December 16, 2021 Board of Education Business Meeting - Part 1

001absolutely good evening everyone i'd like to call this meeting of the board of bed to order let's please ride for the pledge of allegiance thank you so much good evening um as you can see i do not have my partner here dr jones did join us for executive session but unfortunately she is not feeling well and so she is going to drive home and join us virtually um she doesn't live far so i think she'll be on shortly um she'll also there are obviously some things we talked about in executive session one of them was on safety and security and she will address some of that in her superintendent's report later um one other thing that i wanted to do before we start the meeting uh i should also note that christina downey and michael

002joseph our um panelists are joining us virtually they're also not feeling well or there are different reasons health concerns so we are where we are um i would like to make a motion actually to um move the second item of the consent agenda which was on the board of education meeting calendar to the first item on the action items can i get a second for that motion thank you karen um and can i also then could we take a vote we're gonna have to do roll call unfortunately tonight since we do have people on virtually so we're gonna have to go back to that um so if you're in favor of moving this item for the consent agenda to action items so we can actually discuss it um i'd appreciate that so cody kettle how

003would you vote yes karen hirsch yes joe kelly laura costan karen kowalski christina downey yes i'm michael jackson mcconaughey anthony yes okay thank you that passes eight zero okay um i'm gonna put now a motion of the consent agenda on the table can i get a second for that karen hirsch okay let's do a roll call again starting down that way this time laura costen say yes please okay joe kelly yes karen kowalski kathleen still is a yes karen hirsch yes cody kettle thank you christiana downey yes michael joseph for conti anthony yes okay thank you that passes eight zero okay now we go into our public hearing and we are going to hear from the student government are they here in person they are in the back thanks guys good evening chairman stowe dr

004jones and members of the board and meeting attendees i'm javi serra senior class president at grants high school currently the student government is facilitating the voice for change initiative governor lamont has allocated 1.5 million dollars of federal arp esr funding for 76 participating high schools at ghs students are drafting their proposals on how to best spend twenty thousand dollars to improve the ghs community at large ultimately the student body will vote for a proposal on march 11th and the winning proposal will be awarded the twenty thousand dollars in federal funding voice for change offers students a unique opportunity to have a direct hand in improving ghs and i'm excited to see what creative initiatives my peers can come up with even if students don't create the winning proposal they will be participating in an active

005and productive dialogue about how to improve greenwich high school and i'm hopeful that this discussion will continue grants high school is home to over 3000 students and faculty and its best self can only be realized through the active engagement and advocacy of all of its community members additionally we have heard that the bridge under route 1 will be undergoing repairs next fall and the traffic will be one lane both ways for two years considering that in its current five-lane state route one at hillside has frequent traffic jams of a considerable size the limit in lanes will only cause more traffic and with it aggravation to address these traffic concerns students support the swift construction of the access road near cardinal stadium we understand that it may require additional funding in order to work on both

006the ghs vestibule and phase two of the stadium project in the same year but we feel that time is of the essence for both of these necessary projects as representatives of the student body we implore the board to prioritize funding for the completion of phase two of the stadium project as soon as possible especially as the construction on the bridge under route 1 begins i'd also like to publicly publicly advocate on behalf of our school resource officers fred reg and chris wallace regarding their interest in a third partner a therapy dog from rigorous academics to navigating a two-year-long pandemic ghs students deal with plenty of stress i alongside with the overwhelming majority of students based on a recent survey believe that a full-time therapy dog could help students navigate this stress just a little bit

007better high school will always have its fair share of ups and downs and drama in between but we all can agree that seeing a four furry four-legged friend would really put a smile on anyone's face finally i want to offer my overdue congratulations to chairman stowe vice chairwoman kowalski mr kittle miss costin and mr mercanti anthony on their new positions i'm excited to work with all of you as we move forward i'll see you all in 2022. happy holidays thank you very much it's a good way to start the meeting good evening chairwoman stowe dr jones members of the board and meeting attendees i'm kwame blatant student body president of greenwich high school december 14 2012 was a dark day in america the 26th precious lives taken at sandy hook elementary school of newtown connecticut

008or 26 lives gone too soon i remember that day i was a third grader who had no clue as to why the teachers were frantically talking with each other why police and barricades heavily guarded our usually lively pickup circle and why my mother hugged me so tight when i returned home from school that day i had no clue that kids that were barely younger than myself and teachers would not be returning to their loved ones that evening as i matured each year december 14 would fill my usually upbeat and energetic cell with a silent fear a stillness in light of a tragedy so disturbing that i could simply do nothing but thing what if that was me however this emotion is something that i continue to confront as sandy hook was not the last time

009that a mass school shooting occurred during my primary and secondary education i'd like to use this opportunity with you tonight to offer my reflections and the student perspective on what take on what took place at greenwich high school one week ago on thursday december 9. i along with many students fled ghs in fear of what could be not in fear of what was the disturbing message written on the bathroom stall had spread like wildfire via social media and the lack of communication from the administration through the school into a state of chaos kids were physically running through the hallways breaking out into panic attacks and crying in light of a situation they had limited information about and could only assume the worst possible outcome of out of the 10 years that i have been a

010student in this town last thursday was the first day for even a split second that i questioned my safety in school consequently students were incredibly disappointed in the administration's response javi and i are grateful that we have the opportunity to meet with mr mayo on friday to express our discontent with the lack of clear communication with staff teachers and students and the fact that no shelter in place and or lockdown was initiated we appreciate that mr mayo was highly responsive to our concerns and openly admitted that there were better ways to handle the situation mr mayo's willingness to acknowledge where things went wrong and the administration's commitment to handling dangerous threats in the future gives me hope that we won't see something like last thursday ever again at ghs it pains my heart to say

011but the reality is we live in a generation of school shootings and navigating threats is a given obstacle for the future two days ago at ghs we commemorated the victims of sandy hook by wearing green and writing down the names of either teachers or friends within the building that we trust to have our back that practice is a great way to honor the victims of that day and the many other days that we wish never happen however the best way to honor them the only way that really matters is to properly equip our schools with improved protocols to protect students faculty and administration to that end as representatives of the student body we will work tirelessly with the dhs administration to ensure that safety procedures are followed and communication protocols are in place to protect

012our school community thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight take care and enjoy the holiday with loved ones we look forward to a happy and safe 2022. thank you very much uh next up we have comments from gea lil she's online go ahead lil you can speak now okay thank you good evening everyone i'm lillian perron president of the gea we are all here tonight in some type of leadership role whether you know it or not in that role comes great responsibility whether we're our bet member board of education member administrator teacher parent or student that that responsibility comes for us to make decisions that are best for our children our teachers and our community and not based on personal gain privilege or party interest i was reading an article newsweek the

013other day and it talked about how hard it is for colleges to get students to go into mining i bet you thought i was going to say teaching that is true too but that's not what the article was about why would you want to get a degree and learn the techniques of coal mining it has a negative mindset of being dangerous a dirty job the thought behind this article was if we were to move forward as a nation and world and become energy efficient we need miners to learn the new techniques to mine for precious metals to make our fuel efficient cars and other things that are going to help our carbon emissions to save the environment bottom line we need to change our thought processes and look at things differently and through a different

014lens we can't think and do things the same way anymore because life has changed as we know it does not work and it does not bring the desired results that we need so where am i going with this well hop on the school bus everybody fasten your seat belts i'm going to take you for a ride we are humans and creatures of habit change is not easy and it's very difficult for some to accept i believe in greenwich our parents our students teachers in our community so let the ride begin to my bet friends i've heard you say in meetings that we need to keep two percent cap and then other meetings say if you need money we'll let the floodgates open well now is the time to let those gates open my friends i

015ask you to do everything that you can to support the superintendent's budget our administration has done their due diligence to be fiscally responsible and make adjustments where they can but if we are truly to be a great district and service all our students it's not going to happen with that two percent oh yes i hear you say that we don't make the cuts we just cap it it's up to the superintendent and the board to figure it out well you need to change your mindset our schools our children our teachers our parents need you now and you can't put a cap on that and working with dr jones and having conversations with the administration i know they have worked hard to find efficiencies our children are more than just a number we could never have

016planned for what we would have experienced during these past two years as a district state and nation we need to all think and act differently remember our teachers did pivot we were the only district in school our teachers were exhausted physically mentally we still have not recovered we have buildings that collapse teachers displaced for classrooms from the classrooms and buildings our alp teachers have accommodated a model change that they accepted during covet but now we must make things fair and equitable for them our sped staff are overwhelmed overworked overloaded along with our pre-k teachers and eval teams as they must learn new ways and create new teams for us to be responsive to incorporate the needed changes required for our special education report to my administrators and friends you must always have the courage to

017fight what is right for your students and staff and have the courage to speak the truth to the parents and our greenwich community we need to start to see and talk about what we have in common and not our differences i may not agree with some of your actions and some of your words but what i do agree with is what we have in common and that is your love for your children trying to communicate what is in your heart what is what you feel right is for you and your children we just need to find a better way to do together as a community working together we must also educate our children on social responsibility and responsible use of social media and how impactful and damaging this information can be and lastly to my

018gea friends thank you you've been through a lot these past two years try to do what you do best teach learning new ways to teach coming into work each day not knowing what to expect doing your best caring for students and at the same time caring for yourself your families and your own children but we too must act differently whether you've been vaccinated or not vaccinating we are teachers we are professionals it is our responsibility as professionals to work and collaborate with our fellow colleagues no matter what our differences are because we are here for students and for each other and that comes first enclosure please listen to this following word very powerful quote when i first my first speech as president i share it with you guys in closing by hayam ganat i've come

019to the frightening conclusion that i am a decisive element it is my personal approach that creates the climate it is my daily mood that makes the weather i possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous i can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration i can humiliate or humor hurt or heal in all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated and a person is humanized or dehumanized if we treat people as they are we make them worse if we treat people as they ought to be we help them become what they are capable of being thank you all have a healthy happy and safe holiday and i'll see you in the new year thank you thank you lil next up from ptac mimi duff

020good evening dr jones chair stow and other members of the board of education i am mimi duff president of pta council representing the 15 school ptas and the families of all of their members i'd like to start my comments by saying thank you to our educators and administrators that continue to rise to the challenge during trying times we recognize that as coveted numbers rise and we deal with potential security issues that our educators and that our students also are under great deal of stress we stand ready to assist in any way we can so please don't hesitate to ask if there's anything we can do i'll focus my comments tonight mainly on our support for the budget and a couple of my colleagues will also speak committee chairs from the special education support and diversity

021equity and inclusion will also provide comments and we fully support their efforts as they continue to advocate for our students on to the budget we had a p-tac board meeting today and our board fully supports the proposed operating and the capital budgets for the greenwich public schools on the capital side we're very concerned about the current state of many of our buildings not to mention the lack of ada accessibility and essential security issues we support efforts to close the gap on all deferred maintenance which is currently contributed contributing to so many structural issues investing in infrastructure improvements and the maintenance of the town schools is of utmost important in our meeting we were also brainstorming about how we can get help how we can help our board of education and also the bet members understand

022the urgency of the needs we would be happy to coordinate with school officials the board of ed and the bet to make sure that all of our elected officials have the most educated and complete picture of the current state of our buildings we were happy to hear that the board of ed took a tour of central middle school before the last meeting that's a good start given the size of the school budget line items we would like to see all meaning each and every one of the effect elected officials on the board of ed and the bet attend school tours for each of the potential renovation projects to that end we are happy to help coordinate to make sure that schedules can be accommodated to reiterate we fully support the proposed operating and capital budgets

023as proposed by dr jones i want to close by highlighting some of the great work going on in ptac these days first and foremost we continue to work with the district on many committees including textbook reviews for high school math and middle school french curriculums along with various other topics including alp's bed and academic achievement we remain grateful to be involved in these conversations and hopefully through our involvement we can achieve better outcomes for our students we appreciate the efforts by the administration to foster greater consistency transparency and academic excellence in our district our goals in p-tech are fully aligned in this way two weeks ago we also hosted a public session on socio-emotional learning and academics the speakers included doctors alina and fabian boyce from the greenwich public school district behavioral support team the

024presentation was recorded and is available on our p-tech website under council resources presentations and resources stay tuned for more of our public sessions which are monthly on fridays and we will do a better job to advertise these in advance they're always recorded and made available thank you for your time and i'd also like to wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season thank you thank you very much mimi all right now we're going to start with our community comments i have to say i don't know if anyone appreciated the new agenda where we have times um and we're they're obviously not set in stone for their guidelines i realize we're already running five minutes behind but um hopefully we'll catch up um but we will have an hour of course like we have in the

025past of community comments we do have 28 speakers so i suspect we'll be having more at the end of the meeting but with that as you know you have three minutes and i think um the first person up is jennifer taylor sarah prepared followed by randy chakino sorry thank you i'm sorry to ask this but you have to keep your mask on i do it's honestly very hot i know i know i i believe me i feel your pain okay it's not our call it's under the executive order dear members of the board thank you for taking the time to listen to me this evening i hope oh can you hear me now that's beautiful thank you all right i'm going to reset myself dear members of the board thank you for taking the time

026to listen to me tonight i hope you enjoy my jc strong candy that i left up there for you my name is jennifer taylor mommy of four cute and crazy kids ages are two four six and eight my husband sam taylor and i are both products and proponents of public school education we are proud to tell people that our children attend julian curtis and grateful for the opportunities afforded by the district that said julian curtis facilities are antiquated at best we implore you to allocate the resources desperately needed for this school we decided to move back to greenwich in 2019 and raise our children in my husband's childhood home as such we are the second generation of tailors to benefit from julian curtis i have to say while the exterior of the schoolhouse is extremely

027charming both sam and i were shocked to see the facilities were nearly identical to those from three decades before i was saddened by the lack of restoration at jc especially when you consider that i grew up in a small town outside cleveland where my own elementary school has been twice renovated during the same time to be honest the town's lack of attention to their facilities even gave me pause when considering where we would educate our children we are family strongly rooted in gps my mother-in-law diane taylor received the distinguished teacher award in 2017 and my brother-in-law dan is the fun gym teacher at north thanks to gps the four kids from this family went on to graduate from elite universities such as harvard penn columbia nyu and wake forest to name a few three of

028the four children live and work in the community too don't we all love when we get to see the talent come back as you can see we know and value the opportunities afforded by gps the unfortunate truth however is that many of our facilities are in the same sorry condition as the new york giants football record this year julian curtis needs your help so that our facilities can match the same high performance as our teachers 30 seconds so that our teachers have the modern resources that need to continue educating at an elite level so that our parents moving to greenwich can tour the school and have the confidence that they don't have to send their children to private schools to receive a tremendous education i am here to support the proposed capital spending for julian

029curtis and the other schools in our community there is no question teachers are second to none the only thing that we are missing are the facilities to match we want to have an environment where all children can thrive and learn jc is incredibly diverse as you know with 60 countries and 30 languages represented in all socio-economic backgrounds right this title one school deserves tom's support thank you we gotta go next up is randy shaquino followed by kdu thank you good evening board of education members thank you for your time i want to start by thanking you for your past and future service and your very important role making a positive impact in our children's future i am the ptac representative for curriculum enrichment for julian curtis school and i fully support the 1.8 million renovation

030on the capital budget for julian curtis and i'm here not only as a jc parent today but as a parent of future school schools in the future i chose jc for my child to be a magnet student because of the size of school the community i felt upon visiting and that so that my child would be with a diverse student population representative of the public school setting that i grew up in which i felt served me well i have found it to live up to those expectations i'm a very involved parent advocate and give back by enriching the students with experiences that will help them thrive academically like author visits and also expose them to learning outside the classroom and curriculum like bronx zoo visits science programs field trips in doing so for in doing

031this for over a year i've come to learn how much the jc community in particular so heavily depends on everything that comes from the district and the school and not from anything outside of it as a title 1 school where over 40 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch i can tell you first hand how our jc students learning relies on what comes from all of you and our district and budget from infrastructure to curriculum to enrichment to having the right space to learn therefore their path for the future depends heavily on the decisions made by all of you also over the last year i've experienced the decreases year on year of assured experiences and enrichment paid for by the district as it is not a distinct line item on the budget and

032therefore it doesn't always get protected like other budget line items beyond the learning environment the learning experiences are also in decline this puts even more pressure on our small title one school to somehow fend for itself for kids to learn and we simply can't keep up the parents can't keep up we do not live in that type of district or community and the kids are losing out because of it our children deserve to have a school that is up to 21st century learning 30 seconds environment and experiences alongside safety standards as a start it is too long overdue along with the other gps capital projects and its time thank you for your time happy holidays everyone thank you very much next up we have kdu who i think i see online followed by stephanie cowie

033um good evening can you hear me kathleen i can thanks katie i'll try to be brief good evening um in light of last week's events tonight's discussion about a safety road for ghs could not come at a more apropos time it is my understanding that the board of ed is largely in support of the safety road but as this is a as this is a public forum hopefully with media coverage tonight i'm speaking merely to lend my support to the development of this safety road as students barreled out of ghs last week in fear and panic to the safety of their cars they were greeted with a stranglehold of cars in frozen traffic on hillside and east putnam when a media truck collided with a student driving a car the situation got worse and when

034the ambulance tried to come to the aid of those injured in the collision it did in spite of all this i have actually heard some say that we were lucky thank god no one was killed i do not say that lightly now right now is the time to approve this plan and move it forward lastly i really just want to ask if our hands are really tied with regard to the recent outbreak of cobit cases in our district today i myself received three health alert emails as we're deluged with health announcements today i think we really need to think about what we are doing right now as families prepare for the break and visiting families and and visiting families and friends some of whom may be elderly why are we not considering starting the break

035earlier or having a couple of remote days before the break or at least giving students the option to learn remotely from home in closing i would like to take a moment to thank the board of ed for all that you do and to which wish each of you all the best in the new year thank you very much thank you katie next up stephanie who i see callie right there followed by miles spencer hello superintendent dr jones board and cabinet members my name is steph cowie and layla horne and i are co-presidents at ghs following last week's events we want to thank all those involved for their swift determination that this was not a credible threat and for concluding the investigation we would like to thank dr jones and the greenwich police department for working

036closely with ghs special thanks to our ghs sros officer wallace and reach as well as our ghs administration we know there were many issues that day and in speaking with the administration and greenwich police department they heard our concerns and will work to collaborate and do better we need to look at things differently now on to the budget we stand in support of dr jones 2223 operational and capital budget we also stand with the many here this evening and at home in support of the outstanding projects at og jc ghs and central middle school we do not deem any one project to be greater priority need than the other all of these projects are priorities because they all are safety issues hvac air quality ada capacity or security life safety there are many in this

037town who have sat and are continued to sit on feasibility or building committees like the ghs vestibule committee that are tasked with the very same priority safety we would like to highlight ghs cardinal field improvement phase two which is the second egress for ghs a priority because of what you guessed it safety ghs houses close to 3 300 lives each day sits on 54 acres with only one way out and one way in as you can imagine this causes many students parents faculty and neighbors anxiety thinking about the what-if scenarios we agree in past emergency responders have found it difficult getting to the school and access to the school for emergency and or drills because of the lack of a second egress without the completion of phase two the second egress we are putting our

038entire ghs community at risk there is a pattern here these very same priorities are presented year over year by the board of ed to the bet yet nothing moves forward it is unfortunate that the majority of our bet members are not in agreement with these projects and they continue to kick the money can down the road but to what end a catastrophic event where safety has been the greatest lapse we need to take better care of our children teachers faculty neighbors and families by taking care of our infrastructure we need your voices we ask parents to please contact the bet representatives and advocate for the needs of the adventist public schools thank you all for your time and consideration and to the board of ed we thank you for continuing to do what you are

039doing each and every day so thank you stay healthy happy holidays thank you very much next up vile spencer followed by david levine i don't see him okay so we can always come back if he appears all right is that you no no i'm sorry david all right go ahead david levy hey there you go you got up early thank you all right david levine followed by andy cosby um well good evening chairwoman stowe dr jones on board it's good to see you all again my name is david levine my daughter autumn is in second grade in mr schuster's class at julian curtis and my wife lauren and her three siblings went to jc 40 years ago we love julian curtis a bunch of conversations are hard i know that and it's because budgets are

040about values it's about putting our values into actions making hard decisions as an investor i think about numbers a lot and so in support of the 1.8 million line item for julian curtis i thought it would be helpful to put it in context look in greenwich we are so blessed we have 390 million dollars a year in revenues 390 million and so this 1.8 is basically 0.5 or half percent of our revenues for 390 million a year but 390 million is it's a big number i can't really wrap my head around it so i thought why don't i just put this in a context that i could understand the average household in our county makes about 150 000 so half a percent is about 700 bucks so that's what we're talking about equivalent of a

041700 investment but what does this 700 dollars achieve what values does it represent let's look critically at that i think julian curtis is the epitome of what greenwich should value first education jc is a magnet school 25 percent of the kids choose to go there for the education which is great second it's a low income school title one as was mentioned before 40 or more of the students come from low-income families and third diversity julian curtis is diverse economically it's diverse racially which is important also ethnically 60 countries in 30 languages do we as greenwich residents value education do we value our low-income communities do we value diversity for 70 years sadly it looks like the answer has been no when it comes to julian curtis um in terms of how we've made these decisions

042and how we've deployed our dollars it's made it look like we don't value education we don't value diversity and we don't value our low-income families but that's not greenwich we know that's not greenwich and that's not at least how we've acted in many ways with ham avenue and new lab we have invested so why not tonight the board come together unanimously and support this once in 70 years equivalent of 700 investment in julian curtis it's a small investment but it begins to put our actions in line with our values standing for education low-income communities and diversity please as representatives of our community show that greenwich values julian curtis please unanimously approve this line item for jc three minutes and um thank you very much uh next up andy cosby who i believe i see online

043followed by elizabeth dempsey can you hear me we can proceed thanks excellent thank you members of the board and dr jones my name is andy cosby i'm the mother of three students in grades two five and six and a co-lead of the ptac special education support for the district tonight i am speaking on behalf of the special education support committee which is referred to as ses to highlight current areas of concerns for sped families i would like to begin by thanking our interim chief of special education and student services dr helen ganfield for making herself regularly seen and available to this fed community it is a welcome change in discussions with our ses building representatives and the sped parents of british public school students two primary topics have emerged one expansion of the preschool program

044and two questions and concerns regarding building level leadership accountability and consistency i will first start with the expansion of the preschool program the program is considered a gem in the gps system it is a two-year program and offered at four of our elementary schools with enrollment for current school year of 220 students this compares to k-5 enrollment of 3700 or about 620 students per grade level the program exists for the purpose of fulfilling the federal government mandate to provide intervention for preschool kids with disabilities as such families with an iep do not pay while gen ed families pay approximately 8 to eleven thousand for the five day five to six hour a day program which equates to about ten dollars an hour compared to private school options this is a great value demand for the

045program is robust from the gen ed population and a growing population of identified children with disabilities early intervention for sped children is proven to work yet the gps preschool program has been declining in size both students with disabilities are increasing the earlier in a child's development that we invest saves money in the long run for sped students due to the efficacy of early intervention furthermore payments from gen ed families can help underwrite the expansion costs we ask that this program be reviewed 30 seconds building leadership accountability and consistency as highlighted by the recent sped audit there is uneven building level leadership and an inconsistent application of special education eligibility testing and services best practices exist at some schools and not in others and it is highly dependent upon building level training and leadership at the

046principal assistant principal and in this in the case of the high school house level well this is addressed in the sped action plan we ask for a district thank you very much thank you thanks for your time you too next up elizabeth dempsey followed by jill marchak good evening i speak tonight to urge the boe and the bet members who are listening to prioritize the funding of the ghs ghs road because it provides a second form of egress and is a safety necessity for two years i participated in a town appointed committee to stud study the parking and traffic issues surrounding ghs the committee included police gps security senior public works engineering officials pnz our ghs principal and outside traffic traffic consultants tuli these experts are our town's mvps parking spots traffic backups and the

047road engineering options were studied and compiled we looked at the traffic circulation patterns that were envisioned versus what actually happens at ghs every day in this committee complaints by parents about lack of access during lockdowns were raised gps staff explained they were aware that emergency services can't reach the school during a lockdown due to the road becoming blocked by parents and student cars so as part of the master plan kg and d school consultants designed the ghs access road as a solution support for the road was resoundingly unanimous including public statements by police principal mayo the pta council and all parents parents who all have been asking for this situation to be resolved as you know a second situation occurred last week when hillside became blocked again this time without a lockdown alert it was

048caused by just a fraction of the ghs students leaving the building parents again complained on chat rooms and elsewhere that emergency services would not have been able to get through the blockages and thankfully it wasn't a real threat the bet and town leadership need to recognize that a single access road leaves your largest population center in town vulnerable our new secure front entrance will improve security but it won't help police or ambulances reach those in need if an emergency occurs and hillside is blocked lastly the bet and indeed all town leaders should be uniting now to face the town side challenges the town wide challenges when the state rebuilds the bridge at putnam road as we know 20 000 people a day crosses in intersections and it will be reduced to single lanes if all

049goes to plan for two years this is not just a school priority it is a town priority our largest emergency corridor will be crippled causing potential life or death time delays well outside of the ghs neighborhood i applaud dr jones who says often that safety is our number one priority we have to move on next thank you um jill marchach who i see online followed by heidi matonnis sorry if i didn't say that right can you hear me okay right now good evening everyone um i'm a neighbor i'm a neighbor who's a great fan of greenwich high school and i'm asking for your support uh for an additional egress road from the high school my husband glenn and i live on hillside road our family has been in the same house there since 1970. my

050husband attended greenwich public schools including ghs as did both our children word spread quickly about last thursday's event at the high school and it reminded me immediately of the scare we had in the 2012-2013 academic year when both of our children were locked down at the high school because of a threat as with that threat the street area around the school last week just froze and we wondered how first responders could get to the school quickly if hillside road was completely blocked last week when some and not all of the students left the school how could the police or gems emergency medical services have accessed the campus if this had been a real shooting threat for us this should be the district's highest priority and is a large liability right now for the safety of

051staff students and our really our entire community obviously ghs has been expanded over the years but it hasn't been brought up to modern building codes when it comes to access now i'm just an amateur but i find it hard to imagine that any school could be built here today with only one form of access especially one of the size and yet the issue is unaddressed uh and whilst a road to avenue could help traffic flow more importantly it's a critical safety component and plus it's hard to fathom what will happen when the brothers brick bridge is rebuilt at the end of hillside road with a single lane over a period of two years or possibly more so this problem calls for leadership from all of our town officials and i ask you please to proactively

052step up to this challenge without delay and swiftly rectify the problem thank you thank you very much next up is heidi matanis followed by jamie downes thanks hello my name is heidi mattonis i live on hillside road my three kids attended the public school and graduated from ghs all three of my kids told me they felt like sitting ducks in the common luncheon area if there was an active shooter shooting down which is tragic that our kids even have these visions these days my son was involved in the lockdown that jill marshak mentioned i didn't know it was happening i looked out of my third floor window where my office is and saw dead standstill traffic on our street going in both directions i walked out on the lawn and started getting texts from other

053mothers and basically it was a mess and i'm here to emphasize that the access road is not a road of convenience for pickup and drop-off it is a safety necessity and i really think the town is putting itself at a great liability to ignore it so thank you very much next off jamie downs followed by amy moof do you see jamie online i don't i do not see miss down so she could raise her hand okay seeing nothing let's move on uh next up is amy moose followed by alyssa van oss we're gonna combine our yeah we're going to go one right after the other okay um dear dr jones chairwoman uh stowe and board of education members thank you for allowing us to speak tonight we are alyssa van osten amiemuth ptac dei co-chairs

054and parents of three children within the district the diversity equity and inclusion committee is a special ptac committee this year we hope it will continue to be a committee within our district going forward we coach fair alongside a dedicated community of reps from nearly every school in the district who are concerned about racial imbalance inequity in our schools our mission is to foster an overall sense of belonging within the gps community by intentionally building relationships and inviting diverse perspectives to the pta we are also collaborating with the ptas to find the most effective way to partner with all families and help every student reach their full potential in addition we have met with community leaders and consultants throughout fairfield county specifically to see who can partner and potentially share resources in last month's board of

055education meeting the racial imbalance survey was presented by dr carabillo highlights of this survey included that in the last 10 years the percentage of greenwich public school students who identify in categories other than caucasian has increased from 29.5 to 39.6 from 2012 to 2021 that is more than a 10 increase the percentage of students who identify as two or more races has nearly doubled from 2.9 10 years ago to 5.7 in 2021 and students who identify as latin has increased from 18.1 percent to twenty two point six percent in the last ten years we have two schools new lab and hamf that continue to be identified as imbalanced and julian curtis is impending old greenwich north street and parkway are equally concerning for their lack of diversity a question was raised at the end of

056the presentation asking whether parents are complaining about this racial imbalance while there seems to be a strong preference in greenwich to maintain neighborhood schools parents also want their children prepared to work in and function in a multicultural globally connected world while parents may not outwardly be complaining at this meeting they are talking locally and we have met with school reps who have asked what is the plan to increase representation across teachers and staff what is gps doing that will lead to a more equitable experience for all of our children and how is gps ensuring children feel a true sense of belonging in our schools how can we enrich our curriculum to include a more diverse and inclusive lens for instance parents in town have raised concerns about the lessons and activities presented about thanksgiving and

057christopher columbus this year how can gps net negotiate for content across all schools versus each school working individually and i'll hand over to me we encourage the boe to look at the racial imbalance survey in a broader sense many here in this room have questioned the importance of what is seen as soft skills like sel as well as incorporating more diverse literature and teaching into the curriculum while we could get into a long discussion about the importance of mental health and support through guidance counselors and social workers we encourage you to think about how we can better bring together the students and parents of greenwich in addition there are significant benefits to teaching diversity in school settings to accurately talk about diversity especially in the classroom the boe must consider race ethnicity gender sexual orientation

058religion socioeconomic status being able-bodied in various learning styles as maya angelou said in diversity there is beauty in their strength by providing a diverse educational environment research supports that children are better prepared for a multicultural work environment and global economy have improved confidence learning about different cultures allows students to become comfortable with cultural difference differences across social groups and comfortable with themselves leading to a deeper sense of safety and self-confidence diverse education promotes empathy and reduces prejudice which translates to a decrease in bullying and potentially an improvement in mental health there is improved student achievement and it fosters creativity exposing students to diverse experiences and people will make a positive impact on their development and a profound impact on our society we appreciate that there are competing financial requests requests across town particularly for capital

059projects with that said we are also sure that the boe is committed to creating an environment of inclusion at gps we also understand that the road to a more diverse and inclusive learning environment will take time we ask that the boe consider small steps that we can take now to help improve access and increase inclusivity within our schools and community can we offer translation at the boe and pta meetings to increase access and participation for all should greenwich follow the lead of other districts like darien and hire a dei consultant should the boe and dr jones consider create creating and funding a director of family community engagement as exists in neighboring districts a person who can head these efforts and work to support our teachers and staff in the buildings to navigate these challenges all

060of our students go to greenwich high school and whatever we can do to prepare our children for when they all come together and then graduate from the district the better our community will be we look forward to working with the district to help support and advocate for the needs of all students thank you and happy holidays thank you thank you very much next up is susan myers who i see online followed by says f burke dempsey good evening members of the board of education superintendent dr jones and the greenwich vet members who may be listening my name is susan myers and my husband glenn and i have been residents of greenwich for almost 30 years i am speaking tonight to request that you place a high priority on the funding of the ghs cardinal stadium

061capital project which provides a missing access point for our emergency responders this access this axis of town-wide importance provides a vital link for emergency services who cannot access the campus during an emergency or a lockdown situation this is our town's largest population center sheltering 3000 students teachers and staff and town-wide programs day and night sitting at the heart of an intersection that sees 20 000 cars a day while i don't live on hillside i live on the street next to it and i know the area well our son and daughters went to greenwich public schools and were fortunate to be able to walk to ghs i am well acquainted with the complaints from fellow ghs parents about hillside road being flogged with cars and gridlocked i shudder to think what what would have happened if

062a true emergency had happened last thursday when the hillside road once again was frozen i see that this project is attached to rebuilding the rebuilding of the stadium's visitor stands although my children played sport ghs and i am generally in favor of things that enhance the athletes and spectators experience i see this as two separate and completely different projects i would give egress and safety the priority if it came down to a budget constraint there is no reason to put such a large community in a potentially lifes threatening situation if we have a solution if ghs is locked down and parents block access as had happened before your largest population center is vulnerable school staff have known about this for years and have supported this road chief of police james heavy and fire chief joseph

063you have both endorsed the need for this access road if that is not enough we need to consider the miles of backup that will be created with the putnam bridge rebuild and the impact that we'll have on the flow of traffic that is 20 000 cars backed up for a single file for two years on our largest emergency corridor i suggest you focus on the importance of this issue and utilize the authority you have to keep our students and communities safe i urge the boe to place this as a number one priority for the 2022-23 capital budget and that the bet fund it and the town administration get this project started immediately thank you happy holidays thank you very much next up is burke dempsey who i do see online followed by charles jurgens hi

064it's burke dempsey um i live on 21 hillside road my wife may have spoken or will speak i just want to approach a little bit differently because i've lived here 20 years and i've seen the traffic i know what i'm uh living with and this is more about everyone else out there every single person in town is going to notice this without having the road uh when the bridge gets put in at hills between hillside and the post road that effectively you're not going to feel very good because you're going to find out that you're going to have to either leave for school to pick up your child your child's got to go a lot earlier or you're going to be chronically late the i don't think people have really conceptualized the gravity of what's

065going to happen when that bridge starts to go in so getting the road in now is very very important for everyone in town and not just for me living on the street i already know it's coming but you guys don't know it's coming and we've been thinking about it so just imagine what your day is going to be like every single person in town goes up and down that road there's not a person that's going to escape this but with the road that would alleviate a lot secondly if there's ever a crisis that's been talked about or there's a natural disaster that needs to school those two roads are necessary we saw when there was a crisis about 15 years ago trees went down on either side the school was not even usable the second

066road would have cured that finally those people that are coming to visit our town the next few years and they go down the post road which they're going to have to do they are going to see a big snafu again would be alleviated by getting the bridge in now the minute something bad happens is going to be more than the cost of that back bridge to make a second road thank you very much next up is charles jurgens followed by allison walsh i don't see him online do you i'm not seeing him now okay let's go next then to allison walsh followed by dana franks hi i'm allison walsh i'm an rtm member um i'm i'm proud to be an active member of our community and i'm glad to be a ghs parent i want

067to thank all the administrators teachers and board of ed members uh for all you've done in the past couple of years especially um i want to speak in favor of the egress road both for safety and for transportation planning reasons i think it's uh vital for safety and i'm gonna and i'm gonna say this um i agree with what mr dempsey said in particular i know that we have city-like traffic on putnam road and that's before we have a state uh project that's going to reduce us to one lane it's going to be not good from a transportation planning perspective we need an egress road as well as from a safety perspective i'm going to turn it over to my daughter grace turner who's a senior at greenwich high school hi as my mom said

068my name is grace turner and i'm a senior at ghs i am the founder and president of the students women action club which advocates for um better gun regulation and decreasing gun violence in our schools personally i founded this club because i am truly terrified when i go to school sometimes and on thursday last week that really highlighted all the problems with um safety because i personally was scared and so many of my other friends were as well kids were fleeing the building and the entire front circle were just was just jammed up with cars and i saw police not being able to get to the school it was truly terrifying to think about if it had been a real threatening situation if the police were not able to respond properly so i am in

069support and so is my club and all of its members in support of this egress road and this bill to pass it thank you very much next up is dana franks followed by jackie homan hello board members and dr jones my name is dana franks and i'm the mother of three young boys aged two four and seven i'm speaking tonight in support of making masks optional for students and teachers it's been 463 days since our children went back to school wearing masks and they continued to wear them with no end in sight in the beginning of the pandemic and prior to widespread vaccinations it made sense to many of us including me especially in order to get the children back to in-person learning things are different now as of today anyone school age and older

070who wishes to get vaccinated to protect themselves from serious coveted symptoms is able to there will always be covid variants the virus is not going away did we mask for the flu the flu is more deadly to children than covetous when does this end is it it is time to do a cost-benefit analysis for our children around the world there are many countries that do not require mass for children once in the classroom denmark and the uk do not require students or teachers to wear masks in school at all in the u.s only half have some type of mass mandate given other countries and the majority of the states in the u.s have successfully navigated in-person schooling without requiring children to wear masks all day there's no reason connecticut one of the highest vaccinated states

071in the country could not do the same to people who think that masks do not impact children and they are used to them by now you do not know my children nor do you have any idea how they have been negatively impacted at this early and important developmental stage of their lives my oldest son started kindergarten at north street last september his teachers this year and last year are incredible we love our school but the masking has created an environment where the social development is stunted and his anxiety is mounting every day my son lost two pounds in the first month of kindergarten last year because he was too nervous to eat at school around a bunch of strangers who couldn't properly communicate with him do you know what it's like for a shy five-year-old

072to walk into a big school and not see anyone smiling when will we let our children have a normal life how long do they need to bear the burden of a virus that has a 0.003 chance of killing them one of my son's first great classmates is hearing impaired and depends on lip reading another neighbor of mine at central middle school who is kind and exceptional young man has never had a disciplinary issue in his life was given detention because his mask slipped under his nose more than three times this isn't right people who feel safer wearing a mask can wear a mask as long as they want i understand that we are currently under a statewide mandate but when the emergency powers expire i beg you to vote to let parents decide what is

073best for their children everyone has had different struggles during this pandemic please let our kids go back to normal learning and socialization before it causes irreversible harm thank you for your time thank you very much uh next up is jackie holman followed by keith steinberg good evening dr jones and board of education i'd like to start off by thanking dr jones for agreeing to relax the vaccination requirement for parent volunteers originally the policy discriminated against non-vaccinated parents by preventing them from volunteering inside any of the buildings this policy was more restrictive than the state's guidance so the change is a welcome step in the right direction thank you for hearing parents concerns on this issue we really appreciate it unfortunately because this policy was in place at the beginning of the school year it meant

074that some parents were wrongly blocked out of pta positions that would have required them to be present inside the school we hope the pta recognizes the problems that arose out of their harmful policy and that they look for a way to be more inclusive of non-vaccinated parents going forward especially those who are blocked from participation at the beginning of the year the change in policy allows non-vaccinated parents to volunteer inside the building so long as they provide proof of the negative coveted test within 24 to 48 hours prior to entry while we appreciate this option for non-vaccinated parents to participate it's still clearly discriminatory to treat one group of parents different from another why would some volunteers be required to take an unapproved test with no negative side effects why would some volunteers be required

075to pay out of pocket for an unnecessary medical test and why would some volunteers have to prove they are healthy as you know the vaccine provides personal protection only the package label which you all have in front of you clearly states it is to prevent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus that is all the vaccine does not stop people from getting covered the vaccine does not prevent people from transmitting code this is according to the product manufacturer but it's also easily observed in real life how many headlines have you read about fully vaccinated people getting cobin what about the covet outbreak on the fully vaccinated cruise ship or the deadly outbreak of the fully vaccinated connecticut nursing home even the highly regarded publication at the lancet admitted there is increasing evidence that vaccinated individuals have a

076relevant role in disease transmission in massachusetts 74 of new covent cases were in people who were fully or partly vaccinated for example it is therefore wrong and dangerous to think that only non-vaccinated people transmit the disease so knowing that the vaccine provides only personal protection against severe disease what purpose does it serve to force non-vaccinated volunteers to take a covet test 30 seconds why don't vaccinated volunteers have to take a coba test when they are just as likely if not more likely to transmit the disease so please remove the testing requirement for non-vaccinated parents it doesn't make sense and it's clearly discriminatory if not you need to institute a testing requirement for all in-school volunteers since it's clear that vaccinated people transmit the disease every bit as much as non-vaccinated people do thank you for

077immediately rectifying this discriminatory policy and i hope you like the cookies thank you very much uh next up is keith steinberg followed by kathleen bynstein how are you this evening i have a speech written out which i was going to read tonight and then my first grader came home from school today north mianis he has a medical mask exemption and today at school his sneeze guard fell on his face and cut his face open i have pictures of my phone from today this is a school supplied sneeze guard for all of you who aren't familiar what a sneeze guard is it's a plastic box put around the child's desk according to my first grader nobody touched it nobody touched his desk it fell over by itself it cut his nose open he was forced to

078go to the nurse where she administered first aid okay that's because of a segregation issue so he was segregated in a box and it fell on his face and cut him open that's what happened today at school so i'll go back to my speech i'm grateful for the opportunity to speak have any of you wondered why all the focus from everyone has been all about the vaccine why are they not major studies completed for early treatment options that don't involve mandates mandating facial coverings requires the consent of the governed don't pretend there's a scientific basis for this clothing requirement not wearing a mask is not mere a personal choice like deciding between a head covering or t-shirt it is a flash point for being a free human being who is consented to be governed but

079has not consented to be ruled we do not consent to amassed america because this is a fundamental change in american society cultural norms and rights people who are apathetic towards their own liberty cannot eliminate constitutional rights for those who are not this is not the first or last time that people who believe in superstition are screaming the loudest the constitution exists precisely to protect all people during times of mass hysteria the mass has become a visible symbol of social conditioning to americans determined to preserve individual freedom thus far most americans have continued to give their consent to be governed but you are trying our patience to the town attorney you are supposed to protect the town and the people from harm it is unlawful to support the mandated abuse of children the town of greenwich

080has the opportunity to put children first and show the state that we will not tolerate executive orders that harm children my children have been harmed thank you and good night thank you very much next up is kathleen feinstein followed by francis novay good evening as you know i'm a teacher in the district on my very first day of teaching a second grader tried to climb out my ground floor level classroom because i asked him to put away his brand new backpack in his lunchbox a little girl threw up on her desk after eating grapes and i put a little boy on the wrong bus to go home on day two when i arrived at work my principal said hey glad to see you came back we didn't think you were ever coming but i have

081been coming back for 30 years and i hate to say it's gotten harder instead of easier this is definitely not the same job i signed up for there are a lot of balls in the air who's quarantined who needs the meat open can they hear me are they seeing the document i'm sharing can they hear what the kid in the classroom said who's doing screen and stay were they three feet apart for 15 minutes am i using the right resources is there bias in my lesson is everybody engaged how's the reading level too hard too easy is this a rigorous lesson who's coughing who's wearing their mask correctly should they go to the nurse i have a headache is it covid or is it just my job this is why year 29 30 and 31

082have been infinitely harder than year one in year one i had to deal with problems that i could control but at this point in my career i'm dealing with a lot of things that are not in my control i'm not in charge of who wears a mask and who doesn't i'm not in charge of whether i teach to a face or a screen i'm not in charge of creating and writing acceptable rigorous curriculum i desperately want to get back to the days where i do what i do best design and deliver exciting engaging lessons to the amazing children in front of me but in order to do that i need the people who are qualified and elected to make a lot of decisions i need to trust medical professionals academic leaders and educated elected officials

083sorry to do what's in the best interest of students staff and the extended families of all of us schools serve individual students and their communities and we have a responsibility to both no one's individual choice can endanger another member of our community i appreciate the doctors the researchers the academic professionals the government officials and this board for your efforts to keep us safe and healthy every day thank you so much for hearing me and for those listening if you feel strongly i encourage you to speak up too thank you very much um next up is francis novae who i see online followed by julia farianis can you hear me we can go ahead thank you hello this is francis funobe speaking in my role as mom of three students persevering through the marking period and

084counting down the days to winter break as ptf president mimi duff mentioned on december 3rd dr zelina and fabian boy shared the impact of socio-emotional learning on academics one of the studies that the boys shared was the use of two minutes of mindfulness at the beginning of class by 280 gps teachers and 5 600 students the boys found that transition time decreased by 44 frequency of redirection decreased by 46 percent frequency of off-task behaviors decreased by 66 students on task behavior increased by frequency of positive interactions increased by 37 as we wrap up 2021 and gear up for 2022 let's use these learnings to support tonight's boe meeting and take a breath take a break to improve our mindfulness and focus so we breathe in and we breathe out we again take a breath in

085and slowly exhale we close our eyes or settle our eyes we feel our feet on the floor we feel our arms on our lap we feel our body settle in the chair we take a breath in and we take a breath out again we notice the sound in the room we notice the temperature in the room we noticed any tension niggling thoughts in our minds and we let them go we let them go we let them pass we breathe in and we breathe out we call to mind a happy moment the sweetness of our children's we call to mind lightness love and light we enjoy this moment of quiet we breathe in again and out and when you're ready we gently open our eyes and have a wonderful and mighty meeting happy holidays thank you

086um i don't know what to say after that okay um we have julie fairness followed by lillian de sosa moziak hello good evening chairwoman stowe dr jones members of the board of education cabinet pta and community my name is julie fariniars and i 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 first i would like to say the alliance fully supports the budget the capital and the operating budget i am here tonight to speak on behalf of the avid program and our commitment to avid we funded the implementation of avid in the district in 2008 and since that time have continued to back the program financially and with volunteer hours in our district as you know

087we have 172 greenwich high school students in the avid elective and western middle school is now an avid school-wide program with 35 students enrolled in the avid elective there are more than 250 avid alumni who are enrolled in college as our college grads are in the workforce or back in graduate school most of our avid elective teachers are greenwich public school distinguished teachers which is also an impressive stat to add to the impact of this college readiness system i returned on saturday from the avid national convention in dallas where nancy kale and i had the opportunity to present the alliance's avid success program while there i once again experienced along with 2 000 educators the energy the commitment and the excellence of the avid college readiness system avid national has proven data that this first

088generation low-income avid alumni who go to college are four times more likely to graduate than their national peers avid's data comes from the national student clearinghouse where 3 600 private and public institutions provide enrollment and graduation data avid reaches 2 million students and there are many avid districts in the united states avid districts begin avid in elementary school and continue it through graduation our town's demographics are more socioeconomically diverse than ever and the achievement gap continues to persist the alliance believes it is time to expand avid to the elementary level sooner rather than later and we are here to help with this expansion avid's proven strategy strategies close the achievement gap we would also like to advocate for a redesign of the current avid district coordinator's role to address the needs of our most vulnerable

089students we must have a job that focuses all of its attention on the resources professional development coordination and more to accelerate to accelerate the growth and success of these students thank you for the opportunity to speak happy holidays and a healthy new year to all good night thanks very much julie um i think we have time for one more speaker and then we'll have to move everyone else to the end of the meeting and that is lily sorry lillian's a souza mosiah yeah sorry we said it's an hour and then you can always stay here to the end of the business hi can you hear me we can thanks so much hello yes please proceed go ahead that's how it works is she there or no no sorry you're not next sorry no sit down

090please uh mr souza your your microphone is open you may speak hi yes uh hi good morning everyone um my name is lilia nigesoza moziak and i have a daughter in first grade at north myannas i would like to ask your help so we can come together as a community to allow our children to breathe freely again in school it's time for us to explore this possibility kids wearing a mask seven hours a day five days a week basically wearing masks forever should never be normal our children deserve a choice enforcing masks on kids are cruel and unnecessary according to america from my doctors masks are useless for virus control it can cause dramatic harm to children mass cause learning difficulties in school in other settings ms cause real physical and psychological harm to children

091our children need to experience normalcy once again they need to allow to unveil their faces see their each other's miles see each other expressions that are so important for their development and well-being not to mention to be able to clearly listen to their teachers voices can we please explore a trial period without mask our children deserves the freedom to breathe in school please please help us amass our children thank you very much thank you very much so that takes us to an hour we will um of course come back to the end of the business meeting so that takes us to monthly reports and we have dr jones who will deliver this super attendance report online thank you chairstow um just a couple of items i i did miss the very first part when i

092was transitioning to online but um i think you mentioned something about we just had an executive session um okay so we are um the incident last week you know at ghs i understand was extremely concerning for students for parents for families it was very very stressful and you know i acknowledge that and i just want the community to know anytime we go through any sort of incident we go back and we review we review with the police we review with our security team obviously mr mayo and his team and you know all of that is ongoing right now i would say the one question um that i've been asked is what was what made it a little bit more difficult um last thursday and you know the administration can only go to either a shelter

093and shelter in place which is you lock your door and you stay in the room or you can go to a full lockdown but you have to know that there's actually been something reported in this instance by the time it was reported to the administration it had been circulating among students for about 20 or 30 minutes which is very very unusual um most of the time these students are very very quick um to report to administration and i think that you know in reflection uh part of our reflection is even though students were by the time it was reported some students their parents were already telling them to leave the building um we should have just gone ahead and done a shelter in place and that probably would have helped definitely the teachers and some

094of the students feel a little bit more secure but again as we really study what what we can do and get better uh what can we what we can do to improve we're analyzing all of that i would also say i i was surprised actually that how many parents didn't realize that we actually do have two uniformed officers um on our campus every single day and um i think that also understanding that there are 10 different security personnel so there's a lot of security that actually exists at ghs um and i i thought that was probably broader known than it was um some of the parents were requesting that we have an officer you know on site for the rest of the year and so i think they did feel better once they realized that

095in fact we do have officers on site um we do hope to have a security forum we had one in 2019 and it was probably more elementary focused back in 2019 just um some of our parents had questions from pta um but at a security forum we have the chief there at chief heavy uh at this one we would also have mr mayo we would have tom bobkowski who's the head of security um all the key players for safety and security for the district and be able to answer um questions to help families and help even staff have a better understanding of how the security works um in in ghs and also in gps so um to move on from that um we did send out a message today about a tick tock challenge and

096tick tock is an application that's very popular among a lot of young people usually they're very short videos that are made and the tick tock challenge right now it has to do with encouraging students to have false reports of threats tomorrow in order to get out of school so we did send a message out to our broader community just encouraging parents if you have children that are on social media making sure they understand the consequences of you know something like that when you have when you put out a threat and police are responding it becomes a legal matter it's it's a police matter and we don't want any young person to find themselves um find themselves in that situation um the other thing i want to just mention is on the um kova tracker that

097will be posted tomorrow it will be the highest number that we've seen since covet began and i know that everybody has different opinions um about what keeps children safe what keeps staff safe but i just want the community to know it was at 64 from tuesday um to this evening and it could go up i guess before we go to bed tonight but i want people to be aware just that when you're looking at birthday parties and things that happen you know over the weekend and outside of school if you're going to visit grandma or grandpa or anything like that over the holidays just be aware that it truly is spiking the good thing is we're not seeing a lot of we're not seeing a lot of in-school transmission it is in events out in

098the community um the other question that i've had um this week and it was mentioned in public comment as well is could we go remote for a few days um i understand some parents are getting nervous that see when they see a coveted spiking but just as a reminder we do not have the flexibility this year to go full remote unless the state would agree and it would have to be a totally health related matter and that choice is not there this year and the other question i've had over the last week was well another local community it was actually newtown they had a remote day and and why was it okay for them and not okay for us so i reached out to the state attorney who i'd reached out to at the beginning

099of the year and the reason it was okay for that community is they have a school calendar that is 182 days we are only required by law to have 180. um in greenwich we have a 180-day calendar so um we don't have the flexibility to take one of those days and make it a remote because the state doesn't care about the additional two days in that other community um i think i'll leave it i'll leave it at that um thank you um quick quickly can you just give us a north minus update oh i actually had that on my notes sorry um we're very very excited about north myannas moving in ahead of schedule tomorrow the move will start there's an early release at north myannis and we will be moving all afternoon evening all

100through through the weekend although the movers say they think it'll be done by by saturday maybe and then we have a late start at north myanis on monday and the students will come they start arriving at 11 45 and we'll get everybody back into their rooms and north giannis back together as um one school community so it's very exciting for that school thank you do you guys have any questions dr jones no okay um then we have reports of officers committees and liaisons but we have all new committees and committee officers so i'm not sure we have any updates yet do we nothing sure that'd be great thanks joe okay everyone wants an update on the road so uh we re i think we should and hopefully we will we will rebrand uh the cardinal

101stadium phase two project to the safety road uh project because basically we have separated uh the visited side uh team room from this road project because the road project in my mind and uh my colleagues on the board agree that that is a higher priority uh than the visitor uh changing room so uh so we focus we're focusing just presently on the uh on the road and the design of the road uh this project is no longer just a board of education project this is a town project because and we've heard it multiple times tonight about this this route one construction project that's gonna have us in a uh in a traffic nightmare uh there's also it's been brought to my attention i have little information on this but it has been brought to my

102attention as well enough to look into it more at the same time there is also going to be an i-95 project that's going on that's also going to cause a slowdown of traffic on i-95 around the same time that route 1 is uh is undergoing its its construction of that bridge so we're working real hard to try to get this road ready and push it forward now as a somebody who has done a lot of private projects as some of you might know or might not know a public project is quite different there are a lot of things a lot of input a lot of obstacles which we need to overcome one just happened to come up recently and it's a bit of a well i have to say it's a significant setback for the

103road which is the tree warden has now opined and has redirected uh the path of our road with the redirection of the path of our road uh we now have to redesign drainage and redesign the road and it's going to take a fair amount of money and time for us to do that i spoke today to our first select with fred camillo who is 100 behind getting this road done now i don't like taking no for an answer and uh and basically i am doing all i could do to make sure we push this thing forward it's possible to get it done in a timely manner if we all work together and all our town agencies work together to make sure we push this thing through because basically there are multiple reasons this is important

104we talked about the safety reasons we also talked about this traffic nightmare that people just don't understand the magnitude of this thing it's going to be a disaster so we need as a town to really push this thing forward we are one-third complete on the road that ada parking for greenwich stadium for cardinal stadium is one-third of the road we have a bridge to build over by the ball field we're designing that because of a uh the tree wardens telling us there's some trees that we have to avoid and some rock croppings that we also have to avoid he's redirected this and delayed us on that process but we're doing our best to redesign that i was also informed and not sure this is the case yet but some uh some board of edging board

105of education colleagues have told me we might also have to reapprove this redesign of this road so uh we'll certainly present that as quickly as we get the drawings done so uh once again i've done this professionally privately and it can be done in a timely manner we just need the whole town to kind of push together to understand the importance of this uh so i have another report too wow keep going uh it's a little nicer this is this is a little uh this is a nice that last thing was not a nice that was a need this one's a nice thing some time ago we put together a group to address the waterfall at the high school that what looks like right now an abandoned lot we have now brought a group together

106ashley cole is leading this uh group to uh get that redesigned uh and uh to uh uh to make it look real good because that could be one of the wonderful vistas uh fred camillo referred to it as could be the best vista uh in town and uh uh and we could change it from the vacant lot to a beautiful town vista uh we've got the uh tony d'andrea has given us some drawings uh some elevations and boundaries he's donated that to us uh to the group now this group also this will not take any funding from the uh from the town this will be self-funded also we have a uh a landscape designer who is also doing things gratis uh uh it's uh dylan hoffer is uh working with ashley cole uh to design

107this and soon in short order hopefully we'll have this design presented to the board for uh for our approval if we need to approve it but we'll certainly present it to the board out of courtesy and then hopefully work with the town and proceed on this project okay that's a lot thank you um miss downey do you have an update for us yeah i just wanted to give a click on the high school entryway we are moving along and we're going to be before the architectural review committee and planning and zoning um ideally in january so that as of this moment things are moving along to stay on the timetable that i presented to the board one or two meetings ago to in a perfect world break ground immediately after school gets out in june

108sounds good anything else nope okay let's move on to discussion items and look at this we are two minutes ahead of time so discussion items special education review update dr stacy online yes okay um good evening madam chairwoman uh board of education members dr jones um over the past few months i've had the opportunity to give some periodic updates of the special education action plan as we have begun working on that so tonight i'm just going to give a brief update and then answer any questions that you have about the action plan and going forward next slide so over the last several months we've put together um and the action plan for the 28 recommendations that pcg had and within each of those recommendations we put together an objective a target with very distinct action

109steps as well as persons responsible in timelines that was posted onto the district website um the very beginning of november and during the month of november it was out for public comment and for feedback and we um i was able to meet with ciac we did two different presentations with ciac um met with the sesptech representatives there was a town hall meeting in which we asked for public comment ahead of time when we're able to answer questions about the action plan i've had some comments from um from you as the board in the design of the action plan and the action items i've met with gps principals assistant principals administrators and as well as special education staff so throughout those meetings they were able to provide some feedback next slide please um and some of

110the specific recommendations um we're looking at making it a little bit of a user-friendly document adding hyperlinks to some of the um some of the action items so for example one of the recommendations is universal design for learning so being able to link that to maybe a website so that families could learn a little bit more about what some of these practices are clarifying some of the language we had an acronym list and you know we were asked to make that a glossary of terms to help again um being able to understand as well as a overall visual timeline as opposed to each item just to make it easier to see kind of how everything flows together and just some clarification on the timelines and accountability so for example we have timeline listed on for

111each of the action items and the timeline actually stands for when we look are looking for the timeline completed so just clarifying some of that to make it more um user friendly and understandable the actual format of the document was chosen by a group last year and based on the um lausd template and we took that and adapted that for greenwich's use and um to be able to communicate information out next step next thank you um so our action planning rollout of the 28 recommendations um we have been getting ongoing feedback and will continue to get ongoing feedback as we go through the process a number of the recommendations have been completed or close to completion such as the redesign of the special education transportation process the organizational structure of the special education office the

112collaboration between departments so hr finance making sure that we're working together as well as the special education procedures and practices manual there are some recommendations that will take several years to fully implement such as the recommendations that look at broader scope of of action such as the general education classroom collaborative teaching co-teaching the steps to implement it district-wide things like that will take several years um and so as part of the action plan we've been able to identify those and the steps that we need um this year we're looking at some of those foundational pieces and as we move into next year next slide please we're really focusing on the ex the the domain within the report of the expanded learning environment and specialized services for the 21-22 school year and so that's looking at

113increasing co-teaching in the element elementary and secondary level implementing a unique learner program for our upper elementary s schools so for our students who are on an alternate curriculum pathway having an inclusion specialist for programming so again focusing on that inclusive education philosophy and also repurposing a position for a reading lab teacher to help with our students with our most significant reading needs to help move them up and to help support our teachers in providing reading services next slide there we go um so as we go forward we'll continue to get feedback and to update the plan the plan is much more specific this year and at the beginning of next year but as we move into year three it's making sure that you know we update that and you know are able to provide

114specifics to the community um so that everybody is aware of what we're doing um and we will continue to update the action plan on the website so that we have it marked off as completed so that that can be seen of where we're going um there were also um myself i'm scheduled at the next four at the february 3rd uh 2020 board meeting to give a more in-depth update of the action plan and where we are in implementing that action plan thank you okay thank you do any discussion you yes sorry miss hersh so um i had a i'm sorry good question in the middle of our business meeting thank you though so i had a quick question um for you dr eigenvaller um i you know i know the action plan was presented um

115you know it was shared out with ciac i was in the meeting when you presented that and the special education town hall and i know it was with p-tech but it was never actually presented to us as a board meeting um and so we really haven't had that opportunity to give you feedback on that so i'm sort of hoping that we can have i mean tonight clearly we have a large agenda and it's not actually on the agenda tonight to go through that um so i mean i i have a lot of feedback to share with you but i'm hoping that we'll have an opportunity to have that presented um i don't know if it's before february 3rd but i don't know how many of our members have read through it um [Music] but uh

116email before i give feedback i i wanted to make sure others have had the opportunity to see it so right now i i right now the next board meeting um that's on the agenda is the february 3rd however i'm more than happy to come to any of the meetings or or have a separate meeting to go over it in more depth whatever would be most helpful to the board um i mean certainly we can get to that when we get to agenda planning but um you know i i just wanted to like i said i don't know how many of other board members have had the opportunity to read through that document because uh you guys have done an incredible incredible amount of work in a short time um and there are a lot of

117incredible things happening so you know be very nice to be able to hear that at a board meeting uh sooner rather than later but it's just a lot also all at once and so i know there's a couple of question marks in certain areas and i'm sure we'd like a little bit more uh information on at some point soon go ahead karen yeah i think um it would be helpful to obviously bump that up and maybe we can fit it into the january meeting but here are my overarching concerns that once this process of taking the 28 recommendations went forward it really has been somewhat sheltered from the board as with respect to the timing the rollout the priorities of these 28 particular recommendations and whether or not we as a board think that the

11828 recommendations that were made if we want to implement all 28 recommendations and i think my understanding of the process here was that pcg was supposed to help come up with a strategy for doing that and then the board needed to decide as to what the implementation was going to be what was the rollout what were the priorities uh and and also from an expense standpoint what were those expenditures that needed to be incurred and we haven't had any of that so i'm slightly troubled by the fact that there hasn't been any board input since the 28 recommendations came as to what we as a board actually want to do with respect to what has been given before us it was a board study it was commissioned by the board and i feel that since

119then we haven't had any input and that's troubling to me so the i mean and we as as i shared um with the other karen i'm more than happy to go through the you know the 28 recommendations um they they're somewhat grouped together in in terms of building off of each other um and it is possible that we you know we can implement all of those but it you know again going through each of those um to look at what that means for gps we can definitely go through each of those individually well i think karen and i probably are on the same page and would love to have that and again when we get to the agenda planning maybe it can be put somewhere uh in january so that we have a better opportunity

120to give you feedback as we haven't had that opportunity and there's a lot of those uh recommendations are very open-ended um and i think we need a lot more information for some of them but i will just say again uh you guys have done an incredible job um and you have been very transparent with parents in the community and i know uh a lot of the special education um community has been really very happy with a lot of the improvements and changes that have been made so i wanted to say thank you on for that as well thank you michael joseph yeah thank you um sorry i can't be there um i i do want to say the um i i too thought that uh we were actually going to talk about the presentation on

121the actual action plan uh this evening so so we might want to think about um um agenda item wise how that was communicated but all that said um in dr h's defense dr h is um um agreed to uh is going to meet with uh karen hirsch and i as the as the board members of siac uh mostly to be able to update that way and we'll be brought back to the full border so that's that's going to be an ongoing way that we'll be able to do that to that communication that said to um the other karen's point i think when we talk about some of these larger issues here and these long log or implementation items we have to recognize two things one i think we need to remember the real urgency here

122um these are our most needy students and um this has been an issue for um obviously too long um so we can never unfortunately we can never pat ourselves on the back too much and i don't think anybody's doing that i don't think we'd ever recognize that uh two um when we talk about co-teaching which i'm a big believer of and i think it's uh too terrific that we're talking about going in that direction we really need even beyond the board we really need to have a community conversation about what that means and why that's advantageous to both general ed and special education students because that's going to be a lot of raised eyebrows if we raise that in a way that we implement co-teaching in a way that is not very thoughtfully uh articulated

123well ahead of time we need to be really talking about that this winter if we're going to have co-teaching widespread um and then the danger with coaches you really have to define what it is you know we didn't define it in this presentation i'm not defining it obviously we need to make it clear what that is um and obviously which i know dr h knows um we need to make sure that when we're talking about co-teaching we're really talking about um a vehicle for specialized instruction such that there's ways for students special ed students to receive skill development in their iep goals what we mean by co-teaching we're learning by co-teaching is to support students in the general ed setting in the least restrictive environment possible to get instruction in in in their specialized goals

124um co-teaching without specialized instruction is a waste of time and i think we need to go into any co-teaching implementation uh with that awareness and with that lens so i really want the question is more of a comment but i look forward to those conversations moving forward yes thank you mr kelly you can call me joe just was fun thank you uh i have a brief question we've had some over the uh over the last couple of years we've had some wonderfully supportive special education parents that have come to these meetings and really helped us along those that are dealing with this uh with this group could you tell me what their input is recently how they appreciate our progress uh what their what their comments are i i i certainly i said they're very

125helpful times they came here and now now i know we've created the opportunity for them to work closely with us could anybody comment on how uh how we're getting along with our parents at this point i think dr hagenthaler is probably um best suited to speak speak towards that uh having presented at multiple different um community groups um i mean like i said i i i've heard from from many that they are very happy with the movement forward with the transparency with the fact that there's documents um that have been posted on our website uh giving them more in-depth information um and access to understanding how the program works and and other things but i think dr h is probably best suited to speak towards it thank you yes um really making an effort to

126be in communication with parents both through the parent groups uh the seac and the ss ses ptac um as well as individual schools the the the ptac through that as well as individual parents um parents have responded very positively to the changes as as karen had mentioned um and are seeing things that are occurring in in the schools right now um you know just this morning i you know in a um for the greenwich high school we had a parent coffee and in discussion with one parent you know she was able to share that she has seen a change and she feels very supportive um supported her her child and is really thrilled with the progress that we've made and the things that we've shared moving forward in terms of class balancing and co-teaching and

127the supports that are at the classroom and i'm having those same conversations with parents at the various levels so at the elementary level as well as the middle school level change doesn't happen overnight you know i'm not able to you know hit a magic button and and have you know have everything change but i think we're definitely moving in the right direction um and that uh parents are saying that they're seeing that and they're feeling that and many are communicating that for some of the parents who might not see it so maybe not in their specific program or they might not have a specific something happening at their school they're out there advocating and saying that they're seeing the change and so i i have to say i feel very i i'm very lucky with

128the support that i'm getting from the parent community and i really appreciate the support that they're providing me well thank you that means a lot to me because promises made must be promises kept and we certainly made a lot of promises to our very enthusiastic special education community and very happy to hear it's progressing in a positive way thank you thank you thanks dr h seeing nothing else i think that we'll talk about this during agenda planning making sense okay let's move on to action items oh sorry did someone say something no okay let's move on to action items um remember i removed something from the consent agenda so the first action item now is the 22 23 board of education meeting calendar does anyone want to put a motion to put this on the

129table i can do it so i'll still move it all right thank you miss downey have a second laura costen okay discussion miss downey um i think my one comment which i believe i made at our last meeting is i was hoping to add one additional meeting to this original one proposed by the superintendent i think we find that in the fall in particular we have a lot of meaty topics including for example enrollment and achievement data which are big topics which i would like to see a second meeting added in october and i'm happy to make a motion to add a date when you tell me it's the appropriate time so would you like me to do it now mr or no sounds good to me i mean i i had also asked about

130one in late march which i can look at but uh just to have it as a placeholder i know dr jones had mentioned that there's a lot of um [Music] you know budget meetings uh during that period of time when we're meeting with others but i just know we get a lot of other data that comes in at that period of time there used to be a board retreat at that time so i thought it might be helpful to have it as a placeholder um i think i personally think with march the only challenge is we sort of need to know what the pet and rtm schedule is for that period of time for the budget cycle because that's usually when we're going to the district meetings um so and and then we have april

131break so i just don't have those dates we don't need a vote on this tonight necessarily but i think that i mean but i want to get the feeling from the board generally are you the only two or other people in agreement with that before we put send it back it seems to be no opposition so i mean it's up to you christina if you want to make an amendment to add things tonight or if we want to give dr jones a chance to add some dates and then bring it back in january you know i kind of defer to dr jones i mean it's not earth shattering that we do it tonight um i would suggest we add thursday october 6th as a in the retreat category but that was the only one i

132was requesting that we add ms hirsch what's your problem uh i still think we should add an additional one because there's a long break in the in the spring and between the february and the yeah or it was like the whatever it is the march and the april dates but um i can defer to waiting you know we could put a placeholder at some point and just add it during agenda planning if need be it's just easier for board members to hold something in a place on a calendar but we don't have the rtm meeting dates yet so i get that the march meeting is march 14th of 2022 for the rtm and typically district and committee meetings are the week prior we know it'd be really fun it would be 2023 sorry so why

133don't we do this why don't we have march 13th for 2010 and it depends when the bet usually votes on the budget at the end of march beginning of april that's really where the more relevant calendar is the bet calendar because they typically vote in between that the date that ms hersh is recommending is right around the time that there's the bet vote on our on the budget so i think that's relevant information more than the rtm i'm happy to to wait and add it if we need to be uh prior to the start of that school year once we get the other town bodies calendars is we don't want to step on any toes kathy yes go ahead michael what i'm i'm sorry maybe it's because i'm remote on the uh on the agenda

134it's the school calendar what what are we talking about our calendar yes it was on the consent agenda and i made a motion to move it too oh i see it so we could talk about it i sense that people weren't ready for it so why don't we do this why don't we uh karen why don't we bring this back and um we'll talk about during agenda planning but dr jones if you could take note of these items and then let's vote on our next meeting once everyone make sure they're comfortable with it it's always easier to delete meetings frankly than add them because then we it becomes you know a special meeting and then we're not as flexible so i think it's wise for us to make sure we get our planning right for

135next year so i guess i'm with did i make the motion no christina did you're withdrawing it okay all right so with that let's move to baller policy governance and i am shouldn't be down for this this is missed out yeah okay um so i'm going to move out because i should cover sheep i'm going to make a motion um that the board approve and adopt the following policies zero five previously proposed zero five two one three five four two point one four zero zero zero point one five one four one point five five one four four point four five one four five point four four five one four five point six six one four two point ten six one four two point one zero one and along with regulations 5141.5 are happy to second

136that um okay thank you so um as all the board members know these were presented in october the bulk of them and then two of them in november they i took board comments there were some very minor changes that pgc made that are were in the packet for this meeting in response to people's comments so we wanted to go ahead and these are reminding people that these are policies that we should have in place that we've as we've been filling in the gaps um between moving over from our old model to the cave model there are still some additional policies that need to be put in place and this is the first grouping i think we'll have some more and we'll have going forward with the new pgc starting in the new year um you'll

137note that we typically do not vote on regulations the one regulation we are voting on relates to suicide prevention that is because that's required by state statute that boards approved under 10 my numbers