001eight million dollars is a lot of money um but the reality of it is we're now presented with i think what is an opportunity and uh i don't know the answer to this dan um but it seems to me this is an opportunity presented uh how do we make a silk purse out of a sow's ear um i would suggest what we do is gut both floors all classrooms of the 1925 portion of the building because so much of it is damaged and this is an opportunity for us to rebuild that part of north miami school maybe even get uh there are hvac there with units punched through the walls it's not desirable it's not a standard there are other things and i would hope that we would uh even if it means we're out
002for a little longer take advantage to uh properly and completely rebuild that first half of the school in some cases the spaces aren't quite appropriate i don't know whether we would redesign any of the spaces uh the office spaces and small group spaces there are particularly a problem but um i'm not so sure i want to rush to to do the project just to get it back online um i want the kids back in there as quickly as possible but at the same time uh if we have an opportunity to rebuild a school that we were going to rebuild anyway on a different schedule i'd like to take advantage of that opportunity now not just patch it back together to get it online dan can you address that um yeah it's it you know the
003timing is is right i mean uh as far as we have to do something um i wouldn't necessarily say we're patching it just to get it back online i mean what would be done would be to code it would be we would be replacing in-kind to what we have now except for the plaster ceiling uh it would allow us to get back into the building at a relatively uh quick pace um i think if you were to do something what you're referring to as a gut rehab uh with a uh you know a redesign um you're adding a significant amount of time on can i ask you a question about that dan because i understood the dem from the reading the report maybe i'm not clear on the demolition um we need to demolish all
004of the ceilings on four one and one floor two right that's correct okay so we have to take out the ceilings right there was significant water damage right so do we have to take out any floors or they're fine you take out any what floors no the floor is held up surprisingly well we are keeping an eye on it we don't have to redo the floors do we have to replace any walls because of the water damage there was a small amount of water infiltration on the first floor hallway and the second floor walls a significant amount of them are metal they use metal partitions when they went from an open style classroom to compartmentalizing so this is this is 8 million bucks to largely replace ceilings it's it's significantly more that's the entire infrastructure
005it's the infrastructure that was between the two ceilings right right and and the demolition alone is going to be extensive right so what else has to what is the scope of this what's the scope of this project could you just highlight the big items the demolition alone so the the way that the building is made up for i'm sure i haven't seen it i'm sorry i wasn't the scope of the rebuild we have to start from uh once that you have to take everything down first which means the lower ceiling the infrastructure meaning the lights electrical conduit sprinkler systems hvac lines uh life safety lines that go above the ceiling all that comes out we have to shore up the existing plaster ceiling so it can be surgically removed um and when i mean surgically
006removed the plaster that's there is very thick and it weighs about 20 to 30 pounds per square foot right so you'll be taking out sections that are no bigger than two foot by four foot at a time very time consuming uh the insulation in the attic would obviously fall out you have to take all that out so once we've determined what the rebuild is that uh per code it's probably going to be two layers of sheet rock that has to be attached we have to have a design for how the uh infrastructure would be attached to the structure through the sheetrock we don't have all those details yet um from that there there's put everything back together then put the infrastructure back and then whatever is determined to be the ceiling and lighting system that
007would have to go back in yeah that was what i was saying it sounds like the only thing when you're done with that that because you're taking out all that and i'm just trying to understand if you take out all that infrastructure right and then we have to go put it all back i i guess what i'm hearing you say is the only thing that's left is metal walls and uh floor the carpet's all going to be replaced and i mean there's no carpet there's there was area rugs but there's no carpet except in the media center right in the media center there was right so okay i i mean maybe gut rebuild is the wrong terminology i realize you're going to probably stay in the same footprint and the classes will probably stay similarly
008in the same place but i guess i had envisioned in my head you're going to have to rip out all this stuff your point all on the infrastructure as well as it sounds like you got to take ceilings out everywhere um that sounds to me pretty close to i don't use the same term i would call it gutting it but um and i i think you know that building suffered a lot with their hvac units the air conditioning units that are punched through the walls they're noisy they take a lot of space it seems to me if we're going to go replace all this stuff and put it back um i don't know why we don't put in proper air conditioning proper heating that doesn't involve those units and is done centrally and if we're
009gonna have to take it all out and put it all back in i'm just thinking about taking advantage of the well we're not we're not taking out the hvac system that's that remains intense you had to take out conduits hvac conduits didn't you just there's supply lines that are minimal but the hvac units are unit ventilators that are located along the wall and they don't take up any more space than the shelving units that are there and they're less than three years old all of them all of them yeah okay okay thank you for answering the question all right miss kowalski thanks mr bernstein um a couple of quick questions regarding the the the new place so we're looking at instead of four buildings for north miami which they're currently placed in it would be
010two is what you're saying we would have be able to use whatever the the back portion of the building and then find a second building that can house the rest of the children in their in their classrooms did i is that right tony yes that's correct okay and is that and how many classrooms is that that we're looking to fill our sorry that we need to relocate right now we have 15 that we have relocated but um to have them all together we we're looking at 18. oh at eight okay and then are are we looking for to uh to keep them i i mean i maybe this isn't the place that we're looking are we looking within greenwich or do we need to look outside of greenwich such as our you know neighboring stanford
011for a location we're looking we're looking everywhere that is close enough that it's an okay bus ride for children um and i i did share on the call this morning because people have asked me um you know i think it was two two years ago when stanford had to take over an office building and to very quickly turn it into a school site um i spoke directly with the person who did all of that work but that building no longer is sitting in the same format and that they are using it for a vaccine site so they ripped out a lot of what had been done to create a school and they just did that a few months ago we are we're looking at all different types of environments i know i understood um and
012so when do you think you'll have an idea of what new place and do we have an appreciation for what this would cost we don't at this time um you know that's something we have to negotiate and then uh once we get to the point if there is a site that it looks like it could be okay the next hurdle is always uh getting a contract through legal um they have they look at the language very carefully and it has to be approved through the legal you know to through the town department okay and with all of this anticipation work now we don't think it'll be done in september but when do we think it'll be done done by we just don't know i guess that's a question for maybe dan yeah i mean we
013don't know that answer until we even know the design and what the timeline is okay all right thank you miss olson yep thank you um so there's a lot of you know probably families on here north miami's families that are hearing for the first time that their kids are going to be as are we that their kids are going to be displaced come fall which is um a hard pill to digest so you know and i understand there's proper procedures and and you know it goes through a process so i'm not i'm not fighting that but if they're just i guess it goes without saying but any possible way that we can expedite this you know to be a top priority um to just make sure that we're staying on top of each each stage
014along the way to keep it moving as quickly done right obviously but keep it moving as quickly as possible i think is goes without saying is is of utmost importance here you know um we need to i'm fully in support of this and i think we need to we need to um expedite it all right mr kelly and quick question just to further elaborate on mr shearer's point if we put the six plus million dollars or so whatever the number is into this building now and i believe we're scheduled to do a renovation on this building in 2026. uh basically as i said i think i know the answer to this question any money we put into the building now uh uh will not be a reduction in the total renovation that we're looking in
0152026. is your professional opinion that would be the case that all depends on what the design is in 2026 you would think if we're doing in line with julian curtis old greenwich school if we're doing a a a redo of the building to try to gain another 25 30 years out of the property uh it's more likely than the patches or renovation we'll be doing now uh will not be useful uh in the uh in the 2026 renovation uh is that is that what you would think no i i don't think that at all again it really depends on what the renovation includes but you're going to need a ceiling you're going to need fire separation between the the floor and the attic so we're redoing that uh you've got three-year-old uh air conditioning system
016i i don't think you're gonna rip that out again we're we haven't even begun to look at a feasibility study for uh for uh north mianis so so i mean all that all whatever we put in now can be uh you know part of the program so um i don't think what we're putting in now uh would be ripped out i mean we're not putting in any uh new finishes other than a new carpet in the media center uh i i think we'd be fine it again it really depends on what the uh what the program is gonna ask for okay that sounds encouraging thank you all right um you know i know there's a lot of questions about the the dollar figure that you can't answer until you go and continue to do the
017work i guess part part of our taking this up is the the schedule for the other bodies in town um the rtm votes on the budget may they generally don't take other items if we waited until the june meeting obviously we would be the ones then setting the work back which we certainly don't want to be doing so i think that's part of what's driving us here um i guess you know tony sean dennett goes without saying as you get additional information about the cost in any direction you know clearly we want to know um if additional monies are needed uh you know we know that's problematic to add it just we'd have to go through the process so the way you construct your uh your biz as you learn from the stadium experiences is
018very very important um i don't see any other hands uh i'm gonna go ahead and call the question uh the motion on the table is to uh is to approve the interim request for north mianis in the amount of 8.1 million so bernstein is a yes um downey yes uh yes kelly yes kowalski yes olsen yes here yep and stow yes great that passes unanimously thank you uh just process wise i have been talking to the bt about scheduling a meeting the document went to the rtm uh so that they can send out their call materials i think they're posted online now um once the uh we'll schedule first with the bt budget committee then the full bet and then we'll be on the uh the docket for the april rtm meeting so this will
019move forward pace and i presume there'll be lots and lots of questions as we go forward and you know the closer uh we we get having design the more answers we will have all right with that then i'm going to move to our next action item which is the policy updates uh miss downey i think you are you taking this separately um yeah i think er i could be persuaded i was going to propose that these are second reads for policies 9273 proposed and 93 27.1 um i'm going to move them both together just for simplicity and time unless anyone has an objection to that no i think we need to take them up separately okay that's fine so i'll start with 9273 i'm gonna move um this is it's already been read at the
020last meeting and so for action for approval by the board so 92-73 let's start with that one second i'll second it thank you all right discussion i'll point out um i'm sorry um i just wanted to point out that it was requested that the town attorney's office look at both of these policies and they have said that both are in good legal order and legally acceptable so i just wanted to make the fellow board members aware of that fact so it was requested by a board member and it's been done and resolved um okay thank you all right miss kowalski i see your hand thanks so i just um we're taking up 9273 first correct okay so i apologize wherever i'm looking my camera is one place my screen is another and my notes are
021on another one so i'm not don't worry about it don't no offense taken my eyes are not shifting for any particular reason um so i just i i look at this one and and i understand from our prior discussion in our last meeting that these were done um and you've been working on them since september and this was something that cabe had also passed you know in reading these i it just seems like we're trying to legislate civility right um and i think uh you know tonight in particular and lessons learned we just all need to be civil with each other and because those should be our norms and we have norms that we are already governed by and we have a a code of ethics and so i'm just this seems to me to
022just it feels like it's just stepping too far um for something that we should be legislating for i am and also because i i feel like it lacks a sense of standards and how one will be necessarily judged and who is the judge juror and executioner on all of this um you know my plain and simple term terms of this is you know society works because we have societal norms right we've all agreed it to behave in a certain fashion and that's just what we do um the the penalty by which that we would have if we are if one feels we're not acting in a civil fashion in one way shape or alarm is we're like you know we're elected officials we are then not elected right we we don't get re-elected i think
023to be honest i think this is a lot what we're seeing um in in washington which i don't want to bring to greenwich and you know we see what happens when one side or the other for purely political reasons and purposes launches attacks on one another and and this is what this feels like this gets to um you know and i said it earlier tonight and in my other comments if there is an issue where we think that we are not behaving appropriately i think the the proper use is to pick up the phone and to have an adult conversation um and even if you don't like the person and we realize tonight there's probably a lot of people that don't like each other on this board but to pick up the phone and have
024that conversation um you know when you're looking at this it just seems to me that this all renders itself to what could possibly be a kangaroo court um and not to mention i i think it stifles minority opinions and it seems to be a push for the tyranny of the majority so i just i have grave concerns over this i know christina you went to town council and that was at my request that i because i felt uncomfortable with these um and i appreciate the the opinion gotten i i have some reservations with that i mean no disrespect to town council but on these levels i am not sure that this is their expertise but thank you for for asking all right is there any other discussion on uh 9273 um karen i i hear
025what you're saying but at the same time um i think the it's always good for more communication and expectations um to be communicated clearly and i think this is this is a list of expectations and protocols and um sadly you're right there has been um what's going on in washington and that's perhaps why i don't know you know what prompted cabe to talk about it um but i do i don't i don't see a downside um in quite the same way that you do but we can agree to disagree on that yeah i know i i i i i'm you know i hear what you're saying i appreciate that christina and i look and i went back through because some of these policies i'm not sure i don't have 9273 in front of me but
026i know it referenced other policies so i feel like we're just we we have the appropriate policy and framework out there that governs this and i think that this is just a layering on and getting a little too for you know a lack of comfort into how far we're going to go um and i just don't think that something like this i think this skirts a line that i'm i'm really uncomfortable with i expressed this uncomfortableness several weeks ago and i had emailed you about it i just because i i feel like that and particularly here when there's no standard for which you're judged it's all of a sudden the standard of what everybody doesn't like all of a sudden and that's what worries me that we run down a very slippery slope that you
027get a a group and and i'll just say a a group of four or five that have that feel like something that was said or done or certain behavior isn't acceptable and now all of a sudden it is now um you're going to be judged harshly because you have five people that disagree with you um that's what i worry here i do think that the policies that you that we have in place and the policies that you've gone through and i know you've gone through to clean them up are precisely what this this body needs and has and those are appropriate and this one steps too far for me mr sheriff um i think you know look i've been on the board a long time um this you know the board at various times has
028been completely dysfunctional i've talked about that many many times and it always drifts into [Music] what we saw earlier tonight it always drifts into that and um it's really dangerous um it um people have tried to put in civility because christina i don't have a problem with this where it's listed as a set of expectations okay these expectations that are listed here are the expectations that i've always understood the board should operate under i i don't agree i don't agree with a bunch of them but i've always understood it i've been as an example very respectful of um the board speaks for the board and if i'm speaking in the public i need to make clear to people i'm speaking as an individual as an example um the other thing that's always bothered me on
029this board is there are questions my colleagues many of you ask i think they're outrageous totally out of bounds um and and and i've seen many board members over time uh bully berate uh staff but the way i've always handled that is um i may hate the question i may hate the behavior but i respect the board's members right to ask it i never try to cut off a question and never try to cut off somebody's going too long i go too long i persist in questions when i don't get answers and someone's evading an answer i just think this is a really dangerous slippery slope it worked before because in our board uh we didn't have this um you know censure and reprimand and what have you and i agree with karen we saw
030how this got out of control in our federal government and it became essentially a political weapon now we have to rely on the good will of people to use it center reprimand whatever appropriately but there's a long history of this board not having that this listed as a civility code and i won't be on the board when this occurs could very easily lead to somebody saying i want to send you a reprimand because i don't think you complied with this particular item in a code and it that's civility is a very loaded term it's a very loaded term so i got to tell you i can't support this because not because of its intent its intent i think is good outlining expectations is good if this were listed as um expected responsibilities of board members
031i would support it but uh this could so easily turn into a cudgel and rip apart the board it's just a remarkably uh bad idea i realize this policy doesn't talk about how we're evaluating what civility is and that is a really bad idea because it leaves it open to anybody's interpretation um it's just as written it's a it's a super a bad idea it's it's trying to restrict people and this is going to happen because people want to behave properly between each other this is gonna civility on the board is gonna happen because people treat each other properly it's not something you legislate i i mean i realize i i can tell where this is going already i expect this will go uh six to two but maybe i'm wrong but i just i
032i warn all of you who are going to be here longer than i am you're setting us up you're setting this board and future boards up for trouble we are stewards of a legacy i recognize i am the steward of all the people and chair people and bored people who came before me this is fundamental it seems like it's trivial it's not i would not uh do this in its current form i would rather move that this gets returned to the pgc for some modifications and clarifications all right miss hirsch sorry um i was just gonna say you know when we received this uh from cabe which uh has been fully vetted also by them and i think it's been adopted by quite a few districts throughout connecticut they also included some um information as
033to the where's the whys and the policy implications um and it does speak to some of the things that you uh mr sharon ms kowalski were discussing but it does specifically talk about uncivil the policy implications that uncivil conduct does not include the expression of controversial or differing viewpoints that may be offensive to some persons provided the ideas are presented in a respectful manner at a time and place that are appropriate and that such expression does not material disrupt and may not be reasonably anticipated to disrupt the educational and or meeting process and such different differing viewpoints are permitted within the freedom of expression guaranteed by the first amendment um so you know again i i you know i hear what you are both saying but it is clear that this was already vetted for
034for those concerns um and uh they went further into discussing you know that numerous studies have taken place reviewing the effects of incivility on worker status satisfaction organizational integrity pro and productivity and can be linked to increased job excuse me linked to decreased job performance and satisfaction that safe and civil environments are incent are essential to board student and staff achievement um and the free exchange of ideas uh to is essential to the quality of the educational process um so uh it goes on further about conversely uncivil conduct like other forms of disruptive behavior interfere with the board's ability to fulfill its appropriate leadership role and with the student's ability to learn at a school's ability to educate its students um and it goes in a little further which i can continue to read sorry
035are we missing a member but um um anyway it talks about the whys the where is in the house and discusses some of the concerns that you guys already addressed um but it's clear that they've already vetted vetted this for that um and as i said i know it's certainly been adopted by other districts just to give you background miss kowalski sure karen i appreciate all of that you know and one of the things for example i don't understand trouble have trouble with is for example if i look at meeting protocol right to ensure that board it says to ensure that the board's meetings are conducted with maximum efficiency and effective members will you know come to meetings adequately prepared well who's going to be the judge of whether or not you're adequately prepared how
036are we judging that um the other interestingly enough it's you know not interrupt each other during a debate you know that didn't happen tonight so you know this is going to come up all of the time and i think that look we have to so does that mean that because someone got interrupted during a debate by someone else that therefore we have a violation of the policy and how's that going to be handled well just to answer that you know we follow robert's rules and there are very specific detailed uh discussions on uh you know on that within robert's roles as well all right i think that's all the hands i'm just going to add to this i view this as the job description quite frankly when you sign up for uh for for running
037for a public board especially this board i think that that is the job description and that is what we ought to be evaluated against i'm not saying that the board should uh should run off and uh and use it as a cudgel but i i do think it is a good explanation of the expectations of board members all right mr cher peter oddly i agree with what you're saying i don't know why it is entitled job description then why is it titled civility code i mean that i mean that's my whole problem with it i i like this document because it tells people what the expectations are particularly people you know who have never served on a board before unfortunately when i came to the board i'd served on a board before but that's a
038learning curve there are people here who have no experience in their professional life on serving on a board this is a learning curve and the learning curve is steep so i think this thing is beautiful as a document of the job description and the expectations that's not my problem with it at all it's i take it at what it's titled this is a code of civility and we have seen this over and over and over again going after people for violations of civility i mean it's so prevalent in washington i can't stand it so just to be clear so is your only objection to it in the title that if it were re-titled as board member expectations you support it as a document just to understand yeah because my concern is christina as i've said
039yeah i think there will be subsequent people who will i can see this happening all of us are dead and buried off this board we're not dead and buried in real life but we're off this board okay let's just say that i could see somebody i could see somebody reading this and going uh they meant civility when they and you violated civilian i mean i've encountered that more times than i can count on the sport you know not just about me about other people trying to do it to other board members and i've seen it happen and i've seen it by the way it's an equal opportunity thing i've seen it done to democrats i've seen it done to republicans it's none of that so my concern is and i'm done talking about this my
040concern is how it might get misused in the future by how it's constructed other than that i love every bullet that's on the chart so peter do you want to make a motion on the title because i i do i i i don't object to your to the change of the title because if it's if that is a stumbling block i'm not sure karen would agree with you kowalski but what letters i'm sorry let me look at let me look again at the document i guess i look at it because i think megan wants to speak as well so all right so so we'll let megan talk and then we'll circle back peter oh i just yeah thank you for all the work that's gone into it and i um you know we did have
041a chance to to look at this and and talk about it beforehand and i you know appreciate you went to the extra step to you know check with the attorneys and um went i think above and beyond so i'm i'm in full support and i don't know karen kowalski if you wanted to weigh in about the title i don't know if your objections went deeper do you want me to make a motion to move this forward i didn't mean to make it a federal case no no no no no but i mean i'd rather i'd rather that's good to be honest with you because we presented it two weeks ago and i and i'm only getting this comment now which we could have had a discussion about before now but i'm fine to have the
042discussion now but i'd rather it not necessarily go back to pgc if the if the only real issue is kind of the title of the policy i would rather amend the motion um or amend the wording and have people sign off on it and we move forward for a moment and then we'll deal with yeah yeah i'm just telling people i i can i can get on board with that if it's changed to you know this is the job description this is the expectation well we just create if we if instead of the word civility code if we say um board um expectations of board members or how about board member expectations it's cleaner with less with letters i'm fine with you all right so peter do you want to go with the motion yeah
043um which do you prefer christina i actually like mine not peters okay fine all right okay here let me flip a coin then you say how about expectations for board members how's that that's i just think board members expectations is over 9273 title from civility code to expectations of board members so peter before we take a second that's a motion to amend correct i'm going to make sure michael gets that right for the minutes yes okay motion could be expectations warp is it other four four okay it doesn't matter to me expectations for board members i think four is cleaner thank you my motion michael is to modify to amend thank you propose policy 9273 to change the title from civility code to expectations for board members christina do you want to second that also
044i was just as i'll second that okay any discussion on the motion to amend the title hearing none i'm going to take a quick roll call vote bernstein yes downey yes first yes kelly yes kowalski yes olsen yes yes hence down yes all right so the motion in front of us now is to adopt the policy 92 73 expectations for board members seeing no further hands i'm going to go ahead and take the roll for instance yes downey yes yes kelly yes kowalski sorry i missed what you said uh the motion is as amended oh yes board members thank you um olson yes uh share yes and still yes okay great that passes eight zero uh christina orange guy with the next motion okay so now i'd like to move the adoption of proposed policy
04593 27.1 which has a number of sub-sections but the first of which reads board member use of internet social networks so i'm going to move as revised from our last meeting and is there a second for that motion a second all right miss joe thank you uh discussion miss downey um just um the town attorney while she said that she that well the member of the chinatown's office said well it was legally in order she expressed a few concern about two items in the appendix to the policy items two and four which you can see the revisions we made and which she has also said alleviated her concerns with those two provisions so all right discussion ms kowalski so i appreciate that the changes that have been made i still have some concern here you
046it seems to me that under the various titles for which there's a piece right it's board members use of social network and then compliance with public records laws okay compliance with freedom of information act okay social networking websites um i don't there's parts of this that i don't understand for example on the social networking websites you know board members need to periodically review the importance of maintaining proper decorum in an online digital world as well as in person and this give emphasis to the board members use of facebook twitter and social media this does not seem as well as the next paragraph regarding code of ethics it seemed to derive solely as me as a or any of us as board members but rather us as karen kowalski christina downey as citizens of greenwich and
047citizens of the u.s irrespective of and it seems to suggest that i can't have an opinion outside of my position as a board simply because i got elected to being a member of the board that somehow i have lost my ability to have an opinion about anything for that matter because this is not the social networking websites and the code of ethics provisions under those titles in the language below them go beyond just your work as a board um which would suggest that i'm not and i'll go so far as look if i want to say something specific let's say i don't like president biden and i think he's a if i go and say that that suggests that i'm speaking out and now obviously that's a bad example but that would fall within this
048social networking and code of ethics and be a violation because i'm making a statement that may contain and maybe i used a profane word in describing my dislike of the president that now that has put this within the code of ethics and the social networking websites as a violation of those two clauses well the one that talks about i'm just gonna i i don't i hate doing wordsmithing during meetings like this and just i wish we'd had these discussions in a couple weeks since these first came up be that as it may but i have a designated time period here and like i understand but we could have we could have had discussions about this in the two weeks that we were asking people for comments but the social net networking websites provision really talks
049about it's a cautionary item it says you need to periodically review proper decorum it's not really there's no hammer being put over people it's a reminder that we need to be cognizant of perceptions on those social medias because as we all know notwithstanding that you know as peter correctly points out we don't speak for the board but because we are me but because we are members of the board um words that we use can be interpreted by others to have greater weight then maybe even if we give the disclaimer i'm speaking only as an individual not for the board of education so that one i see is just to give bro that is a reminder it doesn't really say it doesn't really say anything problematic to me okay the the next paragraph under the code
050of ethics that's the hammer board members will refrain from inappropriate conduct in making public statements on facebook and other social network sites and will refrain from any disparagement of fellow board members or others on a personal social racial or religious basis now i'm not so that goes beyond just your work as a board member but you christina downey as a human being sharing an opinion that someone else may think is a disparagement of another on a personal social racial or religious basis that would be a violation of this policy i'm sorry i'm just ready give me a second to read if someone else has a comment in the meantime i'm just reading it again so and i don't mean to add comments while you're reading but i would suggest that you this policy reads a
051lot like a restraint on communication and given that we've just passed the other pro policy which gives the expectations of board members you've actually solved whatever problem you were attempting to achieve here without infringing upon one's ability to communicate without by be sitting on a board but otherwise having an opinion about something wait i'm sorry i didn't follow you therefore sure so i think what was trying to be achieved here in this in this use of you know social networks and comply maybe a couple of these provisions could still stay in like for example compliance of public records of law but your the the paragraphs in heat on this second policy that are governing speech right and saying what you should and should not say um don't it goes too far it's an it's a
052prior restraint on speech but your the policy that we just enacted on the expectations of how a board member should behave i think are cover any concern cover might cover any issues that you have in this one without being a prior restraint on communication i don't think it they this covers other things it covers you know foia issues public record laws issues i understand it covered this one seems to be a hodge positive a lot of things that don't necessarily go together for example compliance with public records freedom of information act i get all that but social networking and code of ethics don't belong in this and maintaining confidentiality i understand what we're supposed to do that's an expectation of the board um i just this one really steps well beyond um i think well
053beyond what this board has the ability to control and i don't think that you you or anyone on this board has the ability to to control what i put on my twitter account um but that's what this actually says it does well maybe that wasn't the intention yeah but in the social networking website they disagree i don't think it just this is just a it's a cautionary tale so but in the code of ethics it does well would you if you struck out the words or others does that change your point of view i'm just asking i'm not saying i you know we would do it but i'm just asking the question i would take out the whole provision okay i wish we had the ability to have this conversation prior to tonight um but
054other people have their hands up let them speak all right mr sheriff i hate doing this on the fly so uh i don't want to edit this thing on the fly um i just think you know look guys this will come as no surprise to you um i can't i can't come on board with this uh unless it's got a major rewrite to it because it's really clear what it is and um you know you christina i appreciate it you can talk about the intent and all the rest of it um look there are two problems we have right we just lived with one of them right this was never a problem on the board when we didn't have this mechanism where we could go after an individual board member for what they say okay
055i just had to sit and listen to and as did the rest of you all these people from the public say please send your peter's shirt for and by the way multiple of them said for his comments on uh social media all right i look we don't i have a personal profile on social media as do many of you do nothing in the board can should prevent me or prevent anybody from expressing a opinion in the public square as an individual and the way you police what they say is not a board it's policed by the electorate that if the electorate doesn't like the person doesn't like what they say this is solved at the ballot box so that's the mechanism we have to be sure every board member i i've said this i hear
056things joe kelly says and i hear things chris karen hirsch says and i just i can't believe they say him but you know what it's not my job to police that nobody appointed me because i'm on a board policing that this is a this is a the way this is written and particularly you know the connection to ethics and what have you this is somebody trying to create speech codes and trying to create prior state of speech and the way you don't want to solve that problem in my mind is uh if somebody's got a problem with said somebody said pick up the phone and i've said this a hundred times pick up the phone call them and say hey i didn't like what you said here or there right um i don't think that
057reflects well on the board i'd rather you not do that or whatever that's the way this needs to get solved it doesn't get solved by creating this kind of legislation that creates nothing but free speech challenge problems we don't need this [Music] we need to be sure we're not pushing people into their remedy winds up being in the courts that's the worst outcome in my book um so i realize philosophically some of you are in a different place or your political ideology puts you in a different place i respect that i i can't with the way this is written now christina and i realize you're frustrated by it but to be honest with you what i'm frustrated by peter frankly is that i presented these two weeks ago and i asked for comments and i
058didn't get any till tonight that's what i'm frustrated by because these are all could have been very productive discussions in we had a pgc meeting earlier this week i was available the last two weeks to talk about it and i got nothing i got crickets so that is nice hey i'm with you i'm with you sister i've been talking about the strategy committee for five times and i've sent more notes to the board and i've got nothing back so i'm totally with you on that 100 in your frustration it seemed you know we're all busy people i wish we could all work on what everybody was priority for everybody else but we are where we are and look it shouldn't come as any surprise i've said many times on this board i'm very concerned about
059efforts to try to control what people say even if i don't like what they're saying and besides that i that's why i said i'd really like to know if there was a legal opinion because candidly this thing is fraught with all kinds of uh free speech issues and as i say again i'm not planning to be on the board if it makes you feel any better the town attorney that was one of her concerns but when she really looked through it that's why we made the changes to the appendix so i i mean yeah again i'm very respectful that you're trying to make it work i i get that i totally get it look i'm probably gonna get i mean it isn't gonna matter what i'm gonna do i'm gonna vote and other people are
060gonna vote um i i just wanted to express like i this is too tied up uh in ethics and somebody's got to evaluate it and somebody's got to decide what it is and i think by the way the other parts that are in there christina foia we already have a policy on floyd everybody knows what foy is the board doesn't need to repeat that that's an obligation under state law any elected official right if we're not following that we don't need a policy on that people know they have that they have that legal obligation they have legal obligation not to defame people you have the legal obligation not to libel people you know we don't need to replace duplicative policies that are well i think they're not duplicative because they're pointing out that the danger
061that what we don't think is foia or a meeting can become such in the internet world i think that's where those are actually quite relevant that you know four or five board members commenting on a thread on facebook creates a meeting that's not something people typically would think of and that i think for that i i disagree with you because i do think we need that when they're commenting as a board member when they're commenting as an individual which they have an individual right to and those are not aggregated because of this i mean this is this is where this gets more this is again if board members don't know how to conduct themselves properly and how to separate their two worlds um it anyway i i've set my piece on i'm just being redundant
062and i i i don't uh you know let other people share their views right mister so um it's lots of good comments um and whatever you know would have liked it earlier too but we are where we are um and i want to do this with a fine-tooth poem because i i hear you and um i'm not very active on social media probably my children are more than i am sadly but um i am this there's a few things one i've now spent a long time on policy probably a lot longer than i'd like um but we started to adopt cave policies because they were standards and we tried not to change them i remember and even the prior policy committees because then we start to lose like all of the the work that the
063connecticut association of boards of education put into this right so i always sort of take that as my first look at any policy and sort of say there has to be something to me that's sort of specific to greenwich that makes me want to change this that's number one um and then i liked especially that this went through town council and that was a good recommendation um by no one i think it was peter i'm not sure but um because she did highlight the um freedom of speech piece and that's where we i know spent some time in committee this week making sure and then i know christina you went back to town council again to make sure she was satisfied with him it sounds like they were um so that got me comfortable i
064think also having served on um you know company boards i generally feel more comfortable frankly as a board member when there is expectations on how one should act and have such decorum and yes all those things are there and you're usually not on a professional board unless you've already been vetted and that is understood and you've had background checks and all that stuff so that but i do think we are a public board and it's important to say yes absolutely i am fine with all of these things and i will um happily sign up to this so i did go through it i hear you but i am very comfortable with this policy based on all the review and um i know i'll be voting for it tonight miss hirsch oh i was i was
065going to say i know that this particular policy as written without the changes even that we had made after passing it through town council um has have been adopted again by uh many many different districts throughout connecticut um so that that gave me some level of comfort because you know we passed it through our legal and did make some um revisions um based on those concerns i will also note that i think it's really important for us to to be aware that we have um policies on uh use of social internet social networks for our students we have policies on internet social networks and you know use of internet social networks for our staff um and the reason that we as a you know pgc put this tour is because we did not have one
066for members of the board um so you know again we have it for students staff and administration so it you know it's exceptionally important i think additionally there has been a lot more use of social uh media and i don't think that this policy it's pretty clear that it's not discussing something as a a personal uh a page necessarily um it's pretty consistent when you talk about the code of ethics it's refraining from inappropriate conduct and making public statements um and i would assume that would be in in you know in more public groups as opposed to your private page um and it's again it's it's sort of a reminder of things that you know we do need to maintain foia we do need to not uh divulge confidential information um on social networks um
067as well because you know we are still required to keep the you know ferpa um as well as foia and again they're you know following that the other areas that you guys are discussing is are really guidelines and they're just i think to me uh reminders um you know and again this is you know if you're using it you may inadvertently violate you know you are you know it's important to to to not utilize social networks to conduct board business and um again i think that this is really in line with the policies that we have for students staff and administration and it's exceptionally important for us to have one as well in that regards um you know so you know that that was why i felt it was important and i supported it as
068well all right miss kowalski last comment and we can put this to bed obviously my last comment um okay karen just like just to follow up on a couple of things you said um look just because just because everybody else has done it and this came down from cave doesn't make it right it doesn't mean that we should do it and i don't know what they did with their vetting process or how they looked at this um it's kind of like you know the old saying you know if your friends jump off a bridge you're going to jump with them um and so that's why i i i just don't think that works here the other point that you mentioned you said that um you you you think that this would involve you know not
069your public page as opposed to your personal page i personally don't know the difference of it but the key word in that sentence was you think which means it's not clear from this policy what it covers and what it doesn't cover which means it could be far-reaching and the other the last comment you said it may violate okay it may violate but who is the judge jury and executioner on that who's going to call me to task if they if i make a comment that um five of you disagree with so i think that this steps beyond in those capacities i think there are some good things in here and i think there are some things that are overreaching and um are potentially a very much a slippery slope and headed down a very dangerous
070path i'll just respond to the one comment when i said something may inadvertently violate that's and you were asking who's the judge and jury it's not a judge and jury it's compliance with foia and it's pretty clear and that's why their wording is you know some of that use may inadvertently violate it it's not some of us saying what you're writing it's it's it's clear it's based on foia and it's like it's outside of foia what i'm talking about is the comments made on social networking you know just by an individual it has nothing to do with the foia provision that's being well foia accounts on social media as well but it says that you must be mindful of foia when using social network sites and you may inadvertently violate if you're not vigilant that's
071it's not saying you will that you are it's it's you just need to be mindful when you are you know sharing information that's right but then it goes on to say board members will refrain from inappropriate conduct in making public statements on facebook or other social networking sites will refrain and who's going to be the judge of whether or not that conduct is uh and is an inappropriate statement that's vague and ambiguous well you know when it comes to certain things you need them to be slightly more open in that and i think i mean i now need to go back i'll read our board of you know that's the slippery slope that i'm talking about what is inappropriate to you may not be to me what is inappropriate to mr kelly may not be
072to mystery i'm gonna go read the board's quote about this but it basically said it's consistent with the board code of ethics my guess is that it is the same language but again it's not i went back and i read 9271 and that statement there with respect to our code of ethics has nothing to do with this provision here that you're talking about they're totally different all right i think that's the end of the discussion so i'm going to go ahead and listen to these out of any emotions they want to make to mend or otherwise i'm going to call the question to a motion on the floor to approve 93 27.1 do we roll call bernstein as a yes downey christina you're muted sorry yes okay uh hirsch yes kelly yes kowalski emphatically no
073olson emphatically yes share no and stow absolutely yes and that passes 6-2 thank you very much in the uh 92-73 past 8-0 by the way i think i forgot to say that we're going to move on to our next action item which is the monthly financial and staffing report before i let shawn talk i'll go ahead and make the motion to approve the monthly financial and staffing report is there a second all right i see so that that works for me sean go ahead take it away okay hello sir okay all right um i'll go right to the operating budget through february we're at 96.6 million which is a 59.1 percent attainment of our full year budget of 163.4 year-to-year expense is up uh 0.4 million or 0.4 percent uh driven by uh overall salary
074increases uh and higher than budgeted uh out of district and settlement tuition uh plus uh covet spending not yet offset by uh by the grants you know in munis i'll get i'll get into that in a sec um and partly offset by uh savings we've had to date in summer school esy transportation and the year-to-year impact of uh the pre-spend activity that we did in june on the capital side we're continuing to work down the available balances uh as of the end of february the available balance is down to 20.6 million dollars which is a reduction of 5.2 million dollars from a month ago um on a year-to-year basis we're down about 23.9 including the addition of the 2021 appropriation on school lunch uh year-to-date revenue uh a million 347 which is uh continuing to
075lag significantly behind uh february last year when we booked 2.189 million uh year a year to year decrease of about 840 k or 38 percent cash sales are down 1 million 595 or 84 reimbursements are up uh 743 k or 404 so way up on reimbursements as expected uh expenses are year to date 1.898 million uh which is down year to year by 406 000 or 18 drivers on the expense uh reduction salaries and food costs and uh and partly offset by unbudgeted transportation costs um in terms of the full year forecast um we as we've said in months before we're gonna fall short significantly on revenue i would say it's at least a million seven uh expenses we're expecting to under run by 800 000 before recovering the transportation expense because we remember we've
076got that food delivery cost that we're going to recover with covid related funds so we'll under run with that recovery expenses should under run by about a million one uh after the recovery uh and then from a bottom line perspective uh we're looking to uh fall short to budget by about 900k before the transportation recovery and with that transportation recovery will probably fall short of budget by about six hundred thousand uh the next item in the uh package is just a uh an update on out of district tuition and settlements uh the latest assessment as of march 8th uh total of uh settlements and outplays tuition were at 6.9 in terms of uh actuals year-to-date actuals plus encumbrances and we have some pending cases of about 700k so if all that materializes uh we're looking
077at about 7.6 million which would be 2.2 million over budget or about 340 000 higher than what we forecasted at the beginning of the year um the next chart in the package um is a covid grant update and it's been totally reformatted you know the first column in the covid chart is as we have been reporting over the last several months all of the year-to-date expense whether it's supplies ppe uh services uh and then we have uh staffing the biggest of which is the certified uh staffing so and then the next four columns is how we are going to recover those expenses whether it's the s or one uh which was uh 758 000 uh the coronavirus relief fund which is a million two hundred and three thousand uh and then sr2 which incidentally um
078we just found out on friday uh previously it was a three point seven eight million dollars coming to us uh that now was updated on friday we're going to get 4.3 million dollars so we got an additional half a million dollars and then the fourth one is the american recovery plan which uh i heard this uh earlier in the um you know in one of the public comments that you know there was a reference to a greenwich time article and i believe it was dan har i think he's a associate editor for the time or first media a couple of weeks ago reported that greenwich was going to receive 47 million dollars of which 32 was going to come to the school district and i've heard many numbers over the last several weeks but nothing
079that high on friday we did get some confirmation from uh from congressman heim's office that we will be getting uh 10 million 215 000 so still pretty good um where where that money gets targeted for is uh as far as the arp we're just getting the facts now but we know that at least 20 of that 10 million uh has to address learning loss in the district and then there's they're targeting the remaining eighty percent uh there's a dozen or so specific areas where we can spend that money but they made it very clear that it's not to be used for supplanting the budget the funds the arp funds need to be used by september 30 of 24. the sr2 funds need to be used by september 30 of 2023 and the sr1 funds to
080be used by september 30 2022. um let me see if there's anything else i wanted to include in there um now that's that's kind of it i just but the chart has been updated to show how we would propose to spend the money obviously on the s or 2 and the arp those are you know pretty new news and so we don't know yet how we're going to spend that although we will the the head count related the staffing will most likely be recovered through the uh s or 2 grant and then yet to be determined is how that arp grant will be spent and that's something we're going to be working on over the next several weeks questions sean thank you for reformatting that this is peter bernstein um i think it's really really
081helpful to see it like that i guess i've got some questions about how much of that money is actually already received and how much of it will be received by june 30th because i want to make sure we're we're in a position to pay our uh our payroll through june uh you know i know i know money is going to start getting tight we're over on special ed uh right now until the interim comes through we're laying out money from north miami so can you kind of give us a sense of when that money is going to hit the uh in our accounts uh the sr1 758 has been received uh the coronavirus relief front of 1.2 million we're in the process now of of requesting those funds and the uh the 4.2 million uh
082will be uh finalizing how we're going to propose using those funds with the state and once we do that then we could actually uh request the uh the transfer of funds the arp i heard this morning on the way to work that some of those funds would be released to the schools across the country very quickly i don't know what that means but sounds like it's within the next month or so so is it yet to be determined is it your understanding though that we're at least through sr2 that we'll have those funds in in the end by june 30th yes because that covers off a lot of our our covent outlay which is yes yep exactly fantastic all right mr cher uh sean i didn't uh i i get a little confused in this
083conversation and the reason i get confused in this conversation is it's like we talk about the board of ed like it's an isolated entity with its own budgets and so i get confused by this because you didn't talk about um the town of greenwich the town of greenwich has given us effectively a blank check for covid related expenses so i know you keep talking about covid related expenses like the only money we have is money coming from the federal government um so i get a little confused in this conversation and peter may bernstein's comment about cash management i don't understand that one either because i think i think the comment about the blank check peter quite honestly i mean you are absolutely right that that was committed um but that was before we found out
084about all these different grants so yeah well they would obviously use the grants to offset but if we run beyond the grants in any particular time they've committed to fill in all those gaps right and the last grant of roughly 11 million dollars 10 million um that may be restricted but the other three aren't particularly restricted yeah yes sir two has some restrictions yeah but they're de minimis right so if they're really it's very broad in what can be a covet expense generally yeah so that's why i get a little confused in this conversation because we never talk about the amount that we're expecting the bet to infill and cover all these it makes it sound like we may or may not have enough money so i don't understand that part my other one is
085really a question um we haven't i think it was revealed in i know it was revealed in prior discussions of this we have numerous expenses the one i'm particularly focused on is special education expenses that we have higher expenditures we have to make because of covid right that's right okay so have you identified all those expenses and send that transfer that out of the special education general operating budget into the covet expense budget so that it would be covered by the town of greenwich well i mean i've looked into that and my opinion for what it's worth is that i i would rather not use covid grants to cover that because those expenses will be because they're related to special ed will already will already be getting 70 cents on the dollar back or the
086the taxpayers of greenwich will getting be getting 70 cents on the dollar back through the excess cost grant so i understand that part my point is is that the narrative over and over and over again has been we're short on special education we don't have enough money that's been what's been communicated endlessly it's what the public understands what i don't know and i get the whole point of you want to leave it over here procedurally so maybe we have some recovery from the state and and i get that part but it the narrative out there is the narrative in amongst special education parents is the town of greenwich is underfunding um um special education which i i don't i don't understand that because in a lot of cases our increased expenses are the result of
087covid and if i'm not wrong the town of greenwich is fully committed to funding that in addition to our regular general uh a regular allocation for special education i i just i and i'm trying to find out is have you moved have you in the discussion with the town of greenwich have you said to him oh of this out of district placements and so on and so forth x dollars of that is marked as covid and if we don't get money back from the state let's say we get 70 cents i'm expecting the town of greenwich to cough up uh the remaining 30 cents of those dollars because it's in the covid budget it shouldn't be funded out of our general operating budget where we have to transfer dollars from some other general operating account
088into special education to cover that and that's what i keep hearing and and i i just that doesn't sound right to me if it's a covet expense it's a covet expense but that should not be co-mingled with our general operating budget and we have to eat into our general operating budget someplace else to cover that that's specifically what the town of greenwich said that they would cover and i want to be sure we're holding it to them and we're getting every dollar uh from them that we should well i'm gonna have conversations with obviously with the uh the town as it relates to the out-of-district tuition we've been reporting that on a monthly basis and that's essentially what we've been requested to to track it to report it monthly and that's what we're doing um
089and i think at the end of the year you know the intent would be to you know state our position as to where we are on that out of district tuition which was committed to us uh back uh about a year ago and as far as the as far as the the coveted related related uh it's really not a material amount i think it's about twenty thousand dollars so if you factor in the seventy percent seventy cents on the dollar i mean we're talking we're talking about six thousand dollars okay okay fair enough and i'll say this and this is my great frustration with what the administrators tell us we were in a meeting and they told us we had substantially increased special education expenses because of covet i'm sorry i don't when someone says
090that to me on a 160 million dollar budget i wouldn't think 20 000 is a substantial increase to covet i'm shocked to hear that that's the number so i don't know which administrator in the meeting with us told us they had dramatically increased um was that name peter was it me was it me was it me that said that i i don't recall i know it was i don't think i don't think i said that no i i i wouldn't expect it was you that said okay all right but you know so what you're telling me is we heard that in a meeting um i brought this up a couple times and nobody's disputed it and i appreciate you now sizing that at twenty thousand dollars i don't even know why an administrator even brought
091it up okay it's hersh um i had a quick well a quick question or two um i know that esther one and sure two funds came to us with very specific details as to how to use them i know you mentioned with the arp that we know thus far that 20 percent of that needs to address learning loss for the arp yes but we don't really know we don't know the other specific areas for the other 80 percent we do we do there's a there's a long list that we just received on friday so we've got to digest that okay um yeah i'll go i'll go hunting for that um because i was gonna say i know you know we certainly have increased uh and learning loss in areas that need to be focused on
092for all of our students and especially for special education students who um many of them have had in-person services that that they weren't able to get whatever but um for added with this cover out of district i don't think it does because that's not neces that's not covered related that's separate yeah that's that's uh not covert related um i mean all i will tell you is that as i said on the outset you know we're our our uh expense is growing year to year by 0.4 percent uh and and that's be you know some of the drivers are our overall salary increase but we do have a significant amount of savings so um we do have savings you know especially in esy summer school that's already known it's already booked and uh and then transportation
093continued we continue to save money there and i just don't want to accidentally use something to cover an expense that we know is going to be continuing for years you know for instance for out of district uh you know tuition um and then have it come back to us by a surprise but um you know and this is something i again i you know are there things or requirements to cover for social emotional support for our students i know we keep hearing about that is that is part of it yes absolutely that's a legitimate expense once we have the opportunity to see exactly how that can be used to support social emotional learning the anxiety that our students are feeling i really would like to to hear or have a more deep discussion on that
094so i know we've been asking and i know budget meetings we were asking about more support in those areas if we're going to get funds that can help cover that um i'd like to see how we can use them yeah the only thing we need to be careful of is you know if we do staff up in certain areas we got to be careful that money runs out you know in 23 and 24. so if we're going to keep that staff on that new staff we're gonna have to offset it somewhere else yeah well uh anyway i look forward to getting more information and have a having a discussion on that thanks yeah mr try to take us home um just like one final question on these these are the expense numbers you have listed
095in your first column sean those are to date or they're projected for the full year uh for the non-staffing so non-staffing for the non-staffing it's to date uh for the um certified that 1.860 million that's a full year estimate so it's kind of a mixed bed okay because do you think it'd be possible then if because if we're going to start having discussions about the excess you know these grants we probably should project out with the rest of the year on the non-staffing i'm sure you have it somewhere but to incorporate that into the analysis yeah the the the non-staffing piece you know kind of has slowed down as you can imagine we did a lot of purchasing in the in uh right first part of the year um and i mentioned the certified staffing
096that 1.8 million that's a full year estimate um and we are continuing to get some like the non-certified that's police and custodial um and the uh certified employees you know due to delayed bp ppts um yeah i mean that's a lot of that happened in the summer so uh okay so maybe for our budget maybe for our budget meeting next week because if we're going to start brainstorming about usage of the rescue plan funds maybe we might want to just pull those up and then we at least don't don't want to spend it twice yes yes thank you all right thank you all right with that i'm going to go ahead and call the question so it's to approve the monthly financial and staffing report for example yes downey christine intermediate yes thank you yes
097kelly yes kowalski yes olsen yes share yes and stow yes all right one last action item uh is to approve budget transfers i'll go ahead and move to approve the budget transfers as presented is there a second for that motion thank you mr kelly sean okay the first one is a transfer from uh multiple accounts totaling 12 500 to these are multiple accounts in central middle school to av equipment so purchases of av equipment at central middle school and using uh multiple other accounts and uh so that's the first one and the second one is a transfer of several maintenance accounts totaling 16 130 to cover the cost of boots which are required from a bargaining unit standpoint agreement and other non-coveted protective equipment and then the third one is a transfer of fifty thousand
098dollars within maintenance accounts uh from maintenance of building to building and construction materials those are the three thank you any questions i don't see any hands up for discussion so i'm going to just go ahead and move right to a vote uh bernstein is a yes downey yes bush yes kelly yes kowalski yes yes share yes and stow yes thank you shauna i presume we're going to see more transfers as we get closer to the end of the years at the well you know we have the uh the mass massive transfers occurs in the uh july time frame but yes we will have more transfers right and and we're going to start to slow things down in terms of uh you know purchase orders you know we've already put out word to everybody that uh
099if you had a purchase order that was initiated back in uh you know the summer or september and uh you know most of it's been used and now you just have a balance in there we need to shut those down we need to close them off to get a jump on you know where we're gonna land at the end of the year all right thank you we'll keep an eye for that all right um we're at agenda planning anybody have anything yeah we'll uh mr sharon strategic plan i take it when you're ready get something else uh yeah what i i guess i i probably should have asked this question back when tony was commenting but i need to figure out if i would like to have an item on the agenda um tony is
100it gotten calls from parents indicating that we're training our staff um in i guess bias and racism training and we've asked them to we've asked the staff to read white fragility the book white fragility is that correct that's an administrative leadership team that has been reading this school year the staff know is the staff gonna is that going to be extended to the staff in the future no we haven't discussed that at all okay because what um peter would i um our board hasn't taken up this question at all um this year which i think is a little bit problematic um but i think we need to before any of this goes forward i think the board needs to provide some direction uh to the administration um on this subject and i'd like to schedule
101a session where the superintendent comes in and explains what she's proposing to what she has done and what she's proposing to do on um to improve anti-bias training in our employees i think we actually talked about possibly doing that in april so we can we can revisit that and we have our chairman because i'll tell you i think we were actually already looking to do that peter so thank you for calling that out when is it scheduled i think we were looking to do it at our april business meeting yes they're already preparing for the presentation yep so already got it thank you all right uh miss kowalski um thanks so i think along those lines um so i i've actually in the last week gotten quite a bit of reach out from parents in
102our middle schools particularly in one of the english classes that are being taught critical race theory as a require and as part of their required assignment were asked to complete a checklist written by peggy mcintosh to address their white privilege and i understand that this was presented to 11 and 12 year olds not 11th and 12th grade 11 and 12 year olds and i just i wanted to understand how this curriculum is being introduced and why in the english class and furthermore that it would need board review and approval so i guess the question is to the extent that this is being taught where and how and then i think we need to have that curriculum brought in front of the board to have review questioned and get it approved yeah i might just address
103that it was one classroom um and there were some there were well i want to say one or two parents that had reached out to the principal this is not something that was across our district at all um and it was addressed with that parent uh one-on-one and it was not teaching critical theory it actually was bias which is in the curriculum um and the survey was modeled after a survey that would often be used with older students but it was modified down for to be more appropriate for middle school and our teachers do improvise and create teaching materials but it it's been portrayed differently i think than um what the teacher has been able to share with us that actually occurred okay yeah well i just thought of curiosity could i get the can
104this copy of the survey be circulated to the board that was used sure i mean i think i may have it i think that she actually sent it to us yesterday great all right mr kelly peter i i think at one point uh we had uh talked about a building committee for phase two of uh cardinal stadium project uh whether we could have it or not i'd certainly like to have that discussion because i am uh meeting with uh uh with the rtm or district nine about structuring uh their new wording on how they wanna implement their plan on building committees so i think we certainly as a board should have that discussion and uh and as i'm dealing with the rtm with it as well i i'd certainly like to be in line or
105in sync with that okay um we'll see if we can fit that into april or may and obviously uh there's some time there all right miss olson yeah i'll be really quick i can't believe making a comment at 12 18 at night but um just tony you go back to what was being said about you know um uh the social emotional learning piece um i think it is really important that we starting as young as possible i know in a lot of schools in the school where i work in a lot of other schools so we do we do teach anti-racism at a young age so i'd be interested in that information as well i think it's um it's uh it's important and it it like like you said they do teach things that are
106age-appropriate all the way down to the younger ages so i'm interested in following up in that conversation as well okay mr cher right you're muted peter sorry i just got confused by what mr kelly just said um as an item on building committees that makes sense to me the part that didn't make sense to me was um we're working with district nine on building committees on behalf of the board i don't i don't understand that well this is uh agenda planning but i think district 9 has reached out to to try to understand where the board would be interested in doing that and as joe rightfully noted we should discuss that as a board as opposed to an individual member so he's looking for uh yeah i would i would think that's why we need
107to discuss it as a board anyway this is still agenda planning so i don't think we're gonna get deep into that right now well when when is this going to be on the agenda because i think we need to cease and desist with any conversations with outside bodies until such time as we have discussed it as a board and can provide guidance that's what i'm trying to understand i understand it they're not bringing it to the rtm until june so we will try to get it in in april if we can and if not we'll do it in may but we will we will definitely find time for that all right uh and then miss hirsch you're muted this is what happens after midnight i'm tired so i apologize um i just wanted to note
108that karen kowalski and i had mentioned in our last update on the steering committee that we were going to ask to bring uh our discussion forward to the next meeting uh but i think we were going to be moving that not in april it will be at some point in one of the dates in may i just wanted to so if you had it scheduled you don't need to for the next meeting okay obviously uh you guys should just let me know when you have a better sense so we can put them on there and just to remind the board uh april 8th had been styled as a retreat obviously as karen just said pgc is not ready uh we're likely converting that into an executive session i sent the board an email about that
109so please hold that date on your calendar uh with that mr kelly did you have emotion you wanted to make well sure first happy spring everybody and i'd like to make a motion to adjourn this meeting i'm going to happily second that motion and bernstein is a yes downey yes brush yes please kelly yes kowalski yes olsen yes sir peter's in it and stow yes all right thank you very much everybody especially the 29 attendees that stuck it out to the end have a good night night you