i've known steve for about 23 years i'm very proud to call him a friend and i don't call a lot of people friends i call steve lapp a friend of mine thank you for all you do steve thank you joe same to you appreciate it thank you so much steve and congratulations to this wonderful team okay next up is girls swimming and diving also state champions and can we have mr heller please yes can you hear me all right yes we can excellent uh good evening everyone my

009name is brendan heller and uh this is my first year coaching uh greenwich high school swimming and diving so i'm uh i got 28 uh years to catch up on uh coach lapham but congratulations to the volleyball program as well i'm going to keep it pretty brief because i have a large roster here to recognize uh with our swim program but i wanted to thank uh gus lindeen i know he's not on the call right now but uh in the entire greenwich community for the support and uh overwhelming support uh that it was this entire fall season and we were very successful in the sense that uh no no one beat us uh it was a perfect season uh we had several state champions uh we have several all-americans and uh we dominated so for

010for me my first year uh this was this was a privilege to lead this team and i look forward to uh hopefully many more years of success uh coaching greenwich high school so i'd first like to thank my assistant coaches uh kevin thompson and aaron ritz and now i'll get into uh the recognition of all these um varsity athletes here for our swimming and diving team uh if you're there please uh stand up and identify yourself if you're on the zoom call here congratulations on a great season so for our freshmen we have senna bazkert michelle weissler garen finn's emma stamen sophomores sophie wang peyton foster sydney g annabel gornera ava bain tesferno julia costello helena kennedy natsu nishizawa fred juniors daisy decker sabina sack matilda mancini samantha ings and for our senior class we

011have nine captain katarina lee captain isabella malco captain emerson robinson captain esme merrill as well as sophia sichnik olivia knapp paulina finns evangeline norman olivia bain and daniela pompa for our divers we had mackenzie newey ellie scharf javiera garcia francesca kim annie bingle and lauren priest so congratulations to all the members of our team and uh thank you again to the community for your overwhelming support and uh hopefully looking forward to uh years of continued success for all these student athletes thank you so much mr heller this is uh known to be quite a program and we're excited that you're leading it thank you okay have we found mr lindeen excellent there he is all right that's the way to go out and retire gus is to uh make sure you show up a little

012bit late that's why you're heading to retirement right you can relax my apologies please no worries all right mr mayo we let you go first you're on mute ralph yeah mr lindeen he thought he was going to get away with this and uh he's the type of person that does shies away from the spotlight this is uh very difficult for him to be honored in this public banner but no one uh deserves more credit for the achievements of the athletic program at greenwich high school over the last 18 years then gus does gus is uh behind the scenes he's always fixing things that are that have uh that always that seem to go wrong all the time and he fixes them and nobody knows about it uh he supports his coaches he support he cares

013deeply about his student athletes he is just uh someone that you would want around your your children at all times he's the and he is also i have to say this uh one of my best friends in the world i've known him for over 30 years and i am going to miss him a great deal as are the students student athletes and the coaches of greenwich high school thank you um before you could speak gus we would also like mr message state representative message to share a few words about you you guys see him right now okay well i'm texting him can i have uh i imagine mr kelly is going to want to interject something so maybe i can uh gus i hope you don't mind me saying a few things about you i

014met gus in 2007 as a parent of student athletes my several of my kids played multiple sports at the high school and i met at gus as a parent i then worked for gus for 10 years and uh it was a very interesting 10 years we didn't always agree on everything but we were certainly willing to listen he was willing to listen we had great discussions on a lot of topics and i had the pleasure and honor of working with gus over the last two two and a half years in a capacity where we worked on cardinal stadium together and a number of other things uh gus has a very strong moral compass which i found to be uh one of his really really strong features uh he he's always fair he has a lot

015of competing interests in his job over the last 17 or 18 years and in those competing interests he found a way of being fair to everybody everybody walked away not always happy but no one thought that anyone got a better treatment than they got when comparing how they did when talking to gus and the most important thing i felt was was a key feature uh something that i share in common with him was gus absolutely 100 percent of the time had the interest of the kids at in in forefront of everything he did and uh and and that's something we shared and that's how come we were able to work together so closely over the years in those three different capacities if if being an a.d was a sport uh gus would be the state

016champion kathleen something to that kathleen could i add something please do absolutely i i just want to let everybody uh that's viewing tonight know that uh mr lindeen's a member of the essiac hall of fame which uh there's very few members of that uh club yeah at the high school and uh he is one of them and uh as well as uh leading branch high school to uh be named the top athletic program in connecticut uh several times uh over the last uh 17 years so uh gus gus care so much and uh it's uh uh he was up at that stadium uh as joe kelly pointed out every day i thought i kept telling him that's not your house gus but that's how he treated it when it was being uh built he treated

017it as if it was gonna be his home and he wanted it to be special for the athletes of greenwich high school so just wanted to say that about my uh my friend and uh now retiree justin b all right i haven't heard back from mr messers but that just means that maybe us we can get him to honor you at the capitol um but why don't we turn it over to you can you say a few words um i'd be more than happy to first of all thank you very very much members of the board dr jones ralph mayo thank you so much for um sharing some very kind words um ralph is correct um i do tend to try to um take a step back and let the student athletes and and coaches

018and teams of greenwich high school deserve to be able to be recognized for all their successes and which they deserve and be only out in front of them when they need me to be to defend um or support them so i really do uh thank you um for this recognition it was certainly not necessary um i think um just being able to be called the athletic director at greenwich high school for the last 17 years is certainly enough of an honor that i really don't think that any much more than that i i will really miss the people of greenwich um greenwich high school all our coaches teachers administrative staff there the custodians the folks that take care of our fields you know the list is endless um all those people that have made um

019our athletic program really second to none and uh one that i will always regard very in a very special place in my heart so um again uh thank you so so much i really do appreciate it and uh i certainly will be following the cardinals i won't go away that easily um i'll always be there rooting for them uh and uh and making sure that um our athletic program continues to do all the things that uh we have felt are so so so important and it's just not the wins and losses it's it's all the other things that i think our kids do such a great job and our coaches do such a great job with and providing such a fantastic image of our community through athletics so um thank you very much i really

020do appreciate it thank you so much gus sorry that uh i didn't get to have any of my children there with uh with you there but i know that you uh certainly left a legacy we appreciate it well thank you um next up we will turn to um a final group of recognitions a very important one miss nindell okay i am here i'm i just need to be get my videos started by mike hello everybody greetings from my work at home i am very pleased to have this opportunity to honor the accomplishments of a very select group of greenwich high school seniors the mission of the national merit scholarship corporation is to recognize the academically talented students of the united states i'm going to begin our recognition with our semi-finalists who are an especially strong

021candidate pool this year and it is very likely that they will be named finalists later on this school year we very much appreciate the hard work and dedication to excellence that all of these students were recognizing this evening have exhibited as members of the greenwich high school community and we appreciate that they bring welcome and positive recognition to our school and to the town of greenwich i'm going to begin by calling the names of the students who were semi-finalists in the 2022 national merit scholarship competition from bella house we have ella moore and eduardo suarez from clark house charles adorney lucy bai and stephen blank from folsom house thomas bodsen benjamin shea patrick sullivan calista wolf joanna zhang and from sheldon house benjamin cooper next up we have our greenwich high school commended students in

022the 2022 national merit scholarship program from bella house we have eva anderson adam kaufman anna weixner and nicole wynn from cantor house we have margot delaney joelle jensen pretty cool matthew mccoo from clark house we have santiago borrego garcia concho nema gupta arch jane bryce matalios caitlyn scaman victor stroy alicia tang cecile whittle caroline yu and justin zike from folsom house we have maquiela browning emily daplin alexander ignatev alexa nakanishi luke rutkowski javier sarah and charles zolin from sheldon house we have bennett chung alexandra feneroli andrew lowett esme merrill jean walt rachel rozier daniel ruelle and rohan submarine congratulations to our commended students next we have three individual recognition programs and all of these students are designated scholars um in the college board national indigenous recognition program designated scholar from folsom house is kiana jennings

023in the college board national african american recognition program our designated scholars from clark house are skyler scavo and from sheldon house kwame boden and then we have our college board national hispanic recognition program designated scholars from bella house jordan cervantes dominique isaacs sophia janssen natalia stieglitz from canter house isabella latuta carolina rivera victoria rivera from clark house isabelle harper aleister wilson and from folsom house carlos cornejo sebastian lopez javier sarah and noah weinberg those are all of our national merit students and thank you students again for making us look good we really appreciate it absolutely that's an impressive number of uh national merit scholars thank you so much miss nadel you're welcome okay with that we are turning to um the public hearing unfortunately i hear kwame is sick and so my understanding is that

024shawn merza and javi sarah are going to uh speak with us tonight i don't oh they are sorry yeah come on down thanks guys good evening chair stowe dr jones members of the board and meeting attendees i'm javi sarah senior class president at grants high school in a few days students will sit down in their classrooms and undertake a seemingly ancient task midterm exams after a two-year hiatus these cumulative assessments are back at ghs and students cannot be more terrified in the build up to exams student government presented the ghs administration with a midterm proposal from which several accommodations were accepted these included a flexible waiting system and a block one through eight review day essentially each midterm will count as normal or as half of the usual weighting depending on which is more beneficial

025to each student overall the student government is grateful for mr mayo's open ears and pleased that our input was implemented but students are still overwhelmingly disappointed and anxious with high levels of stress that the current learning environment has induced with rapidly spreading omicron and snow days and delays learning at ghs in recent weeks has been difficult and disrupted this has left classes far behind in the curriculum timeline and forced teachers to accelerate work in an effort to catch up students are overwhelmed with their increasingly demanding workloads last thursday was the final day for marking period two tests to be administered and projects and essays to be due such a deadline was something student government was a strong proponent of however this was before we missed so much class time in practice this policy left students

026with a test or project in almost every class on a single day though this experience is now in the past and it is clear that midterms are going to happen i think we have an opportunity to re-examine our midterm and final exam system going forward to ensure this kind of stress is not replicated in the future these assessments are administered for two reasons to ensure that students have a comprehensive grasp on the course's curriculum and to prepare students for future exams at the college level but i fear that we are failing on both fronts due to the lost time some teachers are either rushing through material or skipping units and entirely entirely in order to keep pace leading up to the midterm period teachers should never be put in a position where they have to

027either sacrifice course content or inundate their students with piles of work at the end of the semester just to hit requirements for the midterm exam hopefully this unprecedented loss of school time will be a one-time incident but nonetheless i think it should remind us all that the mastery of course content happens in the classroom not by cramming for a 105 minute exam midterms and finals should offer a value opportunity for students to take what they've learned and take it to a higher level by applying it i've always been disconcerted by the prospect that midterms and finals prepare us for college finals this notion suggests that the two are correlated but the vast majority of teachers are not actively in contact with professors regarding what college finals are actually like here lies the greatest opportunity for

028policy change at greece high school program administrators should be in contact with college professors and midterms should be structured with their input i think traditional high stakes midterm exams should be completely reevaluated and reimagined in the future to better align with the typical college experience maybe human humanities classes have a take-home essay instead of a timed sit-down test maybe certain courses support students in conducting research or developing innovative cumulative projects students should not just master course content on a multiple choice exam but apply that content in creative ways midterms can be beneficial and less stressful to students but we just need to change the way in which they're administered as always thank you for this opportunity and for offering your time here tonight i look forward to speaking with you all in a month's time

029thank you very much javi welcome sean good evening chairstow dr jones members of the board and meeting attendees i am sean mears the vice president of student concerns at greenwich high school and i'm speaking in kwame's place tonight thank you for having me as you know coveted mitigation strategies at greenwich high school have increased considerably in january these strategies are not substantive for example classes are run regularly in person and that is safe with covid however clubs have been forced to go virtual for the month of january supposedly because of the surge of coveted cases making it too dangerous clubs take place in the exact same classrooms usually with a lower number of people it seems impossible for the building to be safe for class during the day and not for clubs shortly after our

030administration preaches social and emotional well-being yet they have deprived students of a key social interaction of high school meeting for clubs in person i wholeheartedly agree with protecting students and doing everything in our power to keep us in school nonetheless i believe the same safety that has been achieved in our school's basketball courts and hockey rinks can be reached within clubs and cove to mitigation for the long run clubs are usually a very small amount of students meeting during flex time something that had been explicitly created this year in hopes of clubs becoming more accessible to all students the inconsistent application of code covered mitigation strategies is frustrating to these passionate students who care about their community it is disheartening for us to be unable to meet while wearing our masks and socially distance yet

031see plexiglas that has been proven to be ineffective brought back to our student center we're having a one-way glass corridor that makes us walk in the freezing cold ice-covered sidewalks and down slippery mud-covered hills as we all know kova does not discriminate and all i ask is that our administration be consistent with their stance on covid make decisions based on scientific fact and reconsider these unnecessary and unhelpful mitigation strategies that hinder the student experience at greenwich high school thank you again for the opportunity to share the students perspectives and experiences with you tonight thank you so much sean thank you sorry next up gea liv is she here she's online i see lil online i just uh gave her talking permissions thank you all right you gave me talk information you're sure you want to

032do that mike okay good evening board members teachers parents students community members i'm willing perone president of the greenwich education associations first like to start off with congratulations to the girls state championship diving and swimming teams and also to the ghs girls state championship volleyball teams great job on your victory as state champions a great honor thank you i'd also like to thank athletic director mr guston dean for his years of service to the greenwich public schools and leading one of the best athletic programs in the state of connecticut and supporting our coaches and all our athletes along that road to success i wish you well gus well welcome to our 2022 school year before i move forward uh to talk about the new year i take want to take a short reflection on over

033the past two years during our uh kovid i think i like to call it something different you know maybe cookies or id it just seems so much nicer um what have we learned what have we achieved we've laughed we've cried but we endured our essential workers have gone unnoticed unrecognized not giving the respect and honor they deserve until 2020 when the whole world did change our hospital doctors nursing and medical support staff were saving lives our police fire and public works were keeping us safe our parents were doing the best they could to help with supporting teachers their children and the educational process during hybrid learning our dedicated nursing staff led by mary keller keeping our students and staff safe along with long hours of contact tracing our custodians who kept our buildings clean our

034security team who kept us safe our parents and all the support staff that showed up every day to support teaching and learning teaching the most important profession on the planet yes i'm biased but i do have the microphone right now a profession that has gone also unnoticed until 2020 when the whole world changed and so did we as teachers our greenwich teachers turned on a dime rose to the challenge and are still continuing to take on any new challenges we pivoted we went hybrid the only school system in connecticut to be in school all year we learned technologies new ways to teach we googled screencastified schoology we flipped grid we figured it out we did it together many of us with their own families to care for and children to teach at home now we

035start this new year 2022 still enduring coven omnicron and we continue to be professionals for our students not only to teach them but also to support them in their physical and mental well-being now i know you all probably heard and we're aware of the statewide teacher initiated blackout by cea which gea we do support for all schools in connecticut to have their supply supplies test mitigation strategies in place to keep students and staff safe teachers in greenwich did participate in wear and black but we did not do a full organized teacher event as i stated in the paper was just not the right timing for greenwich greenwich public schools we had our mass we had our test supplies and mitigation strategies were already well in place but that does not mean the struggle still does

036not continue for our teachers teachers are still facing overwhelming daily struggles as they continue to persevere teaching at its best through this pandemic to provide our students with an outstanding rigorous education teachers still walk into a minefield of challenges every single day knowing not knowing what's going to hit them next how many staff will be out what's going to change in today's schedule as a result how many students are quarantined who tested positive who's okay are we okay are themselves exposed our teachers have proven that we can do great things we continue to take on challenges that come our way we are professionals we deserve more than just praise i like to thank our parents for our continued support but i'd like to let everyone know our board of ed and bet that our teachers

037need more than just praise this year thank you and let's have a great year thank you so much lil next up representative from p-tech mimi duff she online i don't see her here you can hear me yeah i can go ahead mimi okay cool um good evening dr jones stow and other members of the board of education i'm mimi duff president of pta council representing the 15 school ptas and the families of all their members i want to begin my comments by acknowledging our teachers administrators custodial staff cafeteria workers and others supporting the day-to-day operations of our school district thank you we know the work you're doing has gotten harder not easier as we continue to navigate covid with recent spikes and case counts among students and staff we know our teachers are carrying an

038additional load as they cover for sick colleagues etc we appreciate you and we would love to help in any way possible moving on to tonight's agenda i have several comments i'll start by giving a big shout out to mike reed and the big ideas math implementation and the recent math workshop organized by our academic excellence team we're hearing great things so keep up the good work in tonight's stem report we see goals to improve grades 5 and 8 science scores but we aren't seeing measurable goals in math specifically the goals laid out for math teachers include teacher clarity feedback discussion instruction and practice these all seem to be elements of an effective teaching process but not necessarily measurable or time-based goals we talk about smart goals specific measurable achievable realistic and timely without smart goals

039how do we hold ourselves accountable there used to be a goal to have 75 percent of the eighth graders in the district complete algebra one is that still a district goal if so where are we and what is the time frame to achieve the goal goals like this could help inform the work on the strategic plan for instance sticking to smart goals and focusing on measurable have the science and math scores improved at hamilton avenue since the start of the steam magnet program why are scores missing on the update report the progress column as complete or ongoing is a little thin on details onto the science research program wow what a roster each of the accomplishments detailed in the report is more impressive than the next it's no wonder that they wrote a book about

040andy bermonte's science research class why isn't this the district explicitly providing financial support for such an amazing program as i understand it the program largely relies on parent contributions and matches to the school for winners why isn't this program explicitly funded regarding a public comment we don't support cutting public comment to two minutes the public comment period is a chance for our elected officials to hear what our taxpayers and community are thinking and for others to listen to ongoing debates in the district our families deserve an opportunity to be heard as an example of how important the comment period is we can hopefully all agree that the independence bed review was long overdue and needed in our district without the parent comment and hearing the struggles and the individual stories of families in our district

041would you the board of ed have made recommendations for an independent sped review we need to continue to hear from our families and we don't support a two-minute limit finally it's budget time we remain very concerned about the state of disrepair in many of our buildings and jack general lack of maintenance we urge our elected bet members to tour the buildings in focus to help educate themselves we look after our homes and we are urging the bet to look after our students home away from homes in supporting our teachers staff and importantly our buildings and infrastructure thank you for your time thank you so much mimi appreciate it all right so that takes us to community comments um a few people i just dropped off the list but it looks like emily can i ask

042a question before we get into the community comment would that be okay yeah sure oh okay well i guess i'm assuming we're gonna hear something about masks and other uh covet protective things so i just wanna go over a couple of things that that's okay to make sure we're on the same page the uh the governor's executive order uh still stands which kind of ties our hands on making decisions uh on whether our kids have to not have to wear masks or other uh protective covet issues that that still stands presently that's my understanding yes pardon me and uh uh i understand too that that executive order is scheduled uh to uh to end is it february 15th okay yes so i just want to make make sure we we're all aware of this everybody

043because sometimes there seems to be some confusion on february 15th the uh the responsibility falls on the board of education and local uh to the local board of ed to make decisions on our district on whether the kids have to wear masks or not and other issues relating to this is that correct i don't know i'm not sure about that it's going to either go to the legislature which is starting to meet right now um or perhaps an executive order i guess could always be extended but i mean that's oh no no no of course i misspoke so if the executive order ends then i believe then we we all meet and make the decision ourselves is is that is that the way it's going to work well sure if the legislature does nothing the

044executive the governor somehow does nothing and then it just comes to an end our policy did say that we would meet within three days so the legislators the uh the state representatives and the senators will get together and decide in hartford whether the governor has the power to control locally our schools the masks on the kids and things like that so really the the decision is going to be made by the state representatives and the senators whether they're going to give the the governor uh the responsibility or the power of the executive order to to control this from hartford rather than locally is that correct that's my understanding okay and one last point will be uh anna uh if the executive order ends or his powers are no longer continue then we'll all get together

045and hash it out and then we'll wear the responsibility of the decision of the policy going forward for our local district that's correct that's why we in case that happened we were smart enough i hope to put that in a policy that we'd meet within three days am i correct about that it's funny it's one week not three days i'm sorry i don't know why three days one week okay thank you thank you for correcting that okay i've never been told i've been quiet mr kelly i just i just wanted i just wanted to clear up everything that's also we know because it is it could be questionable time going over the next couple of weeks so i just want to be able to address where we're going to go and how we're going to

046talk about it and i encourage all of us to call each other and i know it's a sensitive topic but we should start talking about it earlier than later i know the public meeting is probably uh it's not timely to talk about it now but maybe we certainly have to lay the groundwork for that and start talking about it as it gets closer to uh february 15th probably why don't we go into public comment now before we kind of get off any more traffic okay i'm sorry i'm sorry okay guys now let's not lose control sorry let's go to go right into public comment now and then we can bring up further stuff and committee updates okay so um with that we appreciate everyone coming out glad to see so many people here tonight i

047know we have many opinions and perspectives we welcome them all let's just please try to keep it civil um with that i'm going to do my usual where i call you up and then the next person so we can stay uh on track um first up miss jacqueline holman please sorry and after that it would be jamie downed good evening dr jones and board of education members i'm here tonight to talk about a few new policies starting with the proposed changes to policy 9325 on public speaking and engagement that appear intended to limit our free speech as i understand it the primary reason for the proposed change is that you don't want to hear about medical freedom from the parents who have come here month after month to plead with you to change blatantly discriminatory

048coveted policies and to beg you to start following the science instead of blindly adhering to the false belief that a piece of fabric stops an airborne virus it doesn't do you hear england just dropped all the mask and vaccine mandates yesterday he seemed to have adopted another new policy for covid one that i don't recall coming to a vote this is the policy that requires some young children to eat outside in 28 degree weather with 30 mile an hour winds who made that policy decision another new policy of yours was to accept nearly 10 million dollars in tainted funding from the biden administration for artfester 3. you previously told parents there were no mask testing or vaccine strings attached to the funding yet the application submitted by dr jones clearly says you plan to adopt

049the cdc's policies without question the public wants to know unequivocally with the views of your legal representation whether masks testing or vaccine strings are in fact tied to the money because other parent groups have claimed that this is in fact the case and by the way did you know cdc changed its mass guidance last week it continues to recommend that you wear the most protective mask you can you can that fits well adding that kn 95 masks offer the best protection so does that mean that you'll be issuing kn 95 masks to everyone in the district every day so that you can be in compliance with the sr3 funding requirement that you wrote for yourselves will you be deploying staff to ensure the masks are properly fitted according to the strict new guidelines or to

050ensure that the rules around the mask breaks are properly followed where will the funding for the can 95s come from anyway i mean it appears that the sr3 funds are fully allocated albeit to some rather controversial initiatives including transformative social emotional learning what is it about our children that you wish to transform anyway their morality i don't recall ever giving any of you that responsibility to dictate the morality of my own children yet you do it every single day 30 seconds i lost two science classes last month to sel training i find it shocking that this money would be used in this in this way because it often draws on the ideas of social justice and anti-racism before you spend any of the sr-3 funding please confirm the stipulations with your legal team so that

051we're on the same page please consider working with parents instead of against us on medical freedom issues and please reject the changes to policy 9325 thank you thank you very much next up is jamie downes followed by kara philbin i think that's down's coming down yes thank you good evening i'm here tonight to comment on the proposed changes to policy 9325 which includes several new restrictions on the public hearing portion of boe meetings i was surprised to learn that despite signing an oath to uphold the united states constitution several board members are in favor of restricting residents free speech what i can't understand is why are you looking to close the lines of communication if an effective homeschool partnership is the cornerstone of a strong educational system why would you disenfranchise parents by silencing their

052voices is it not your job to listen to their concerns look i understand it's time consuming to hear from so many concerned parents and i bet it wasn't always like this in years past you might have heard it from a handful of parents and i bet the tone of their comments was a bit softer but things have changed and there are more concerned parents than ever before and i can guarantee that attempting to silence them will not work perhaps the issues that we're trying to squeeze too much into one meeting perhaps a separate monthly town hall style meeting would give the board and greenwich residents the opportunity to engage in dialogue about issues impacting our children perhaps that would create an atmosphere of trust and cooperation what's bothering me is that i haven't seen any

053proposals offering new venues for discourse i don't see any online forums invitations to committee meetings or surveys so i'm wondering what are you doing to better understand the day-to-day experience of the students in this district how are you measuring the impact of your policies how do you gauge the public perception of the job you're doing and if this is not the right in venue venue to engage in these conversations then what is if not here where if not now when you name the time and the place and i can assure you parents will show up that is if you want to listen if you want our children to be critical consumers of information who appreciate diverse perspectives then should we really be talking about limiting free speech and public discourse should we really be talking

054about turning off the mic when someone's viewpoint doesn't align with our own no we need to walk the walk we need to normalize changing our minds when presented with new information and not act as if doing so makes us somehow naive or spineless it's on us during my limited interactions with gps parents i've heard so many concerns and my response is always have you shared this with anyone unfortunately the fear of retribution is 30 seconds so i'm here today for two main reasons one to remind parents that the school board is here to serve us and our children they're intelligent people with good hearts and they want to hear from you so speak up don't be afraid and number two i'd like to ask each of you to recall the oath you took to uphold

055the constitution of the united states and reject the proposed changes to policy 93-25 thank you thank you very much next up tara philbin followed by carl higby good evening i'm speaking for peter shur tonight because your new policy prevented him from speaking the policy proposal to limit public engagement is not in the best interest of the public or the board of education board members should be opening up communication and feedback with parents voters and residents the proposed policy change is in direct contradiction to greenwich community expectations national trends in education and the boe's own published strategic plan for decades public comments at board meetings provide constructive engagement with the board all this changed four years ago when a new new board chairman tried to change and restrict open communication with the public here are five

056specific best practices you should implement instead one publish all boe meeting documents to the public and the board at the same time there is no purpose to restrict or hide information the board members see this means posting everything on the friday before each meeting two respond to email if someone bothers to write to the board members must respond this means eliminating the dreaded thank you for your interest acknowledgement instruct the administration to respond to any email within 48 hours selectively replying is unacceptable four write explanations for agenda items this policy item has no explanation or rationale on the cover page as required five remove agenda items that are not ready for discussion no documents by friday should automatically reschedule an item to another meeting you can make your meetings more efficient and effective restricting public

057hearings and parent voice would be the wrong remedy and permanently change permanently damage the reputation of the board of education please rethink this pgc proposal in my additional time i'm going to read from a constituent no to the proposed changes to policy so i hear tonight the board is going to vote to censor the public i hear the board wants to do this because they are tired of listening to the public comments that they find the public comments too long and the public comments are too repetitive they want the meeting to be shorter when i mentioned this to some friends one friend said isn't that what they're elected to do another said wow they could always resign if they find listening to 30 seconds boring another said if they don't like hearing about the same

058problems over and over maybe they can solve the problems free speech freedom of expression is a fundamental human right for our board of ed to vote to take away this right goes against every fabric of why they were elected any board member that votes to censor free speech has lost sight of their duties and has no place on the board thank you miss philbin next up carl higby followed by kristin nieminski yeah just uh real quick on the math thing i want to point out the last time we were here tony jones told me that they follow cdc guidance considering that wolinski just came out and said hey these paper and cloth masks are political theater and quote useless uh so are we doing science here anymore i guess not so um you guys i

059i'm trying to be as respectful as possible here but i thought showing a bunch of seven-year-olds a cartoon erection was like the ultimate low point but you did it again and i find out that kids including my daughter are outside in 30 degree weather in 37 mile an hour winds having lunch this is like completely intolerable again not voted on here just arbitrary policy i reached out to angela smith and or schmidt and she said well you know um you know i'll get with the nurses and we'll talk to the teachers and we'll should like spread the who's fault this is out and it really bothers me because it's a it is a bureaucratic attempt to absolve yourselves of any actual individual guilt but there's eight years old there's a small craft advisory warning on

060the day that she was eating outside sitting on the ground that's a problem to me it's january in connecticut it's not this is not miami and when i when i finally pushed her on it i know some of you were ceced on that thing and you responded and i appreciate that but she wanted to throw mr hull under the bus now mr hull i don't know him personally but he's super favored in my household he's a really good teacher he's actually the only teacher that can ever get my daughter to actually like a book he's not at fault here because this is happening in schools all across greenwich it's a real problem so i'd ask dr jones whose fault is this who made this call no response and this is the problem there is no

061mechanism for dialogue at these meetings i'm just asking a simple question who's at fault and who's going to be punished for it how about we move your desk outside into the courtyard for the rest of the year i'm good with that you don't seem too thrilled about it and you shouldn't be because it's dumb just as dumb as these kids eating outside that's all i'm asking they don't have a choice teachers have a choice they can go inside and eat in the warm warm place without a mask on they can have professional development without a mask on my kids got to have this thing strapped to his face like a diaper all day they go outside for five seconds they get yelled at to put it back on during recess this is outrageous let's start

062having some actual science here govern these things 30 seconds we got to get our kids back inside in january i mean does anybody here disagree with that no so let's actually just move them back inside february 14th or whatever joe will deal with the mass mandate then but i swear to god if my kids are eating outside one more day it's gonna be real bad for you guys thank you very much next up kristen narinsky followed by elizabeth topley oh here she comes i had high hopes for this somewhat new board of education but unfortunately seems that the board of ed wants to be even more restrictive with parents efforts to voice their opinions and concerns i'm appalled that this is the direction you are going in if anything you should be doing the opposite

063the board of bed should be welcoming of parents opinions and input since you are making decisions regarding the education of our children the three-minute limit on public speaking is already restrictive and i feel it should be increased to four minutes it's also very disheartening that you i hear you're trying to stop parents from speaking about anything not on the board of ed's agenda since the board of ed controls the agenda items this is an easy way to stifle free speech the border bed can purposely never put an item on the agenda that they know parents are concerned or frustrated about this would help them avoid difficult conversations and make it to look to the public like there are no other concerns the board of education exists for the education of our children parents should have

064as much input as possible when it comes to the education of their children the board of ed should be completely transparent and open to more communication with parents not less i object to the proposed changes to policy 9325 and propose that instead of becoming more restrictive the board of ed should add a public speaking meeting or town hall every month where they give parents two to three hours to voice any concerns in a q a session this would show parents in the greenwich community that you want and welcome their input and criticism and that you are making a good faith effort to work with parents and not against them parents want an excellent education for their children with high standards and a focus on academics and consistency we do not want social justice and political

065issues embedded in the curriculum we also do not want schools making health decisions for our children you are not the you are the board of education not the board of health you do not personally know my child you do not know my child's or my family's medical history you do not know how things like masks and push vaccines affect my child the teachers union and board of ed constantly talk about social emotional learning yet you do not think twice about the social and emotional damage you are causing with your policies you're creating stress anxiety depression feelings of isolation and segregation with your policies and then you spend funding and steer everything towards social emotional learning to fix the very problems your policies are causing children do not want to be treated differently based on race

066gender skin color vaccination status or any other divisive measure you're causing divisions the only factors schools should be concerned with as to how children are treated is their academic ability and their family's economic status some children need more help than others based on those two factors not based on their race skin color gender or vaccination status please leave health care decisions to families and their doctors if special funding is tied to things like masks or vaccines reject the funding funding should be redirected towards academics and away from school-based health care clinics and sel go back to focusing on academic consistency and transparency thank you so much mr nyminsky [Applause] next up is elizabeth copley followed by jackson staff is she online i don't see her here elizabeth hopley after that it's jackson stack i'm not

067seeing her online if she is on no she's here she's here thank you then next up is jackson staff hi so my name is elizabeth hopley i've been a greenwich resident for 14 years and my husband and i have three children um i'd like to voice opposition first to the proposed changes to policy 9325 to limit the free speech of residents also your proposed changes would allow only one person the board chairperson to further modify these limitations at each meeting do you understand that you're giving your board authority to one person to make decisions for you i would think especially with new members on this board that there would be interest and curiosity in hearing from the people who give you this authority that said please reject these changes and if anything expand ways that

068parents and residents can voice their concerns and make constructive suggestions there are a lot of very smart people in this room and in this town and you ignore them it's only to your detriment they're here to inform and help you and inform you they have meeting after meeting warning you of the harm of being inflicted on children due to mask mandates quarantines and coercive actions to promote covet vaccines a surgical mask is designated by the fda as a medical device vaccination is a medical intervention even if you're a licensed medical professional you can only recommend not mandate a medical intervention you actually have no legal authority to recommend such a practice nor does any administrator or teacher this is practicing medicine without a license which is a crime executive orders health orders mandates none are

069actually laws laws are only for our legislature to pass and no emergency order supersedes established law did you know the supremacy clause in the u.s constitution states that any time a law contradicts the constitution it is actually considered null and void did you know that these masked mandates quarantines and coercion to vaccinate with an emergency use vaccine violate the 5th 9th and 14th amendments of the constitution they are also a violation of the nuremberg code of 1947 which requires informed consent of the subject did you know that the emergency health powers act clearly states that the only way a person can be deprived of their rights is through due process something protected by the fifth amendment quarantines mass vaccines they cannot be forced in fact quarantines and other forced medical interventions can only be enforced

070with a court order from a judge and with a diagnosis from a medical professional even then one still has a right to a hearing how confident are you that these orders are legal depriving children and parents of their rights is a serious crime and ignorance of the law is not an excuse whether it's tainted sr-3 funds that make you can continue this or some other force please i ask you to step back have some courage and remember that you must do what's in the best interest of the children these abusive coveted mandates must stop now and the tides are turning the uk just lifted all their coveted mandates thank you so much next year uh jackson stack followed by eilidh steinberg jackson online i'm not seeing um a stack online if they could raise their

071hand if they're online okay not saying that if he does a pair we can always come back um next up then islet steinberg followed by roger rosendahl do you see steinberg online yes i'm here good evening oh good evening thank you people who make the effort to sign up and speak at the boe meetings care about their children and community if you don't agree with them and even if you have heard similar issues before the community has the right to be heard please do not make attempts to limit speaking at boe meetings thank you thank you very much next up roger rosendahl followed by francis novak oh thank you here's roger someone mentioned that we have some very smart people in the in the room we've heard from a lot of them i was i'm

072very impressed by the presentations i have to say and and you know jackie and jamie were spot on and a couple comments my previous speakers it sort of triggered me my thinking the vice president student body raised an issue that i think has been overlooked in the coping analysis and that is the balancing of physical health with risk and other concerns that you've heard about here tonight emotional mental well-being i don't see that balancing i've heard governments say it's all about safety not about freedom if you infringe freedom there's a balancing required i haven't seen it one of your board members referenced the executive order i'd like to and somebody else mentioned that we really need a legislation uh act uh that you have an executive order as you see in the federal level doesn't

073mean it's law and that the legislation is considering the legislative body is considering authorizing the governor to issue the order says in itself he doesn't have the authority until they do it i have previously spoken against teaching our children to hate the country and themselves as either oppressors or victims i've also spoken against them the teaching of untruth had a bumpy bad history slavery was terrible genocide was worse but they're not here native americans aren't here to complain about it i've previously spoken about the importance of freedom of choice including the ability to make the wrong decisions and i made them myself but i did get backs by the way boostered under pressure from my millennial spawn but they did tell me it's your choice and i made it tonight i like to drill down

074on the board of education itself and the need for honesty integrity credibility transparency and accountability it's a new board last october 30 seconds last october someone on the board mentioned there's no link between federal funding and any actions to be taken that was a false statement it's flat out a bribe to do what the feds want it's you know bribed to go woke that statement needs to be corrected time must be corrected thank you so much mr rosenthal next up is francis novay followed by julie tarana hello can you hear me we can go ahead francis hi this is francis funobe mom of three kids who thoroughly enjoyed today's day off to honor and hold space for childhood joy wonder and adventure as we kick off a new year of board of education meetings please

075allow me to share the 1962 children's classic the snowy day by ezra jack keats these are our children one winter morning peter woke up and looked out the window snow had fallen during the night it covered everything as far as he could see after breakfast he put on his snow suit and ran outside the snow was piled up very high along the street to make a path for walking crunch crunch crunch his feet sank into the snow he walked with his toes pointing out like this he walked with his toes pointing in like that then he dragged his feet slowly to make tracks and he found something sticking out of the snow that made a new track it was a stick a stick that was just right for smacking a snow-covered tree down fell the

076snow plop on top of peter's head he thought it would be fun to join the big boys in their snowball fight but he knew he wasn't old enough not yet so he made a smiling snowman and he made angels he pretended he was a mountain climber he climbed up a great big tall heaping mountain of snow and slid all the way down he picked up a handful of snow and another and still another he packed it round and firm and put the snowball in his pocket for tomorrow then he went into his warm house he told his mother all about his adventures while she took off his wet socks and he thought and thought and thought about them before he got into bed he looked into his pocket his pocket was empty the snowball wasn't

077there he felt very sad while he slept he dreamed that the snow sun had melted away all the snow but when he woke up his dream was gone the snow was still everywhere new snow was falling after breakfast he called to his friend from across the hall and they went out together into the deep deep snow these are our kids thank you gps team for all you do every day thank you very much francis next of julie farinez uh followed by graham fatida sorry if i didn't say that right i see julie online yep there you go julie go ahead hi good evening first of all francis that was awesome anyway good evening chairman snow chairwoman stowe dr jones members of the board of education cabinet pta and community my name is julie fariniarz and

078i am the executive director of the greenwich alliance for education the alliance is the only non-profit in greenwich 100 focused on our public school students teachers and alumni yesterday i mailed 37 scholarship checks totaling 50 to colleges and university universities for avid alumni who recently applied to our avid success scholarship program this brings our annual investment to 110 000 and overall since 2013 to 650 000. these students are an impressive bunch and intend many connecticut state schools and schools out of the area like emory uri fordham rochester institute of technology university of new hampshire and more they are majoring in business neuroscience psychology nursing communications computer science and are working jobs while attending school are in leadership positions on campus and are self-advocates they take cornell notes and have plans to attend graduate school in

079the future they credit their avid teachers the avid program the support from their families and their greenwich alliance avid success mentors for their accomplishments and academic achievements attained so far avid works the alliances mentioned last month is hear and help is here to help with this expansion to to the elementary schools and encourages the prioritization of designing a true role for the avid district director to focus on the needs of the student population and further address the opportunity gap reaching out grants is the alliance's granting program that awards teachers program coordinators administrators staff and community partners who have innovative ideas to change up the educational experience for all students to give you an example one of our current grants is called unbound innovations xr and is championed by gaspar lapari at western middle school the

080alliance's investment of a hundred and fifteen thousand in the technology and software over the last three years has made it possible for mr lapari to teach students from all academic areas to experience 30 seconds content using virtual reality and augmented reality this technology and software is the future and we are happy to make this possible grant applications are now available on our website and are due on march 25th think big everyone happy 2022 and thank you for the opportunity to speak thank you so much julie always great hearing about the alliance and all the wonderful things they do uh next up is graham fatidah and i'm sorry if i'm saying that wrong right there followed by dan quigley hi graham 11 fatihad greenwich town resident my eldest son went through 10 years of greenwich public

081schools uh i never once emailed the board of ed nor had much more than parent-teacher interviews with anyone at north myannis eastern middle school or greenwich high school we moved here because of the school system we were grateful for the educational environment that was provided until coveted on tuesday and all of you know this as i emailed you my daughter's class was sent outside to eat lunch it was 33 degree weather with a 25 mile an hour wind real feel 22 degrees fahrenheit there was no choice they were told to go outside what point does the risk of these children contracting pneumonia supersede covid what about the dangers of falling branches or falling ice we going to be worried about these kids safety last week her class was told to eat on the floor in

082the hallway because the cafeteria was too full these are children they're not dogs and to be fair my dog gets to eat inside these children are being treated like criminals the cea and their nine point plan supported by the gea seeks to institutionalize a prison mentality in greenwich schools temperature checks at the door to enter the school symptom checks and n95 muzzles on our children i implore the board to stand up and say no to these measures while the principal of the school has responded to my concerns with the option of my daughter eating in the cafeteria separate from her classmates what about everybody else that's being sent outside to eat it's not just my daughter here that doesn't like this and it's not fair that my daughter now has a choice and all of

083the other children don't further it's not just north mianis my wife walked by dundee yesterday it was only 42 degrees fahrenheit and kids were eating outside there the question is why why if the cafeteria is full can they not eat in their classrooms and by whose standard is the cafeteria too full why should they sit on the floor in the hallway why should they have to go outside in winter weather is it a misapplication of procedures is it coveted fears there may be no easy answers but there are simple answers have the courage to do what is morally right protect our children if the staff can't deal with covet fears replace them if it's bad procedures fix them if you need someone to come in to supervise lunch put out a request there's lots of

084family members are in this community that are very happy to come in and help out time thank you very much next up dan quigley followed by susan diana hey dan can you keep your mask on sorry it's a rule yeah dr jones uh distinguished members of the board of education i wanted to come in person tonight to say a simple thank you for your hard work and dedication and commitment to the children of greenwich and our community the last two years have been have brought with them unprecedented challenges and obstacles for our greenwich public schools and the road from march 2019 to today hasn't been easy or smooth but because of your work and the work of our dedicated teachers educators and administrators in the front lines and in the trenches we've seen the gps

085persevere it is important to remember that our board of education members are all volunteers there are concerned citizens who spend an inordinate amount of their own time working hard to look out for the best interests of our schools and our children although we have seen school boards become increasingly politicized nationally each of you deserve our thanks and our respect for your service during these particularly unique and difficult times this is especially true when one considers the very high bar of difficulty with which some of you have had to work through over the past two years dr jones as a parent of a gps student i'm grateful for your steadfastness in keeping our kids in school most of the other superintendents and surrounding areas did not this has in my opinion been the single most important

086decision made during the pandemic and its biggest beneficiaries are the children of the greenwich public school system i thank you for that and your hard work in closing it isn't easy to make tough decisions in public position bearing the brunt of public criticism goes along with the territory no one decision will please everyone and every single decision will ultimately be questioned each of you carry the great burden of the well-being and the education of the children of greenwich you all deserve the respect of our community for the job you've done thank you for your efforts and your dedication to service thank you very much uh next up susan diana and she'll be our final speaker on lex jackson stack as we emerged thank you good evening my name is susan diana and i'm a proud

087mother of three young boys two of which go to north miami school i simply wanted to speak tonight to provide a counterpoint to some of the other views that have been expressed here my appreciation goes far beyond any other passion that i might have for the school's administration particularly angela schmidt and kathleen smith smith ramirez and the entire teaching staff the amount of stress they have been under the last two years cannot be overstated they have not only had a deadly global pandemic that has killed over 850 000 people nationwide and counting but also a collapsed ceiling and subsequently subsequently having to find temporary schools for half the school we as parents need to continue to support our schools support our administration administrators teachers and staff they have kept our children safe under shifting state

088and national guidelines we must shift the narrative so that our teachers our administrators know and feel that they are supported we must not let the toxicity that is spewed in these meetings permeate our schools i'm here to represent the majority of greenwich parents to say thank you to all our teachers who have shown bravery and perseverance throughout the last couple of years despite the negativity that seems to be constantly thrown around thank you for your selfless acts thank you for keeping our kids safe thank you for everything on behalf of the majority thank you very much and not seeing jackson stack online um we will now and conclude public comment thank you for everyone coming out let's now turn to the monthly reports first up is the superintendent's report thank you chair so i also

089want to start tonight just congratulating all of our student honorees and and guests on his retirement um it's that's that's really why we do what we do is to be able to celebrate our students and sometimes we don't get enough of that in these meetings um i also wanted to say congratulations to eastern middle school who are opening their musical uh today which was um and a special thanks to dan watson and his staff for managing to figure out how to get the building open so that could continue tonight uh that's something that they had missed obviously in the height of covid so it's very exciting for them also just a reminder that the budget presentation to the bet is on january 25th it will be a virtual meeting as it stood as of yesterday

090those who are wanting to make um comment they're not actually doing the comments live that you have to write into the bet um but so that's where it was as of yesterday um also just a quick update that i've heard we have heard um quite a bit of conflicting on the daily notes that we send out for each school some people really rely on them matter of fact we had about three days or so where we didn't do them at the high school and we really heard uh why are you not doing it where are they and then we'll have other emails where parents are like can i opt out of this please stop sending them um because they're just if they're covered tired so tomorrow in the newsletter there will be an opt-in that

091parents can opt in it'll be one note every day that has all of the schools on it and that way people that no longer want to receive them won't have to get them and it'll only be those people who really want it so thank you to jonathan and mary keller for working on that for us that will start next monday and that's all for me thank you yeah go ahead mrs kowalski sorry um so there's been a couple of comments and a rash of emails regarding you know just children in general eating outdoors and i think it would be nice to have some follow-up just to be able to respond to some of those concerns with respect to what is the current policy in practice and is that going to change in light of the

092you know just regular or the conversation that we've been having here to suggest that it's not such a good idea first of all those decisions are made every single day all year long um at the building level and obviously it's guided by if it is above freezing that's the first and foremost and if children want to go outside and generally when it's above freezing children do go outside parents send them in coats to send them in gloves if for some reason they didn't have what they needed to be outside then a teacher wouldn't just take them outside in regards to lunch one thing during covid that actually a lot of our students have enjoyed is they've increased a lot of the outdoor spaces now do we want to take them out if it's 30 degrees

093no and the children were not out in 30 degree weather was it i think it was around 34 35 about 1 30 in the afternoon and that is one of the things that um staff to check whenever we heard from the parent um they're inside a courtyard so it was important to know too they're not sitting out on an open playground they're inside a courtyard you really can't feel the wind there aren't big tree branches to fall on children there aren't big icicles to fall on their heads um they were inside so i say that because really k-12 our kids eat outside if you go to the high school you'll see kids sitting out front you know all bundled up in their gear when it's pretty chilly elementary is much more guided by the teacher

094working with the nurses working with the principal that and they and you've got to understand too the teacher is there with them our teachers don't want to be outside you know if it's really so cold and it's uncomfortable excuse me this is not a back and forth thank you so i think it's enough thank you so the there really is no set policy it's guidance that you would find across the united states when i was an elementary principal in 1998 that's what we did you look and see what is the windchill what is the temperature and you make really good common sense decisions so that children can actually get at some outdoor kids like to be outside so these teachers and there were several of them there were several of them um that actually paid

095outside that day and felt that it was very comfortable okay thank you miss claus would you have anything further yeah i just so i i generally have okay you guys we actually thank you thank you miss kowalski yeah go ahead please no i just i generally have some concerns with because not every situation will be the same on every given day and nor is every uh outdoor space the same with respect to corridors and so i guess there is a concern with going outside because i do realize going outside and getting fresh air even on cold days is perfectly it's perfectly fine and if they're going out and they're playing kickball that's great because one they're getting fresh air they've got their jackets their hats their mittens all that stuff on they're also creating energy

096and heat by moving around and when they're sitting still eating their lunch i would think with their gloves off to eat food it's an entirely different situation and i know a lot of kids have a fear of speaking up and saying i'm cold right they don't really recognize that i know i go skiing with my kids and i'm constantly asking them are your feet cold are your hands cold because it's just not something that they're readily thinking about until someone actually asks them and i think there's a difference between sending them out to play versus eating i'm also in the fact of what the question that hasn't been answered yet is why can't they just eat in their classroom i understand that there may be an overload with respect to the gym or the cafeteria

097where they're eating but why is the classroom not an option it is an option and teachers all across the district eat in the classroom they for instance the building that was referenced tonight they don't even use their cafeteria for lunch they use the gym it's a huge big space and there are it's such a it's one of our it is our largest building so you use the gym you also use the classroom they're on rotations it's not the same every single day um they have a schedule they move around they can't eat in the room and a matter of fact one of the um teachers that was referenced like they generally will sit at their desk if they're inside you know they have the shields up some teachers will let kids picnic because they want

098to sit on a towel or which they've done for two years on a towel or they might want to sit on their coat because they want to be in a circle on the floor with their friends so it is it is classroom specific and it depends on the spaces and it's a daily decision mr kelly yeah i got a bunch of kids and if any of them were young little kids like uh some of the references earlier on and and they came home and described the situation as being uncomfortable and bad well i i guess i'd be a little annoyed so what i'd like to do is uh instead of further elaborating on the issue let's talk about how we're going to solve this problem because we have to be more sensitive to the kids

099of course if it's some temperature i don't know whether it's 55 or 45 or certainly at 75 it's fine to go outside but let's try to have a discussion uh where we're sensitive to the complaints we're hearing and try to figure out how we could uh make some sort of rules to our uh to the number schools or suggestions to be more careful about this because uh to a karen's point about the kids when they're young they they might not be able to communicate well to uh to a teacher so as i said if my kid came home and they were young and they had a problem like that you know i'd want to hear a solution rather than kind of talking about it i'd like to say let's kind of get together and figure

100out what we can do to solve it and i'm i'm happy to have that conversation with the elementary principal team um and see but what i just want to reiterate when it's above freezing kids do go outside and they have forever okay michael oh sorry michael joseph you're next and then miss hirsch yeah i don't want to um am i on my back on okay i don't want to um repeat what um joe said um necessarily i agree with it i think convening the elementary principles and talking through these things makes sense they um i think actually it needs to go beyond that a little bit i think we heard a couple of examples here of you know we heard the comment tonight about the importance of balancing covet safety and we get that with

101all of the other concerns that we're facing um that the kids face the school day and you know quite frankly it surprised me when when i heard this week that elementary kids were eating outside i mean i'm in schools every day i that was news to me um not you know the um third third graders shouldn't be eating outside in 30 degree weather um it just shouldn't happen um it makes but i think you need we need to talk through that but then we also heard you know from our high school students very thoughtfully this evening about clubs um and they made a very thoughtful point about if it's safe to have classes with masks on in school why are clubs virtual so i think that conversation about that need the balance it's an ongoing

102thing we know that this is everything everything has changed in covet every month is different we know that but i think we need to continue to have that conversation um at all levels and see where we can balance balance out the needs of our students thank you miss hersh i i think uh i'm just going to probably be ready to get reiterate what joe and mike and karen had said you know i i know i'm not a fan of eating outside when it's 30 degrees ask ms constant we have heat lamps when we out eat outside at that weather um and you know while this is not a policy this is something that might be a regulation or something that's deciding build decided building by building i appreciate that you're going to go back and

103convene with the the principals to have this discussion because um you know i i think parents are often surprised when their children come home and mention something i would also fall back on saying that this might be something that should probably be communicated to parents saying you know if we are having children outside not just for recess which makes perfect sense they need the opportunity to get their yayas out and run around but if they're sitting outside to eat parents may want to send them with warmer clothing or whatever it might be or opt them out um so my point simply is if there are changes to their daily schedule like that if they're going to be eating in a different manner it might be helpful just to communicate that so parents have an understanding

104thank you miss costin i guess my next question is do we not have adequate seating in the alternative spaces where they're eating so that i don't understand why they're eating on the floor in a hallway i mean i know on pajama day my kids want to sit on their sleeping bags in the classroom on the floor and eat pizza with their class but you know on the regular i feel like we should have some proper seating even if they're in the hallway like outs outside central outside the gym there's seats for the children if they can't be accommodated in the gym or the cafeteria i just feel like we should have proper seating if in the alternative spaces where they're eating yeah every building is different and all of the cafeterias are set up wherever

105the cafeteria is some of them use alternate spaces also for cafeteria so it just depends on the building but they do have seating there are teachers that again choose to just eat in the classroom at their desk uh it it's different depending on the size of the classroom is it 650 square feet or is it you know an 850 square foot classroom and it's every building is different i was going to say this is i've you know children in three different schools and all their lunches are completely different in terms of how they're once you're at central one's in elementary one's in the high school of course we all know the high school has done a few different iterations given the up and down so um it sounds like something that we should look at

106i agree with everyone i'd like to oh sorry i had another question go ahead mr kettle yeah just one thing i wanted to add a different angle on this is i think what's unique about the situation we heard about tonight is if this is as common as uh tony described it um then maybe that makes it all the more egregious that uh that whatever judgment or lack thereof the teacher was exercising resulted in you know this sort of feedback um it's not like there's a steady debate over this and there's people coming here advocating for lunch outside in the winter and once again i don't think anyone would advocate for that so i just it seems like a particularly poor example of judgment and the question i wanted to ask is if that's the case

107what uh what do you think should be done from an accountability standpoint because i think more broadly when we think about the way this board governs you always have the choice of saying well let's make a blanket rule that affects everybody or you can say you know we're going to trust our teachers and our administrators but then when they make bad decisions holding them accountable and i was just wondering what how are we approaching this one first of all you have to really figure out what happened it was not 30 degrees and there was not a 30 degree wind chill we have we have several teachers that actually on that particular day chose to eat in the courtyard and we certainly can go please we can certainly review that but i think that to say

108that a teacher's poor judgment when we weren't there the principle was the principal could see the courtyard we will have a discussion obviously this board would like it to be a higher temperature than that it's not something they do every day but they do try to get kids outside when they can and on that particular day they felt like it was okay so i don't think that we stood in a place to be able to judge when we were not there and there are several adults that do a wonderful job taking care of our children including the principal um it sounds like something okay go ahead mr kettle and i'm sorry i just maybe it sounds like we don't agree on the quality of the judgment what could we do to figure that out is

109this something where we could talk to the other parents in the class and because because what i'm interested in is there's a chance that this was bad judgment from the teacher and so what what mechanisms do we have in place to hold someone accountable when they make bad choices that to the detriment the student assuming that's the case and then the other question would be how would we get to the bottom of this because this seems like something worth further evaluating we i work with the principal first of all it's at a management level and how a building is managed the principal does she has received emails from other parents who have heard about this that don't agree uh with the viewpoint that was presented tonight um so i mean that we we do talk

110to parents and she's very very good about that in her building you know as far as accountability if there's something that was really egregious that happened but that was not how this was perceived from the teachers again it's not just one teacher there are a couple that day that actually made the choice to eat outside in a courtyard that is surrounded by the building um and they felt like it was okay but we will review it and we'll follow up sounds like that's a good plan um just so you know when i was i got a text from a vet member that we have to correct one thing that you said dr jones let me get it up before i get it wrong and that was live comments are allowed at the bet budget meeting

111just have to use the raise the hand function because they cannot come in person we will be sure and put that out because we did reach out and uh check on that and that was not what we were what was shared and it was not what was posted online so we will work together to make sure our parents know okay that's very good thank you yeah because i got that same note yes mr ken one more comment doesn't need to follow up but i'm slightly troubled by the idea that the way we evaluate whether someone did something wrong is asking that person if they feel like they did something wrong uh so i just something for all of us to reflect on is it is a challenge but how do we come up with ways

112to determine when something doesn't feel right uh if it actually wasn't right uh when the folks who we first go to are often the ones implicated even the principal has an interest in you know uh defending the actions regardless of the merit i don't need a response i just wanted to share that for the board okay um i wanted to sorry i have a question okay miss downey i'm sorry i don't know i'm switching topics i was gonna switch yeah i didn't know you were going to other committees oh no i was going to midterms i still see um javi here and sean right and um i know i have many many constituents of my own but also many parents and children that i'm hearing from um what are we how are people generally responding

113to the midterms i know we can't do anything about it now but these two guys really echoed something that i'm hearing a lot about which is we're rushing through the material um of course there was a snow day we've had a lot of kids in quarantine's teachers and quarantines subs are teaching new material that are going to be placed on the midterm and this is certainly adding to the stress level of many of these students there's probably not much sadly we can do about it at this point it seems like they're starting on tuesday but i do really think that this is something we should be talking about and the administration should be focused on because i i see the stress levels of these students going up and it's not okay yeah i mean all

114i can say is from my level i've only heard probably from one or two people so i don't want to put ralph on the spot but he may be hearing you know more than i am um i do know they were trying they tried to be very thoughtful um to bring a plan forward that would meet the needs of different students some students are on the cusp of increasing their grades so not having a midterm or not having that waiting option was concerning to them we had other students who had been out with quarantines and they had makeup work and we're supposed to be working with those students um and again if you want to ask ralph to chime in he may be hearing more than than i am sure mrs downey did you have

115something further on that yeah actually i i actually think they came up with a great solution because i think um it's been a couple years if these kids need to know know how to take a midterm we're doing them a disservice if we just eliminate them again so by finding a compromise about the weight of it i think was a really um effective solution but just on the topic of midterms generally given that my kids are a lot older than i think a lot of the other board members in the room the issue of midterms has come up repeatedly over the years how we administer them the notion of how they're done these the process of midterms um so this is not a new topic it's just a little variation on it this year and

116perhaps um thinking of it for next year the administration at the high school could start talking about okay if this is if it keeps coming back every couple years as a why do we do midterms why do we do them this way really not really why do we do them but why do we do them this way um i think as an educational matter it would behoove us to to take a deeper dive for them to look at it the professional educators because it has come up as i said my kids are older and it was coming up five ten years ago so this is not a new topic guys so um it won't solve this year but i think on a going forward basis we can examine them generally absolutely okay uh i did

117want to echo um some of the things that i heard in x-com and from our student leaders that were here today um yes it's exceptionally important for our children to be able to take midterms and understand the rigors and how to take tests like this my college student had come home and said if my daughter doesn't learn how to take a midterm she's in trouble when she gets to college but um at the same time i am hearing from a lot of students much like our student leaders have said that teachers are trying to rush to get into material uh taught that's going to be on midterms that i'm hearing from students that some sections of of classes are two or three units behind and some are you know and so midterms are going to

118be different for every student and i think that that's sort of um a very difficult and added stressful way for our students to kind of go into this with the fact that we've not had a full week of school um and i really urge uh you and the administration the high school to take a look at this and if they're you know some classes that are three or four units behind then that is where that information should stop because you know when children are waking up to a snow day and panicked because their teachers desperately trying to get through a unit that they know is going to be on a test next week is very stressful for them the anxiety these kids are feeling just in general is through the roof and we we've got

119to do something to support that go ahead cody i wanted to just advocate for a perhaps a different approach which is i think the the information available to teachers at the high school is they're closest to the situation i'd be very reluctant to do some sort of blanket midterm policy coming from the board unless it was related to you know a broader uh change in our philosophy you know supported by academic research or something but the idea that uh a handful of students feel stressed which is probably not a new phenomena for high school students means that we should have some kind of blankets reaction i would you know i feel like this is something that maybe we want to keep our hands more off of than on i was just suggesting going that the

120administration at the high school do it not us oh yes by the way the policy did come specifically from the administration not from us definitely not in our purview yeah i missed kowalski i was just going to say i agree with with cody on this um you know i think that the implementing the midterms and putting them back in is is a good thing and i agree that there are probably stresses and the fact that it has been gone for two years and now all of a sudden comes back is an added stress um and i am i do think the administration probably and the and ralph and the teachers have the pulse of their students i hope so that's their job and understand and can appreciate and get them through this i think these

121are all about life lessons for kids and important aspects that they need to learn to deal with which is taking tests being under stress trying to figure things out um look do i worry about overstressing kids of course and there is there's a line and it's a fine line and it's hard to navigate that line but at some point we have to let the process work and i believe and i have to trust in the administration and mr mayo and the teachers understand and appreciate because i know that they all all those teachers extend themselves out and are readily available to the students for those that have questions and i you know implore employ the students to go go see their teachers if they have a question go ask it make sure you're prepared in

122the best way possible because life is going to throw curveballs every every day of the week and you've got to know how to deal with them and these are the ways to learn how to do with it now when the consequences are less severe thank you and i was going to echo miss downey that you were um right to do that i think it was the administration did a nice job of trying to find a balance by doing sort of the greater of um hopefully making you know and improving your grade not bringing it down so um with that can we move on to committee updates and i'm just going to go sorry yep can i go in order or go ahead mr kelly or no mine's quick um actually as as we said here

123um planning and zoning is going to vote on the high school entryway design tonight so hopefully we'll have an email a happy email to all the rest of the board tomorrow and we have a building committee meeting at 8 a.m so let's not go too late well we're so far we're sticking to our agenda and timing okay mr kelly i have to apologize in advance i've got a lengthy report uh so bear with me please see i cursed myself by saying we were on task okay go ahead i'll move quick cardinal stadium uh we there was an issue with the the state dot uh which we talked about last meeting and we have solved that problem so we are in a good position to get our permanent tco which in itself sounds a little strange

124because the permanent temporary certificate of occupancy sounds strange but uh it's the step before we actually get our ceo so uh it's good news uh the next is uh sort of uh a different topic uh it's making some good out of a tragedy uh we uh about a year ago we lost uh i passed away our one of our boys lacrosse coaches and uh uh chris uh andrea and uh his wife jamie uh after he passed had uh set up the opportunity to donate money to what he had such a passion for which was a uh sports especially lacrosse at greenwich high school so the uh the the goal for for jamie his wife was to raise as much money as she could for cardinal stadium now as we all know cardinal stadium was funded

125by public funding and uh and basically we didn't take any private funding so in multiple conversations with jamie we tried to understand some of chris's passions broadcasting was one of his passions so jamie wants to donate a pretty fair sum of money uh to uh help us create a classroom type broadcast set up for our kids ralph mayo's son sean had started the broadcast club some years ago and we're allocating one of the seven press boxes to have a permanent classroom for for the kids to use to learn the craft and skill of broadcasting so um the uh uh jamie uh his wife and uh and sean will be meeting to discuss the equipment they're gonna order uh which she's gonna donate uh we will then follow through with the amount of the donation and

126hopefully the board will approve that donation uh so that's another one of the cardinal stadium related projects we're working on uh next is the emergency road uh also phase two called i don't know if we've officially changed the name but i like to call it the emergency road or impact uh we uh we had a zoo meeting early in the month with all the principals in the town uh all the agencies all the groups anyone who have anything to do with the uh the stadium uh with uh sorry with the emergency road uh we've uh went over an alternative plan uh which we put in we worked on and designed which we had to do anyway uh so we can't blame it all on the uh on on on greg our tree warden uh kramer

127but uh but we did the alternative plan anyway because the town wanted us to put an alternative plan together anyway we went over the the alternative plan with the various agencies in town and uh our professionals have suggested that we stick with the original plan we had so there'll be very little change uh from the original plan we approved uh two years ago uh some of the uh little change is that uh that uh jim michael our chief engineer dpw uh suggested it would make a lot more sense for the buses when dropping off students to greenwich cardinal stadium that they enter on the route 1 side rather than come to the parking lot at the school that gives the buses the opportunity to park in the parking lot and they can simply drive around

128and drive in the route one uh right turn in right turn out rather than coming in through the parking lot and going out the right turn having to go all the way to the center of greenwich to then turn back around to come around because most buses will be going on i-95 and heading north for uh most of connecticut competitions so that's the only change which is not a significant one but that's the only difference from the uh from what we approve so therefore i don't believe we need to re-vote on that and we do have what could be or what we will have to call ed specs and at this point i think we have to uh uh submit that to uh the uh uh the selectmen uh committee uh for a uh for

129building committee so i think that's where we are with that uh three waterfall project um we i mentioned how this is progressing uh we got a lot of support from our local public officials uh i was told there were some issues with the waterfall project that were state related and some local so uh we got support from our senator ryan fazio steve mesquez has showed tremendous support fred camilla our first selectman said he's a 100 behind this our select men or select people lauren rabin and janet mcguigan also said that they're 100 behind this project i trust the my fellow board of ed members will also support this project the bet because it's not funded by public funding it's private funded i think that they uh they will also be very happy about that uh

130the first part of this project will be cleaning up what is an abandoned lot it almost seems like when you first drive into hillside and you look over and see that that garbage and debris and clutter over there so first step would be we have a uh we've got a topo donated to us from uh from tony d'angelo uh d'andrea who's uh giving us uh the uh the surveys uh we have a landscape designer who's working with us for free we have a a person who's donating dumpsters our first selectmen said he'd wave dumping fees and i believe we can get these students at greenwich high school certainly the teams will get together to uh to help do these phase one which is clean up the mess that is there right now and then after

131that we'll discuss landscape design and authorization now i understand uh tony you got a call from somebody in town who said we might have some challenges with this is that correct basically almost all of the town departments have reached out about concerns about this project if you if you could those ones that actually reached out could you call them back and i got authorization from the names of public officials uh that i just listed i'll give you that list again that you can mention all their names when the town employees uh say that they they're not in favor of this project and each of these people that i just mentioned said that i can use their name and then to direct them to those elected officials of both uh the state delegation and our local

132officials so maybe they'll change their tune to we can't do anything to maybe tell us what we can do and then maybe they can tell us what we have to be cautious about but at least they can understand that we have the support of all the elected officials both at the state and locally i can certainly do that i think probably a pre-meeting uh to figure out what the challenges are would probably be better because most of the state delegation don't actually understand what happens with the depth of knowledge somebody like amy who said you know public works has on the soil issues uh what sort of testing what what we may run into there is something to do and i don't know if it's with deep or epa or both where initially when that

133waterfall was put in they had to have certain types of plants it has to do with the water runoff so there was something that was submitted at the state level so i think they would have to do some research and it's really getting probably a big meeting um of everybody to kind of do some research to figure out what are the what are the requirements on the property and what are what what we can and can't do okay i get that and to me some view those as challenges i view those as opportunities so let's go into and try to move forward on it use the strength and power we have but on a project that i think everybody's behind so uh instead of people telling us no i don't like when people tell us

134no when an obvious project makes sense to do so uh so i think we're gonna rally the troops on this and try to fix that mess so that's my take on that i'm done at that point thank you very much everybody thank you mr kelly yes ms hirsch well before i get to my uh committee updates i had a quick question for mr kelly with this fantastic waterfall project um i don't know if there's stuff that's being donated if it's considered you know in kind donation um but i assume much like when we have gifts that are given to us we just need to i don't know if it's something and i'm going to ask otherwise if they need approval by us uh because if it's over certain funding so even if it's a don't

135being donated it might be a gift in kind and i don't know i mean we can refer that to policy but i don't know if that's something that we would need to just approve um i'd love to be able to give recognition to those who've been so kind to step forward if this project can go forward and so forth yeah okay yes sorry okay um constant is the is the gift threshold the same for the board of vet as the town five thousand yes i believe that's right yeah five mr kettle uh this just reminded me that i think at some point we should revisit the gift policies for schools um wanted to raise that i think joe's comments just remind me that i think it's a relevant subject to look at miss downey can

136i just ask okay examine the gift policy but to what that's pretty broad you know with what in mind yeah that it might be overly restrictive currently the idea that we miss out on opportunities to take funding from people that would benefit uh schools students etc because of onerous restrictions we we can still accept the gifts they just have to go through an approval process so it's not anything that is more difficult for them it's just working through our processes at with the town's limitations god bless you yes but i understand mr kettle i know what you're talking about we've talked about talking having that come upon policy as it relates to larger donations or fundraising and things like that and um i know we discussed it a little bit when i was on the

137policy committee but it's something we should also consider referring back to the policy committee again yes mr kelly i agree uh cody to uh uh to address that when i know that i've personally had some interaction with people who were interested in donating some uh something to the school and uh it's it's not abnormal to slide a bunch of documents in front of them asking them to fill it out and have a triplicate signed and notarized and all that sort of stuff prior to them to actually making their donation i of course exaggerate but basically that's kind of what we want to get past and make it easier for somebody to give our schools uh money and accept donations so i think i think re addressing that policy would be fantastic thanks for bringing that

138up cody i do appreciate it well very good uh going to keep going here on the officer reports sorry miss hirsch um i just wanted to say seak met this uh month um and um they've had a a slight change in chairmanship i wanted to thank don zimmerman um who is the chair thus far this year as she is stepping down for her time and dedication uh and welcome back carolyn layram who has voted back in his chair and naomi novo naomi nova who has voted in as the vice chair there was a quick update on some and discussion on some of the audit updates from dr heigenthaler and i also wanted to note that jenny reynolds who is heading up the enrichment committee um is has suggested a list of topic for parent forums

139and meetings and is certainly open and welcome to new ideas as they are starting to look to put together um you know different param parent forums and workshops and so forth going forward also got an update on the professional development that is happening uh based on the changes for ieps from the state of connecticut which will not be going live i believe until july 1st but um our staff is all being trained in the new iep procedures and documentation uh and we got an update on that so i'd like to i just wanted to share that and um the textbook math committee has been unfortunately stymied with several snow days because we have been unlucky enough to have presentations on all of those snow days so we are they keep getting moved so i'll have

140an update after we have another presentation that's good michael joseph the very exciting the our strategic plan committee met for the first time um yesterday as as you all know um our strategic plan uh expired or was was scared it was 2015 to 2020 so um we needed to get moving on uh revision of the strategic plan um what we're hoping to do or what we will be doing is we'll be bringing to the board um at our board retreat um in the first week of february uh it's with agenda items so we can talk a little more more fully about the um um the direction that we're hoping to to to go as far as how best to revise the strategic plan uh we're not looking at replacing the strategic plan i think there's

141consensus there's consensus on the committee that there's um dakota karen there's some good bones there we have a thoughtful vision of the graduate we have a lot of thoughtful ideas there the um the idea is how can we over the next of the course of the winter and spring um working with the community and working with our administrators and teachers and and people throughout the system how how can we um strengthen and re-hone and focus strategic plan such that it aligns with a lot of what you just heard from ptac tonight actually where you have this concept of a stretch goal this big goal or a big one or two or three big goals over the course of five years that we're working towards and then in between every year you have smart goals specific

142measurable time-bound realistic rooted in quantifiable student data student student achievement data um so that we can measure progress towards these the the stretch goal so that's a that's a that's a very brief um overview like i said the whole idea is that we're going to be talking about the how how a draft timeline to get the full board's in input on a draft timeline of that at our retreat next month sounds great all right seeing nothing else let's move into our meeting um and we were going a little bit order tonight because we're moving an action item as you can see this is different than usual as i believe miss downey we have uh council joining us um so why don't we could you put this on the table yes i guess i have to

143i'd like to make a motion that the board adopt policies four zero zero zero point one and five one four five four as presented i'm happy to second that so the board may recall these were given to us as a first read in november when we had a number of new board members so we've put them on hold till tonight so we've already had a first read and they're on for action this evening both of these policies relate to title ix which i think everyone's familiar with it came about because pgc in the process of kind of reviewing various policies and procedures as we've moved over to the cabe model and looked at uh they had a list of required and recommended policies and we decided obviously to start with the required and the pgc

144realized we really did not have these title ix policies in any proper form um in place and they are required under various laws so we brought this is why we brought them forward we these are policies that were drafted by our outside counsel they have not been altered in any shape or form in terms of the language other than putting in names and contact information so we've had a great fidelity and we trust in our expert counsel at shipman and goodwin andrea bellick andy balak who is available with us on zoom this evening to answer any questions but um 4 000.1 relates to staff and 5145.44 relates to students um so ultimately we can move them as separate items if board members want but i wanted to give um i would think it's helpful if

145andy gives a if if people would like a present a short just explanation about why these policies are required so can we elevate is she elevated on to zoom she is she just has to come off from you here thank you hi hi nice to be with you all um yeah i'll be very brief um title nine uh of the education amendments of 1972 uh requires uh uh public schools boards of education to adopt policies uh of non-discrimination on the basis of sex uh and this applies both to staff and to students uh and um so what you have before you and and um in the past year uh the title ix regulations have been changed and those have been promulgated and so uh there is a need to um uh update also to ensure

146that your compliance with the law and including those regulations so the policies that have been given to you are just that they are um they are a codification in essence at the local level of the requirements of federal um and as well as there's um state law referenced as well the non-discrimination statute in connecticut of 1015 c but they're really just the codification of legal requirements on the board of education and on the school system uh relative to non-discrimination miss kowalski sure thanks so i don't really have a question andy and i appreciate the fact that you and i have had conversations and you were kind enough to send me um some additional reading materials and i have voiced my concerns with several of you on this on the board with respect to this particular

147policy and i'm relating to the policy regarding students i have no problem with not committing sexual discrimination i don't think anyone on this panel does have a problem with not committing sexual discrimination my problem with this particular policy is the fact that it not only protects against it it goes beyond what title ix was identified and and why it was created how 40 years well probably more than that 60 years ago and my problem here is that this reads so broad as to allow for students that are born biological we'll go we'll just for example purposes students that are born biological male and transitioning and playing on girls sports teams so as a woman and as a woman who played sports her entire life and still pretends to play sports at my age and a

148mother of three daughters all of which who play sports i have problems with this i understand that it is that connecticut passed a law regarding this i also understand that there were two young women in who competed in uh high school sports and i believe track or cross country were denied the the ability to win championships and denied scholarships because they were competing against boys biological men males who were transitioning to females there are no rules or guidance provided by cec or the state of connecticut that governs how this works and this doesn't protect title ix was intended to protect women and this doesn't protect young girls it gives the opportunity for young girls in sports to lose out on opportunities that they would otherwise have been afforded and it gives and it also denies

149them the opportunity to win uh and achieve college scholarships we've seen this in the press quite some time we're experiencing it now with respect to the ncaa swimmers and today in and of itself the ncaa has come back and said it needs to have a policy it needs to have a program it needs to have more rules governing this because women are being sidelined we have fought for so long to be treated as equals and now all of a sudden we're not and i'm not going to stand for it i don't care if it's connecticut law but somebody has to stand up for the young women who who have who deserve to be protected the state of connecticut doesn't provide any guidance with respect to the way the olympics committee has done this and now

150the way the ncaa is doing this and i do not think in good conscious we can go forward with a policy that allows for biological boys to compete on female athletic teams who are biologically stronger bigger faster until there are some other guidance and so from that point on i cannot unless there is a carve out that can be provided that protects young women in in sports i cannot get behind this mr kelly um well i have experience in sports i have uh uh i realize i've been gifted with a voice and i have spent a large portion of my life representing the underrepresented and uh in using this big voice so i'm sympathetic to the underrepresented but i have to agree with karen on this topic having the experience in uh i understand i'm

151being told i'll look into it further and maybe further advice from from our attorney uh on this topic uh it's a law uh but i i can't agree with it i i think it's i have four three daughters uh i spoke to my wife about this prior to coming here who she is an athlete she still competes competitively in sports at her age now and she was so passionate against this topic and i have always thought it was unfair uh so i i i feel compelled to voice my opinion on this topic and agree with karen uh and as i said i i i make it a very important part of my life to be a use my loud voice to the underrepresented and i understand this group is underrepresented but i i just don't

152think it's it's safe and and fair so that's my opinion miss downey i believe me i i share the concerns of karen and joe 100 but this policy goes is way beyond what we're talking about it also is sexual harassment it it it's um it addresses a number of different things it's not purely an athletic policy so i just want to be clear for people who haven't read it you know other than the eight of us um we're talking about a very general broad policy which happens because of the way it's drafted to include the concern that ms kowalski has now i'd like to go back to council and just talk about because we did talk about trying to find a way to craft this in a way to satisfy these concerns but we weren't

153able to do so so i don't know if you can address that um and and the implication of not having a policy like this in place please andy sure so um i i do want to address just a um a few things i first you know the board acts as an entity when it adopts a policy um it is not a statement of the values of individual members the beliefs of individual members it is uh uh really a reflection of a requirement to adopt a policy that is consistent with the current law um and and to clarify what the current law is um the title ix is interpreted and enforced by the united states department of education office of civil rights they issued a notice of interpretation in june of 2021 that made clear uh

154their position that uh the non-discrimination uh provisions include uh transgender students there was a lawsuit filed uh prior to that notice of interpretation there was a lawsuit filed in the state of connecticut in the district court the federal district court um and that lawsuit was dismissed it was a challenge by student athletes against the ciac rules that permit transgender athletic participation those are eligibility rules of the ciac which is your governing body for interscholastic sports um and that lawsuit was dismissed and although it is currently on appeal by those plaintiffs there has been no change in the law here in the state of connecticut in addition to title ix you have two state laws that protect individuals including students uh from discrimination uh on the basis of gendered identity and expression and the state department

155of ed and the connecticut commission on human rights and opportunities have referenced uh the ciac requirements um in connection with that and and so uh you know i um what i can say is that boards of education in the state are um they implement the educational interests of the state they are an agent of the state they are required to adopt policies rules basically that govern their operation of schools um and one of the most of the policies um to your point most of the policies you adopt are required um this is one of them and uh it certainly is both um a requirement of state law that you enact policies the rules in compliance with the law but it is also a requirement of title ix uh that you enact a policy that is

156compliant with title ix and so i at this point the united states department of education has made clear in its notice of interpretation that this protects title ix protects transgender students um what i can say is that you know your policies can be updated if there is a if there is a change to the law um policies are updated all the time um but to not have a policy could be problematic legally either with the state or federal authorities including the united states department of education the state board of education the office of civil rights of the united states department of education and there certainly have been times that um the office of civil rights also engages the department of justice if it has concerns about enforcement so um i do just you know there

157are there's this is a legal requirement um on the board from the title ix regulations you must have a policy in place the policy has to be compliant with the law as it stands today um and both state and federal law require the board of education um to adopt policies that are reflective of the law again it's not a the policies are not a statement of the values of individual board members um or really the values of the board itself uh these are required policies that reflect um essentially a codification of federal and state law at the local level andy i just have a quick question we have a policy in place that says that this board is required to follow the laws of the state of connecticut so why isn't that sufficient enough and

158rather than having to go into this specific detail because the federal law for title ix the regulation requires the adoption of a title ix policy where can you send that to me sure 34 cfr section 106 point a subsection b i just put a pen in my hand sure sorry 34 cfr section 106.8 b little b inference so andy quick question here um said simply since i'm not a lawyer we basically have no choice but to adopt this policy as it is is that fair if i want to yeah requires that you have a policy in place and that it is disseminated um to employees and students so you do that through a variety of means um and so you have to have a policy in place and the united states department of education office

159of civil rights as well as state department of education um have authority in connection with um any non-compliance so okay so my personal views of no matter is that fair well so here's what i'll say um i don't i don't want to say anybody's personal views are of no matter um i board of ed members never give up their right to free speech um but the board as a whole acts as an entity and that isn't necessarily a reflection of any one member's personal beliefs in this in this matter the board of education as an entity must adopt a policy that's in compliance with the law um and again um you know it isn't that these policies whether it's this policy or it's a policy that you're required to have on the administration of medication

160in the schools or a policy you know any number of the policies that you're required to have uh they really simply are um at a very local level right a reflection of the laws you are required to comply with and enforce mr kelly i'm just a little bit confused sorry maybe i'm not keeping up so we're having a vote normally uh they told me this when i first joined the board you get a vote of yes a vote of no and you could abstain from voting so what you're saying here is we can only vote yes and we don't have those other two choices right now i'm i'm not saying what individual board members can do i'm saying the entity must adopt a policy that is in compliance with the law and i'm saying that

161a vote of that the the board of ed policy is not a statement of its individual members it is a policy of the board of education so i hope i clarified that okay sorry go ahead miss hersh i'm sorry michael joseph so so just out of curiosity so what would happen if we like what kind of jeopardy are we if we don't like what what happens if we if we if we adopt a policy that is that is that is not in compliance with the law the um you know we take the principled stand here we put a line in or we amend it in a certain way that obviously doesn't necessarily we know doesn't agree with the law what what what are the consequences of that so i think the um i spoke earlier

162about the board of education being responsible for implementing the educational interests of the state of connecticut in that regard um as um essentially a state agency uh there are procedures in which the state board of education could determine that the board is not meeting its statutory obligations under 10 there's a complaint procedure under 10 4b and the state board of education could take action against the board of education in addition the united states department of education through the office of civil rights and or the united states department of justice um uh could take enforcement action in connection with non-compliance with title ix there's also the possibility of because you receive federal funds uh there could be implications for your federal funding and there's also the possibility of individual claims relative to non-compliance mr kell sorry

163miss hersh uh you know i had spoken with karen uh ms kowalski and i and i understand the concern um it's a very sticky wicket um it is something that is currently in the court system here um you know but reading over this policy as many times as i had it is it is not specifically outlined here it is very much a policy specifically speaking against sexual harassment and discrimination which goes to a much broader and wider discussion so that our students and our staff walk through the doors of our schools and feel part of a community they don't feel discriminated against for a multitude of different things you know i'm a big fan of being in compliance with the law um but you know i i understand the concerns and and i do see

164that this is this is a much wider discussion and broader discussion that is something that is not just taking place at this local board um it is certainly uh seated in higher powers such as the state board of you know the state legal system and beyond um but you know again i think not having something like this in place harms far more students and staff uh than having this in place for a very small not small an issue that is is rare and does not uh is not commonplace on a daily basis um [Music] in that regards whereas sexual harassment uh and her and discrimination happens on a far more broad basis daily uh you know that's just my my 10 cent mr kiddle yeah before i say what i was going to say just

165a clarifying comment based on what karen just said is is it the case that if we don't pass this policy sexual harassment is allowed or permitted uh there's no protections that strikes me as a bizarre interpretation andy could you answer that sure um so you're required under the regulation um promulgated by the federal um government you are required to have this policy in place so that the procedures can be adopted uh and used to um address investigate and resolve complaints of of sex discrimination or sexual harassment so um i i i don't know that i can um uh say that uh the absence of a policy is saying that yes sexual harassment is allowed i don't think that's the case um however the the board of education is required under the federal law to adopt

166a policy that is in compliance with title ix so you have to have a policy um that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex under title ix uh in place and then you have to have procedures related to that and those are promulgated by the administration as set forth in the policy but you have to have the policy in place yeah that i think that was the question i had i guess maybe i could phrase it differently to because i think it will answer itself i don't think any of us believe that if there was a case of sexual harassment today in one of the schools that we would not be able to address it what i was going to say originally is uh i would encourage my fellow board members to reflect on the

167importance of federalism and separation of powers as a founding principle for how our government is set up and that you know compliance with the law uh can mean different things and that the law is constantly evolving and being reinterpreted uh both by judges and uh through legislative processes i think if we see something that we think is morally wrong we can play a role in correcting it by standing up against it and letting these processes uh you know work their way through the system i don't think we're doing much i don't think we're doing any harm we're just allowing for something like that to play out and if down the road we say you know this is costing too much with lawyers or causing other issues we can reevaluate it but i think that our

168system is designed for different governing bodies to object to one another and to not uh get steamrolled when especially over you know moral issues can i just say um dr jones did talk to the policy committee that we have had incidents which then bring to bear the questions about our policy from uh students and their counsel and their parents um so i don't know you know it is an occurrence that we do deal with and it's my understanding that we are then asked as a as a school district what is our policy and what are our regulations um in in the in the in a typical sexual harassment sexual discrimination base so the lack of having something might concern you know is obviously a concern that then that opens us up to a different set

169of problems right i mean it's back to kind of we were talking about balance earlier about you know coveted risks right the the um that you have to look at the whole picture that the number of incidents of other types of sexual harassment or sexual discrimination may be more not i'm using voluminous is the wrong word but more frequent um than where the concern is and so on balance you know what's the better approach i mean and obviously we each have to vote the way we believe is the right way to vote if i may say one other thing um the ciac rules on eligibility um permit such participation so the only other i was asked the question about the possibilities of what ifs it certainly is possible that a school district that does not

170comply with the ciac rules may not depending on how the ciac views that i don't know whether the ciac would permit continued participation in interscholastic athletic events if there is non-compliance with their rules and their policies and and so i just do want to point out it's not just uh the united states department of education it's not just um the state laws and the state board of education and the board's responsibility as an agency of the state but there could also be implications relative to participation overall in athletics depending on how the caic interprets its own rules and and the penalties or consequences for non-compliance that it issues mr kelly yes i now i'm thank you i i'm i'm more confused than i was when i came in the room so basically i believe christina

171you mentioned something maybe i misheard you that you're able to separate this policy into something which we can we're all okay with and then one no what i was saying is that we have a student policy and a staff policy we can't vote on the staff we can vote on each policy separately and we need to vote on i think i would say based on the decision we would vote on that each we'll vote on the staff legality and i'm thinking perp walk and all that sort of stuff i'm like well i don't want to go there so i'm all confused i'm not a lawyer i don't do lawyer stuff very well i usually have people do that for me and i don't want to get myself in trouble so is it ready that's why

172andy's here but thank you for what i'm sure what you said made sense to somebody but it certainly didn't to me very well so i didn't really understand exactly what you said sorry about that but just me and so is there a way we could vote on one and put the other one off to another time so we can gather more information i think we should vote on it tonight because we're already two meetings in kind of arguably three so i think we should take a vote see where the vote is and then we'll go from there regardless of outcome miss kowalski is there any way to put in a i don't want to put on a carve out because it's the wrong way to play it but something that specifically addresses this type of

173situation that could be dealt with on a case-by-case scenario so that it can be evaluated because i certainly look if there is a a student that is transitioning in one way shape or form certainly they're going through enough in their life right and and they don't need any additional burdens my whole point here is that everybody needs a fair shot and a fair playing field and doing and doing this without any guidance or parameters for which this would happen does not level the playing field does not create a environment by which there is a a competitive field it it just doesn't and so the fact is here and maybe we're just leaps and bounds above everybody else or maybe everybody else isn't just bold enough to speak out about this and is offended as is

174as offended as i am about this and i think there are some other members of the board that are but to say that we're not saying no never we're saying it has to be dealt with a case-by-case basis addressing the issue of putting a policy in place to deal with the occurrences of sexual harassment that for which title ix was intended to protect and dealing with our legal obligation but also addressing the fact that this if this does happen that we address it in that specific context to make sure that all of the stakeholders involved are listened to and make sure that they are protected ms hirsch i'm having a very difficult time with this conversation it is our responsibility to protect those that need to be protected for students and staff to be able

175to walk in the doors and feel comfortable and protected and know that there's a policy that speaks to this that our regulations you know lay out what happens uh cody was talking earlier about consequences consequences are important to understand um i i have a female athlete in my home i have a male athlete in my home i've not ever been in a transgendered body i don't know what that feels like i can't even begin to imagine but i have plenty of friends who have children in that position i do not feel comfortable being the arbiter of what occurs in that place and i i think it is a very difficult position to put all of us in at this point it is not outlined in this policy in that way it is something that you

176know it is again it's in the state courts right now um and i think if there is a change that is something that we should immediately then address but i mean i can ask our our legal counsel you know in the past 10 years how many times has this situation occurred i literally can only think of two or three times i just feel that it is our responsibility to make the decisions for the majority of our students without negatively impacting the minority um of different groups and i just we are behind in having this approved for quite some time um and i just feel very uncomfortable not having it there to protect those the majority of our students and staff if they're if they have some kind of issue in this regards you know not

177in sports just in general life michael joseph yeah i i think we might be getting ahead of ourselves a little bit i think we should uh move towards towards the vote here i agree with christina i think we have to vote on this policy and should it go down then um christine is not going to like this then i think it's incumbent upon the policy committee or some kind of ad hoc committee to try again and draft something that that reaches approval but i think we might be getting ahead i think i think we probably should move towards a vote ms costan i don't i don't remember seeing a transgender policy in this read is this a it's just generally on the basis like if you look at what the definition of the protected yes

178correct okay i was just i think we should split up we can split the policies up i was just going to say um i have a um i hear you karen i i am i went to the university of notre dame and i'm an athlete of course i wasn't good enough to play division one sports but um i appreciate the um the role of woman having an opportunity um having said that this is a very i'm much more worried let me put it in a finance way so maybe i couldn't understand it there's a risk reward here and um to karen's point we are at a .0001 scenario that we're talking about and we need to protect ourselves against the 99 sexual harassment scenario it sounds like this is the law i'm not saying there

179are a lot of laws i don't like in fact i do not like speed limits because i unfortunately have a heavy foot so um but you know i have to follow the law so i well it's not necessarily how i feel personally great about for a very but it's the point zero zero zero one percent scenario that you know maybe it'll change one day and then we'll have to address it again in policy and that's for the courts to work through but until then i'm a little bit more worried about leaving us exposed as a as a board and and that worries me a little bit more so um can i ask you i i really really we're trying to conduct our meaning we were very respectful of you i'd like that to continue so

180thank you um so go ahead um and i think um just to ask the council about um other districts that have gone that have not adopted this are you aware of any or i mean just kind of could you give us a little background no i'm not aware so we represent the majority of connecticut school districts and connecticut school districts i'm not aware of any connecticut school district that has not adopted a policy in compliance with the current title ix law what i can say is that there have been um challenges uh in other states to uh boards of education that have adopted laws that have restricted access to for example bathrooms or locker rooms uh those lawsuits have been um heavily fought uh those challenges have been uh successful to those board policies and

181um uh there certainly has been legal exposure to those school dis to the school districts um through school boards that adopted such policies um us just uh somebody had raised my i it's hard because i can't see everybody well on my screen but um one of the board of ed members had raised concern about sort of the risk there was one additional risk that i did not mention that i probably should just um you know kind of worst case scenario lawyering uh which is that as you know you all are you each of you is indemnified and the board of education is indemnified for um against and held harmless against lawsuits in connection with your official activities um there is an exception uh to that um under 10-235 of the connecticut general statutes which is

182anything that is willful wanton or um malicious so again i'm not suggesting that that um is in play right now here um i i will just say that the law um at this point in connecticut given the dismissal of the of the sewell case uh and the fact that it is currently on appeal uh and presumably we will get an answer from the second circuit on that case um the current law is um uh you know at for this point in time um is in fact um in this state uh stable we will await the decision of the second circuit on the sewell case okay so miss downey would you like to now separate the policies so why don't i call the question i'm going to start with the staff policy how about that that's

183a good choice savvy play it's numerically lower i'm going to move that the board adopt i withdraw my initial motion i'm gonna make a motion that we approve policy four zero zero zero point one um in the form presented i'd like to second that is that the staff this is the staff policy correct okay can um we now have a do you want to do it and you um go ahead miss downey next one i'm gonna make a motion um that the board approved proposed policy number five one four five point four four in the form presented anyone seconding nice hirsch okay okay so that's four four so it does not pass i'll pass it four four no if someone had stained it would have passed but not at four four okay um anything further

184andy or um thank you very much for your time thank you um i um it is important um to adopt a policy so i'll leave you with that a legal requirement um thank you thank you for your time okay