001now being recorded and now i will get the slideshow ready do you see that uh we're we're ready thank you doctor all right good evening ladies and gentlemen i'd like to call the regular meeting of the new england board of education for september 8 2021 to order it is 701 pm please stand as you are able for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay thank you dr brummett and uh miss craig if you would call the roll for us please michael brando here dr bruce fletcher here emily guyan here beth manky hutt wagner here steven sylvia robert telfelt i believe he's there correct bob is here yes yeah
002pavasala present jessica weaver here i have mr sylvia and mrs sam absent as of now thank you very much okay moving to our agenda to item b is presentations of awards and proclamations and i believe dr brummett you have some introductions for us tonight yes i do it gives me great pleasure to introduce the two newest members of our administrative team and they're both on the line tonight first i'd like to introduce mr jason plum he is our new supervisor of building maintenance and custodial services or as he sometimes referred to as the new dick vita but that will be a thing of the past because he's all he's his own personalities hitting the ground running and doing a fantastic job but let me tell you a little bit about jason he has about 25
003years of experience in facilities management facilities engineering and construction project management he's performed these duties for fortune 500 companies in energy production aircraft manufacturing and the insurance industry in past roles he's constructed facilities from the ground up and maintained nearly all types of buildings and facilities jason has in-depth experience in strategic planning cost budget analysis forecasting vendor relations construction management hvac electrical security contract negotiations workplace safety and risk management and mitigation jason has worked in a variety of proper property management roles giving him a well-rounded understanding of most types of building needs which aids in providing solutions to all facets of facility issues that may arise and given that he's only been on the job for a few weeks and we've already had a couple hurricanes power outages pandemic so he's all these skills are
004being put to the test and he's doing a very wonderful job so i present to you mr jason plum thank you and again i welcome you i had uh shared my welcome with him before everyone got on but um you're you're you're walking into big boots uh jason and i i i don't mean that derogatorily towards anyone but mr vita has uh has really set the standard and i'm sure we're we're going to be looking forward to uh your service and what you're able to do for our uh our town and our kids so i thank you very much for coming on board awesome any other board members wish to uh say hello or make a comment seeing on mr uh plum would you like to have a few words to the uh to the
005board miss guyon does have a hand uh emily i'll let you go first and then i'll turn it over to jason i just wanted to say jason welcome we're thrilled to have you this is a great district and um it looks like you're doing a great job already and i i i hope that you find a very happy home here with us in newington thank you and mr tuchel i'd like to welcome jason also uh good luck with your new job and i'm sure you'll be performing it well thank you again welcome board thank you okay any other board members all right mr plum if you do you wish to share a few words oh sure only a few you know thank you first of all for having me right um and uh as i've
006told maureen and others i i'm impressed by going around to these facilities you know the facilities they sparkle that was the uh i think dick's military wet look you know we hope to continue that tradition um you know i was impressed when i first walked in the buildings and i i want to carry that forward um so now thank you for having me and um thank you for the introduction maureen absolutely i forgot to mention i've already been bugging mr plummet probably five o'clock in the morning when there was some questions about the hurricane impact on school operations luckily we didn't have to cancel school at this early date but anyway welcome again jason um and i realized they went out of order but nevertheless our next uh introduction is for dr gerald harrison he's
007the equity and inclusion specialist he's here on the line as well this is a new role that we have brought to the district with use of our esscr monies and of course it's aligned with our strategic plan to increase our equitable educational practices across the board and much like mr plum gerald has hit the ground running and then some let me tell you a little bit about him he was with crack the capital region education council resource group prior to his hire with newington schools he was involved in a diverse portfolio of work on anti-racism social justice and education and culturally responsive pedagogy gerald pursues individual collective and institutional transformation through his work his methodology combines analytics storytelling and community building this work functions to highlight the relationship between culture and identity and the policy
008systems and philosophies with the aim of maximizing the staff students and families experiences within schools and the school in the district gerald has worked to support racial equity and social justice in education for nearly 15 years his experiences include his time at the state education resource center better known as circ where he worked across diverse stakeholder groups racial cultural groups and communities to align change within these groups needs his professional arc included time at ccsu amistad academy in new haven and what was formerly the children's home of cromwell he has amassed experience working with young people across a range of contexts addressing systemic inequalities and adult actions having become knowledgeable about the capacity to address various forms of identity culture and education gerald has developed specific expertise in understanding the role of race racism and
009shaping identity society and institutions dr harriston holds a doctoral degree in educational leadership from ccsu we are very excited to have dr hilston on our team he has worked with new england public schools previously on issues such as srbi and equity and i have to say gerald is actually a graduate of plainville high school and while there while i was superintendent there he did help support our equity efforts as well so i'm so thrilled that he has joined us here in newington and as i mentioned he's hit the ground running he's meeting with all of our stakeholders he's even anytime we have a meeting he keeps us on track with an equity lens most recently when we had our parent forum he asked how we were going to make it accessible to non-english speaking families
010so we are getting our equity lens pushed to the fullest which is what we want and i will now turn it back over to chairman vasela welcome gerald thank you dr brummett and welcome dr harrison um those of you that were at our convocation heard uh heard your uh introduction at that that that convocation and and i enjoyed it very much and i do welcome you aboard i think uh looking at the board we've our equity has been a concern that we've had going on so i'm i'm pleased to have you on board and uh thank for your support and where the board's direction needs to go so um let me give it back to the board and then we'll let you get to take up once board members have a chance i'm miss guyon
011thank you uh gerald welcome i was not able to go to convocation this year but when i was reading through the notes and i saw your name and your title i was like what did we get this this is amazing i was so happy um and excited it just really we've done so much work in the past year especially but it's been something that we have as a board i've talked about for a long time that i am um beyond thrilled that you are here and look forward to hearing about your work so welcome thank you thank you mr brandon thanks paul um dr harrison so first of all my wife is a plainville uh high grad so clearly you're good people that's not that alone um but in all seriousness i'm just really happy
012uh to see you here just you know what ms skyon said just um really excited to see the results from your important work both short term and long term here in newington because i think as i hope everybody agrees this work is a very high priority for this board and hopefully future boards so i'm just really happy to meet you and hope to hear more from you in the future about all the work you're doing thanks so much thank you so much miss weaver yeah i will just echo the circle of love of sentiments here uh as we do in the beginning of our meetings we haven't done in a while so it's nice to have a little love fest um i just want to say a collective welcome both to jason and dr harrison
013i am so excited to see these new additions uh you know these are really crucial roles both in very different ways but i think one of our our themes has always been talking about our everyday heroes um and we've found new everyday heroes nearly every meeting of things that the public doesn't necessarily see things that we don't necessarily see on a day-to-day basis but we see the results of and i'm so excited to see the results of both your respective works and really grateful for your time effort and the things you'll be doing for us we really appreciate your your energy and um dr harrison i really appreciated your comments at convocation um it's just some really exciting stuff and i think you know we're passionate about it and we've been talking about it a
014lot but i think this will really take a step forward of being about it actually walking the walk so i'm really just excited for for both these editions and welcome to newington thank you so much dr harrison i know if you'd like to say a few words sure i just um so thank you for having me um my wife who's much smarter than me and most anyone i've ever met she doesn't know this so i'm going to tell you something that she doesn't even know when i was getting my doctorate and i when i met her someone asked me why i was smiling all the time and i was really shy about sharing the fact that i'd better and the fact that i think i fell in love when i first saw her and i
015think not to compare my wife who's amazing in every single way to work but i guess i'm comparing the reaction that i can't stop smiling newington has been a place that i can say i fell in love at first sight i mean i lived in new britain for a long time so i've always kind of watched newington's expanse but to kind of but to be here is different it's a wonderful place to be and i just can't stop smiling so thank you all for having me and giving me that in my life i appreciate it thank you very much and we look forward to uh to to working with you in in our what you can do for our town and our kids so i appreciate it oh thank you again very very much um
016any other comments before we move to the next area okay seeing uh none uh dr brummett do you want to do a little intro on this or you want i will just say that i'm thrilled that we are going to honor our instructional technology team tonight our instructional and our educational technology team of which we have several in attendance tonight uh and then i'll do my vienna white where i hold up the resolution and that mr vasella gets to say those wonderful words so i'm gonna kick it right over to you chairman vasela thank you very much uh to to jay and craig um and and all the others involved in our technology um we've come a long way and i speak i speak from the first computer that went into the school system to
017where we are with our technology and our learning so it is my honor to present the resolution honoring the new england information technology staff and educational technology staff september 21st whereas tuesday september 21st 2021 has been proclaimed as informational and educational technology appreciation day and whereas the newington public school system is committed to honoring its information and tech educational technology professionals and recognizing their contributions to the educational system and whereas the information and tech educational technology professionals are well qualified and dedicated to their craft by refreshing their skills to keep pace with the rapid evolution of technology and whereas the information and technology professionals help students to use technology safely prepare them for the demands of the changing global society and workplace and whereas the information and educational technology professionals commitment to providing excellence in
018the contemporary technology services and solutions that ensure and enhance the learning process is exemplary and whereas it is a desire of the board of education that the information and educational technologies professionals should be made aware of their appreciation we do hereby proclaim tuesday september 21st 2021 as newington information and educational technology appreciation day therefore be it resolved that we urge all the citizens of our community to join with us in actively expressing gratitude for our educational and information technology professionals who represent an investment in the excellence of our community be it further resolved that the secretary of the newington board of education is directed to spread this resolution upon the minutes of this meeting and to provide a suitable copy to the directors of information and educational technology signed paul vasella chairman newington board of
019education and all of the members of the newington board of education congratulations and well well appreciated and well deserved from everybody so i will um turn this over to board members first for their comments and then we can move to the educational and technology leaders all right let's see miss guy on your hands up first i mean really and uh i i think this is wonderful i'm so appreciative of our information technology and tech teams there in the let's say i don't know maybe in the past year if it wasn't obvious how important this was to our district i think that um everyone should be 100 on board now um i don't know what we would have done without you guys and so i just i from the bottom of my heart really thank you
020for for all that you've done for our district and i am thrilled to be honoring you on this day and i encourage the citizens of our great um district and community to also honor you so thank you for everything miss mickey tanger um just ditto to that and i'm also just remembering one of my my first meetings in 2000 i don't know 19 pre-coven um uh when students came in um when we were all still in person and they walked around and they were showing us i think i had a second grade student showing me how to code um i will never forget that and it just really um was such an amazing experience that just truly proved how ahead of the game um newington is that that was amazing um i would love to
021see things like that all the time um and so just thank you for all that you do to to push our kids forward and open these opportunities for them thank you beth miss weaver ugh my favorite part um i think we've gone through so many different essential cogs in the machine that every single staff and faculty has played during this time that is still continuing on but um it really has been the heavy lift for your team and you know this isn't something that has been an overnight thing this was something that has been built by you for so many years and it was because of your efforts that you were able to make sure that our students were able to do online schooling at a moment's notice um due to a global pandemic not
022exactly what you foresee all the time but the adaptability of this team is incredible and you know it's just so amazing to see as someone who went through the school system when we were starting computer labs to now having every student have a chromebook to see that evolution is just something that's really remarkable and something that's that makes me smile um it's one thing for students to be prepared for the technological advances of today and tomorrow but at the high school level right but it's another thing to be preparing them at such a young age and to have every single one of our students have technology at their fingertips because it's not going away and it's only getting more intricate and i'm so happy that our district has invested in this and that we have
023the team that we have so i thank you all for not only this past year super thanks for that um and the continued efforts that you were making but for all the years you put in before that because it's really shown the efforts you have made so thank you thank you jessica mr brandon thanks paul um you know i know that we talk a lot about the using of the chromebooks and obviously for the educational purposes and trust me i do not want to minimize that because it's so important but i think one thing that gets lost in the one-to-one program and that jay and craig and the entire itin edtech team does is you're helping these students have access to the necessary educational tools but you're you know you're also teaching them how to
024act responsibly with these devices not only physically in their hands while traveling but also just teaching the students how to properly use the devices whether that's in the classroom or at home and you know honestly as my oldest has has gotten into middle school i see that more than i did when when she was in elementary school so i see the respect of the device and the understanding of what it means to have that device and how you have to be careful with technology and you have to be smart about it and i think it the way that it's training their brains to be um you know like what jessica said they they're more they can adapt quicker to things um they're learning more quickly whenever a new technology item whether it's a phone or
025something that's actually more educational um bound comes into their life they're they're quicker to learn it and i think it's because of this program and the work that the entire team does so i think it's just a huge asset to the town i think you all are too so thank you thank you thank you mike thank you mr yes i'd like to thank john and his staff for the help they've given me because my son says when it comes to a computer i'm a bag of rocks so uh he gave me a lot of help when i cried along and along with craig so uh between the two departments thank you very much i appreciate it you supported all those board members unbelievable so thank you and you all have a good year thank you
026any other board member comments seeing none craig and john um if you'd like to share a word with us we'd oh you're pointing to jay you're pointing to jay huh okay thanks greg thanks again to be honest with you no i i i want to thank everyone about behalf of both departments march 12 2020 the world stood still but we are in a position since 2015 that we didn't miss a beat and you know and we're we're there and we're going to continue to be there and this whole pandemic just got us stronger and we want to thank the community thank the board thank our teachers thank our administrators thank everyone that's been involved through this whole way you know there's some been a lot of highs and lows and i and kim's here tonight
027and any of our other my other ed tech folks and you know we we've gotten through it and i think it's going to make us stronger in the end and i love going to work every single day and and trying to reinvent everything and trying to get these kids like um you know that that beth spoke about before i want those kids to be back there teaching here at a board meeting and coding um you know those are the the the great things that we got to bring over a few years and and i want to get back to those days where we're teaching you know the community the great things that now our preschoolers and our kindergartners can do it's not just our second and third graders so um thank you so much for
028every opportunity that you've given us we greatly appreciate it absolutely echo your your thanks jay it's it's been a true blessing for me my team the edtech team couldn't be better partners for us you know as a frontline backline group where we uh together put the put the rails together and make magic happen in the classroom the edtech team is the ones that really wave those wands and make that happen so without them what we're offering in the back sometimes feels a little bit underrated so uh without them admit they make it all worthwhile so thank you all for the recognition it truly uh truly uh gave me some tears tonight but uh it's it's a great great blessing to work in millington i'm blessed to jessica as well i'm a graduate of millington so
029it's a blessing to be here with you all tonight and to do what i do so so i know i think on behalf of myself and our team so thank you all very much thank you jay thank you john and kim thank you for all you've done um like i said we've got a great great great department here working for our kids and working for us so i appreciate it all dr brummett any comments from you absolutely when um you think of this team many of them were everyday heroes last year why because of of the incredible work they did and the three that are on the line tonight and their colleagues across the district have just kept everything rolling we were hitting the ground running we moved heaven and earth to get more chromebooks
030in for the younger kids got them in everybody put together the work that made this this pandemic the best it could be with our technology and i just have a big thank you and gratitude to the depart both departments for the kind of work that they've done both in the last year and a half and obviously before that when they were doing their inaugural work so many thanks and you're the hero to many thank you dr brevitt okay not seeing any other comments on that then we're going to move on to uh section c which is public participation on any matter relating to board responsibilities again i will um mention you are willing to able to speak to the board uh we'd like you to limit to three minutes for your comments and um [Music]
031uh we i do not see any hands um or calls in give that a second okay well seeing none i will uh move on to d which is standing committee information items uh we have a report from the policies committee i'm not sure if beth or jessica was at the meeting wants to just report out quick we spend a lot of time at our last meeting discussing the policies but beth and jessica who wants it i'm going to give it to jessica because this is her jam oh my god you're too funny um yeah not to to you know belabor the point just a recap of last meeting we kind of went through every single policy a lot of the policies again like mr farisi had said are um reflections of new state mandates so
032they are changing just slightly some wording or adding new language or verbiage to be able to reflect some of the newly passed state statutes that went into effect on july 1st and really that's just so that we have you know it really stated explicitly in our policies and making sure that our policies not only um were for us to interpret as a board but for our students and our staff and our teachers so there is a good amount of them to change but um they are mostly just tweaks in um something that i think we we've all discussed at length so looking forward to just getting through the 11 different policies tonight thank you jessica and we will try to expedite that and and get through that our next item is a report from our
033student representative vedicia and i am so happy to see you back again this year and um you i know you've had a busy summer and i'm not sure if you've had meetings if your student council has met yet or not but if you'd like to give us your report we'd love to hear it thank you i'm glad to be back um so just starting off with music and arts uh all music ensembles are rocking and rolling with all their normal fall events marching band season has gone off to a great start and the band would like to thank dr brummett and the board for their help allowing marching band to play in the stands at football games they're all very excited the chamber choir is also preparing for their upcoming dinner theater performance uh the
034marching band and color guard will have their first halftime performances on friday september 10th at the first football game this year their show includes any way you want it and don't stop believing both by journey in terms of academics students are currently enrolling in ap and ece courses they're registering for ap classroom and the exams class office elections are taking place so students are to fill out applications and record speeches which then will be played for during homeroom for students to vote on um for clubs at the high school deca has been working on rebranding the store and trying to find a new name there's also been a lot of orders as students and teachers should place orders for the new nor'easter's apparel there's also a new club at newington high um women in leadership
035the goal is for to raise awareness about issues affecting our community and the purpose is to educate and empower empower the members while advocating for women's rights um student council we have been meeting we're working to organize the bigger events in the fall like homecoming and spirit week while making sure that everything is important to colby guidelines sports um this is exciting now spectators are allowed at the games to support and cheer on players the first football game is um as i said friday sports games will now be broadcasted as part of the new club newington high school broadcasting which has been created for students who have an interest in video production and this gives parents and family friends who are unable to come attend to watch um the sport events over the summer the
036high school courts were repainted to match our school theme and both the girls and boys team are super excited to have the fresh courts to use and practice on just in terms of back to school students are super excited to be back and all at once because either they were hybrid or they were online for a long period of time covet protocols are definitely in place and it feels much safer um the biggest change that i think some students are having hard time adapting to is the new protocols in the lunchroom where students are required to sign up for tables that they're expected to sit at every day um upcoming events on friday we are having a red white and blue spirit day to honor the 25th anniversary of 9 11 students are to wear
037red white and blue during the school day and the first football game and then we're also having a wacky wednesday on september 15th where everyone will wear silly socks and then the last message is from mia she says she misses everyone and the opportunity to work with everyone on the board as she starts her college career today and that's all for me today thank you uh the one question i had uh vidisha was when you said they were going to be broadcast will they be broadcast on the youtube or how will they be um how would we be able to receive the broadcast of the games you know um i believe that they will be using the same youtube channel that they used to broadcast the morning announcements every friday but i can confirm that
038and get back to you i appreciate that i i think uh people might be interested with that um number one fedesha i'm thrilled to have you back this year it's great to see your face um will you be with us all year i believe so yeah yes okay i didn't know if if maybe the selection hadn't happened yet so great i'm happy that you're going to be with us um you can share with mia that her message made me cry a little bit so i hope that she's having a what i mean i just have a kid go to college also so i'm a little emotional um but i hope she's doing awesome um will they be broadcasting all games um as of now i know they're definitely doing soccer and football games but i'm
039not sure if they're doing all of them yet okay um the club is relatively new so i think it might take them a little time to get started and like figure out all the pieces i thought a very large undertaking i can actually jump in on that uh this is a byproduct of um the the making of jacob trowbridge full-time um but yes we've purchased some additional cameras and we are going to make every effort to broadcast all the games i will much like vidisha will check with um jacob as to how to access that as as a member of the public and also to see which games that are we did a little bit last year obviously with kova people couldn't come at all but we thought there's still a lot of folks that
040are traveling or have grandparents out of state so why not broadcast the sporting events so we will between vadisha and i get back to the board with some more details great i think that will be hugely appreciated i know that last year um for example volleyball did their games on facebook live and every once in a while i would get to be the person recording but if it's a very specific way you do it and every once in a while you do it wrong and then the pictures in the wrong direction and the person at home can't turn their vice device and see so it was amazing to be able to watch it if you weren't able to attend and i know that there's a lot of like games that happen earlier in the day
041and i know that families will really appreciate that as well as families that are further away so i think that's an amazing addition um that was my question and my response thank you uh miss weaver oh pretty sure it's so good to see you welcome back um i think as always we just want to highlight how important your your part of this is and we love hearing updates from you and about the students and especially this year going back i know it's again a different year but some of the same things have so i guess um one thank you for letting us know about all the happenings i still feel like your report is like the same length even with me again like you're still covering everything so thank you and kudos and i guess
042just kind of one question i want to tap into is kind of as always i want to ask kind of the temperature at the school in terms of we know we're going back still during a pandemic there's different things happening you know how you said everyone's excited to be back and stuff like that i just want to you know kind of get your thoughts on how it differs maybe from last year is there some things the same and what are you feeling as the student body feels um with still having mass still having everything kind of the same but different i mean i don't want to speak for everyone for me like and some of my close friends um for us it's just kind of it's easier to understand what the teacher is saying understand
043the material and like just have a connection with your teacher when you're in person and like when we're having class discussions it's so much easier to have everyone's opinion like be able to go back and forth especially like for english and social studies like most classes we've been discussing a lot and it feels nice to get everyone's opinions which was kind of hard to do when we were half online or all online awesome well thank you and welcome back thank you uh mr phil yes uh i was told that if uh the coaches want to send over a uh disc or cassette whatever they printed on to uh channel 14 they would have space to put some of the sports on full-time on tv on channel 14. i think mike dunna who's on the lion
044on a group here mike could make uh better reference to it than i can but that's what i heard from patty foley so great thank you bob all right [Music] no other comments there we're good very good thank you and um we will now move on to other business which uh dr brummett you've got the uh first two i'll let you uh jump in there if you want terrific uh well as you've already heard from vedica we are back in the swing of things i won't go item by item in that report but i know what i thought i might do is just bring up some of my the frequently asked questions that i get since school has reopened certainly we get questions from uh families about masks relative to when folks don't have to
045wear them and that comes up quite a bit when folks are outside and a couple parents reached out to me recently as to you know do teachers have to wear their masks outside and the answer to that is no unless they're around students within six feet of students i was at patterson today visiting a plc and as i walked out numerous classes were outside having mass breaks and everyone had their masks off which is the way it's supposed to be outside but when you go back in and you're closer together then the masks go back up teachers are also allowed to take them down briefly to to clarify directions as long as they're more than six feet away from the kids so those are things that come up a lot but we're definitely monitoring that
046and you know everyone is following the protocols and if not we remind them and overall we see a high level of compliance i get a couple calls from parents about hallways we're no longer making the students go one way in the hallway we found through our conversations with cdc and dph that it really isn't a long enough contact in the hallway to be considered a significant contact so we did disperse or dispense with doing the hallway trafficking going one way which makes hallway passing time a little faster and easier as already came up lunch is different now both in good and bad ways the good way is you get to sit and socialize with your friends the challenge is you have your mask off so if there is an exposure at lunch uh then the
047individuals may have to quarantine uh we've had a little of that happen already so we're monitoring that carefully obviously real exciting is sports coming back pretty normal uh with with uh spectators we're still gonna wait on spectators for indoor sports but while we're still in some outdoor sports seasons football and and soccer we're going to really uh enjoy the opportunity to have uh spectators there without any limits um and as we talked about the video taping is going to be a huge addition in fact we are in consultation with nctv about um sports so that is something we're definitely doing so those are the key elements and as we talked about the marching band that was a question mark we were kind of worried about how do you have your marching band stand six feet
048apart at outside and then we talked to our dph colleagues at the state and they said no when they're outdoors the rules are a little more relaxed so now the marching band can play at sporting events they can sit in the bleachers together and then they're going to participate in the yukon marching band tournament which they're so thrilled about so we are trying to make things as normal as possible even though there are still some challenges but uh certainly having all the kids back makes all of us feel uh like somewhat normal again so we're monitoring everything very carefully seeing how the rates are there has been some quarantining for sure but we hope that it stays at a minimum so that kids are with us as much as possible the rest of that school
049opening just gives you sort of a broad overview of how our first few days went they were very successful and smooth the students have been very cooperative with the protocols and and many came in so excited to be back i can't even tell you uh i joke that you can tell that they're smiling under their masks you really can they really were and still are um so that was my opening of school report and i'm happy to answer any questions about that and then we did talk about on the agenda here as gifts to schools that's again an informational item it's school by school and you can just a lot of the gifts are from pto or pax and it allows schools to have those special activities that the the budget the board budget itself
050wouldn't permit but the fundraising efforts of our families really helped to give those uh special events at each school and we had some last year in spite of some of the restrictions we had some nice outdoor activities especially as at the end of the year and that's where some of those donations allowed that to happen item 3 under future agenda items all that's contained in there are sort of those every things that happen every year um as the year rolls along and we get a sense of whether we're going to be online or or actually being able to meet in person i do plan to reinstitute our board presentations much like was referenced tonight the coding presentation from a few years ago um if we even if we can't do the hands-on presentations we will
051still do informational items in fact you'll see dr hairston come back again to give you a more detailed report as to what he's doing district wide for equity so you can kind of hear where he's really doing some of the heavy lifting with our staff to bring forward some of our initiatives so what you'll see throughout the year are reports that are real linked into our mission and vision so you will hear about what we're doing curriculum wise what we're doing any type of our some of our new courses so stay tuned for some of those updates but the rest what's on your calendar under item e3 is largely you know the typical monthly events that happen uh throughout the year with the board of education um and then there is the pto assignments uh
052dr promise i could just interrupt for a second absolutely i wanted to go back to the your opening first day i noticed that our projections um we wound up with you know 102 more kids in the elementary school and 14 more in middle school how did that affect class size um because that's almost a full class in some of those cases yes we do have some larger class sizes and i can actually ask mr faresi to chime in because he's more intimately involved in that certainly some of our kindergarten class sizes are a bit larger steve do you want to add to any of that certainly thank you so much i would say that you know those numbers are kind of large and what you see though when you look at it is it spread
053out throughout the you know elementary level so it did there wasn't like one conglomerate group you know at one grade level that really justified a need for a whole new teacher we watched it very closely at ruth chafee elementary school in kindergarten that was where we kind of saw the possibility of a threshold where we might have to add a long-term substitute to be able to split classes up at the end we did determine that it would be in the best interest for all the students um to keep the classes the way they are um they are still manageable they're at like 21s 20s and 21s but to provide some extra support to that kindergarten uh group so that is something that we are working on uh to try to get some more support over
054there in the form of a learning tutor uh to be able to support the class size at rootschaffee great thank you i just saw those numbers kind of jumped out at me as being uh kind of big there did any other board members have comments on anything to this point okay i interrupt you dr brummett you were talking about pto pta impact meeting assignments oh microphone we lost you sorry about that no problem as you'll know we did uh put folks into meetings throughout the year but after the election that'll have to be shuffled a bit so there's a notation in that memo that this is subject to change and obviously it will change uh after the november elections and then budget guidelines this is just a initial foray into the guidelines for our upcoming
055budget season it's already coming upon us quickly but obviously anything that we propose into the budget needs to be aligned with our mission and visions especially the revisions made to the mission envision in a recent strategic planning i don't think any of those goals will surprise the board we'll certainly talk more about goals um at a retreat that we're going to hold after the election and uh but again the the budget guidelines are meant to keep things as seamless as possible as fluid as possible and in alignment with our district mission and vision so you will hear more about the exact dates and processes as we get closer to rolling out our budget but we'll begin meeting with administrators with their uh prospective uh proposals within the next month and we will be also sweet
056i believe a memo went out today relative to the plans proposals requests so we are full steam ahead on the budget any questions on budget procedures okay seeing none our next item is one which uh i'm very anxious to hold our discussion about dr brummett absolutely it is my pleasure to introduce tonight mr amin habib he is on the call this evening with his along with his dad habib vermont and just as a little back story and then i'm going to turn it over to amin amin approached me last year while he was still a student at anna reynolds we ran into each other at an awards ceremony and he handed me this very well written letter requesting that the board consider putting the holiday in called i'd alpha tear and i mean i'm going
057to let you pronounce that better than i but he just discussed with me his worries that he took took that holiday because it was part of his religious beliefs and it was a very important holiday to him and even though he didn't get penalized for work that he missed he still felt that many of his uh colleagues or students throughout the district were missing that day and missing instruction and he takes his schoolwork very seriously so i promised him that it wasn't my decision to make but that i would bring it to the board for at least for them to hear what amin has to say so i mean i know that you can do a much better job than i can explaining your position on this holiday and your dad's here as well that
058he can provide any other background so i mean can i ask you to say what you'd like to comment about the holiday so um first of all i would like to thank um dr brummett for at the first considering my request so um so yeah so eid of fitter is um our is my religious holiday and so in idol what happened is that we celebrate this festival after the islamic month ramadan so the islamic month ramadan why it's so special is because in that month we fi we so we wake up before sunrise we eat some food and then after that we fast from sunrise to sunset and so after that to end it all we have a celebration and that celebration is called eid al fitter and in either fitter we um we have
059so we're supposed to spend time with friends and family and have fun and then on that day there is one prayer it's not compulsory but it's highly recommended and so my family usually goes there and and then so why why this came to my notice was that um last year on the 13th of may i had to take an off and the reason was because of this holiday either fitter and since i took an off i missed out on learning and i but if i didn't take it off i would miss out on the time with my friends and family and and uh thankfully for me there was no test on that day but for my sister or she had a test and she had to she had to go not do the not she
060wasn't able to enjoy the festival and she had to do the um she had to do the test and so she wasn't able to enjoy the festival she wasn't able to go to the prayer and meet her friends and so um i also found out that in last year and anna anna reynolds they were 19 kids absent from school and three three staff um people absent and that was and so yeah and so that was like a big thing for me especially so yeah that is why it came to my notice thank you so much for that explanation um does your father wish to add anything is he he certainly is able to speak to the board yeah thank you so much for the board of education for considering uh amin's request yeah it is
061very important islamic holiday we spend with the family and friends as a community and community enriches the the kids development so i request a boat to i mean to her to to consider on a holiday for the whole town so that everyone could enjoy thank you very much um miss guyan uh before i before i turn over to msg um what i think we'd like to do with the board is we'll have a little discussion tonight about this we'll share our ideas um ask questions where we may find them and i think this would be something which i would recommend that the board at a meeting probably right after the the switchover of the board um that it when that happens that the board can re-look at the calendar and decide what they want to
062do with it but i think tonight would be a good time for us to express some ideas ask some questions and understand the purpose and and why why this becomes important for you in your community and um miss gaian you are the first one up yay i mean first of all cly5 you have impressed me like hugely um you did a great job your letter was really well written and and um what you have just the way you have presented this evening is remarkable so i'm very impressed that is it is tough to get up here and speak something from your heart that means a lot to you um i have always felt like if something is important with your family take the day off it's not you know it's okay so that's always where
063i what i think in the back of my mind but i think that you've brought up an excellent excellent point it's easy for me to say take the day off because i'm not missing any school um but for kids missing even a day is a big deal especially if if you're a really dedicated student and that's really important to you so i really really appreciate um how much how passionate you are about your learning and your dedication to it but i think that you've really opened my mind up a little bit to think more about well what are kids missing when they're not there and whether even if you're missing a little you don't know how much you miss when you're not there right it feels like even if you just miss one little thing
064it might grow into something bigger because you don't know what you don't know or you don't know what you missed um so i think this is something that we should we should really think deeply about i know that i am grateful that you presented us with some numbers i would be interested to learn more district-wide where we are how we decide which holidays we do take off um i don't know how we got to the ones that we currently have but i i am grateful that you brought this to our attention so we can start this um conversation and just piggybacking off of our equity person that we had on earlier i think it's the timing is perfect so thank you so much for being here dad thank you for for guiding your young man
065here to just show us where what you guys are thinking and this is exactly uh what the board is here for so kudos to you and i can't wait to discuss this further yeah thank you thank you again mr brandon so i'm not kidding you i mean just a few days ago my wife asked me hey how come you guys don't add any of the muslim holidays to our school calendar and then i saw the board of ed agenda and i was blown away like what are the odds of that right um but now i'm just blown away by your presentation i mean and what's interesting too is you know we just honored our edtech team and here you are i can tell using your technology as well and you presented you wrote a nice
066letter and here you are at a meeting presenting to us um it just goes to speak to everything going on in our district but um to what emily mentioned i would be curious to hear the percentage of students and families that have a similar experience uh to the one that you described to mean because i i think that that's important for us to get a understanding on um and i know you mentioned the anna reynolds stuff but i would just like to hear overall in the district um but i also just think with our ever-changing demographics um in this town that this presents an opportunity to add a holiday to our calendar that not only promotes more equity here as emily just said and we talked about today already but it helps people like ourselves
067to learn about other cultures and newington slogan is actually growth in progress and i think this idea that you've presented to us would help this town grow and see progress so um thank you for your presentation on both of you and i really look forward to the bigger discussion later that um the chairman visella mentioned will have so thank you very much thank you mr brandon mr tucson anytime you oh i think you're unmuted now bob try and you try to unmute i'll come back to you bob i'll go to uh with mickey hoodfinger my name is hi um don't want to be don't want to be super repetitive um but i just want to say how proud i am um of you and you have learned how to advocate for yourself and that is
068a skill that some adults are still learning um and i i teach sixth graders and that's something we we try really hard to teach students so the fact that at your age you know how to advocate for yourself and for others is absolutely remarkable i am so proud of you daddy you should be so very proud um you've done a really wonderful job um and continue um continue to do what you're doing and we will continue to support you thank you thank you beth bob you up you you got voice nope we bob we still don't have yet yeah okay uh miss weaver i think he's he's unmuted ironically he's got the unmute but i don't think it's yeah um i mean i just wanted to say thank you so much not only for taking
069the time to write the letter but then also come and speak to us tonight um we really appreciate you coming and taking the time and effort to do that particularly when it's something that's not only important to you but to your peers and your friends and your teachers um so thank you for at first for doing that it's one of the great things i think um one of the one of the things i love to talk to my mom about was all the holidays they would learn about um when they were going to school and they'd learn about every single holiday and um you know which religions celebrated which holidays and i think it's really important to bring it up on the day of while we're ending rosh hashanah right a prominent jewish holiday that
070students did have off and i've always kind of wondered how that was determined because throughout my time as a student at newington when i was in a green we had it off and then when i went to martin kellogg we had sometimes off and then when i was in high school we didn't have it off and i always thought it was very interesting because i did have some several jewish friends and then some of them moved away and then some of them came back and i never knew why that was and i always noticed that christian holidays were always observed um but that's likely you know been the case for a lot of schools and i think it's something that's really important you bring up a really great point that we can talk about a
071lot of the different religious holidays that we either have off or don't have off and why that's the case so i'm really happy you brought that up and you know as i i went to college we didn't get anything off but um many of my friends you know we wish them eat mubarak and it's something i think that's really wonderful to be able to not only learn about it's a great teaching opportunity but something that i think will be um something we can really talk about as not only a wonderful tradition but as something that we could you know have treated like the other holidays we do take off or do have on the calendar so i wanted to thank you and dad for coming and for for not only giving education to everybody else
072who may not have known about educared but i really appreciate it and um really representing and reynolds very well tonight so um good job and keep doing what you're doing we'd love to have you back too i'm sure to talk about it and um thank you dad as well so looking forward to the next conversation we have about this paul thank you mr felt did you get i don't know am i online now i just want to say congratulations and uh congratulations to your sister who gave up the holiday to take a test i mean uh that's a lot of dedication so uh dad congratulations to you and the kids and uh the board will decide something good have a good evening thank you mr twofelt dr fletcher thank you mr chairman i mean i
073am impressed with your presentation and your request you actually brought it out in a very positive light so i i really believe that this is going to move forward positively for you so thank you again and congratulations thank you dr fletcher uh miss diane i apologize for my double dip but i just wanted to point out one thing to a mean is that as a student sometimes you think you're a student of 4 000 students how do you make a change you know you're one person um and you have taken some great steps you wrote a letter and and dr brummett read it and said wow you know what he's making some great points here um she brought it to the board and then you took a huge step and showed up here to explain
074your your point your point of view and your idea here and that's how you create change so you made an impact both steps i think were really important and um both very impactful i mean i was impressed by your letter but now that you've been to the meeting and we've seen you and heard you it's an even bigger impact so i just really wanted to emphasize that and make sure that you recognize that those are two big steps and that's how you go from wanting something to creating that change and and bringing other people along with you so i really uh i'm i'm applaud you and i i hope that you feel very proud at this moment and you can see how you've impacted the world around you in a positive way so i i
075feel yeah i have you in my heart right now thank you ms diane uh dr rubin i guess i would recommend that we we do the get the information um district-wide that some of the board members had requested and um we looked to add this to an agenda item um in the near future and uh you and i can talk about that at another time but i i think i mean i thank you so much for your information tonight and your dad's uh support and um like i said i think comments being made that this is the way change is made there's a process there's a routine to be done and think good things happen when we do things the right way so i'm i'm very proud of of you and your family and everything
076that's happened tonight so thank you again very much dr bruman any closing comment from you no i i will say if one of the pieces of information board members wanted is absentee rates that day we don't disaggregate by obviously religion but i do i can tell you that the average number of students absent during the month of um may district wide was in may 176 kids per day that's district wide but on the day of the holiday this past year there were 235 students absent so one can ascertain that that was kind of a high day of absenteeism in the district how we find out why those folks were absent that's a little bit of a tricky thing to do but again something that we can talk about at a future board meeting and i
077just want to say that i mean embodies why student voice is so important to the work that we do and that's a big part of our mission and vision for the district i mean and now you are showing everyone why that is so important so thank you very much and i will turn it over to chairman vasela thank you so much dr brummett and again i thank you folks for your participation tonight the next section of our agenda tonight is to review the policy changes that uh we reviewed at our last meeting um i think what i would like to do on this would be i'll i'll turn this to um i'm not sure if dr if dr barber or mr farisi is going to handle this but basically if mr fricci when you get
078to the um to the um i'm sorry to the policy if you could highlight any specific changes that we made from the last meeting i know there were recommendations and once you've done that we'll make a motion we'll hold any other discussion that we need to do and then vote on it i think that way we can expedite getting through all of the policy without having to rehash and rehab and go through lengthy discussion on it because we did have quite a lengthy discussion at our last meeting um is that okay with uh you mr freesie and dr bruhn it's excellent thank you mr vasalo okay so um here we go um policy zero two zero zero excellent if um if you turn to the policy the one recommendation was to add the term vaping
079uh in the highlighted area which included marijuana slash cannabis and we added vaping otherwise everything else about the policy remains the same as discussed last meeting thank you if i could have a board member please uh make move make a motion to move this policy i'd be happy to thank you move the board of education approve the revisions to policy zero two zero zero school district goals and objectives as recommended and a second second second mr twofeld and any discussion seeing no discussion on that miss craig if you would call the vote please michael branda yes dr bruce fletcher yes emily guyan yes beth manky hutt wagner yes robert telfelt yes pavasala yes jessica weaver yes the motion passes 7-0 or unanimously thank you very much okay we're moving on to policy number zero five
080two one uh mr freezy excellent um in the second um sentence um we had race and we decided last meeting to also add protective hairstyles in that same sentence so i have added that it was also recommended a little bit lower about midway down through the page to bring protective hairstyles up to make it race and protective hairstyles all in one paragraph and i did make that adjustment also otherwise nothing about the content has changed thank you can i have someone read the motion please sure paul hold on okay move the board of education approve the revisions to policy zero five two one equal opportunity as recommended second fletcher dr fletcher um it's hard on the screen to see who's doing it it doesn't matter all right so i have miss weaver as the maker
081and dr fletcher as the second any discussion seeing no discussion if we could have the vote miss craig michael branda yes dr bruce fletcher yes emily guyan yes jessica weaver yes the motion passed unanimously seven to zero thank you very much uh policy number 3230.1 mr frazee um this policy remains the same as it was presented last meeting without any changes okay may i have the motion read please this one thank you move the board of education approve the revisions to policy three two three zero point one a through e federal funds as recommended and a second second five thank you any discussion seeing none miss craig michael branda yes dr bruce fletcher yes emily guyan yes beth manky hutt wagner yes robert telfelt yes papasella yes jessica weaver yes the motion passed unanimously 7-0
082thank you and the next policy is 3542.22 this policy is also being presented uh as it was last board meeting without any changes okay and a motion please this guy on move the board of education approve the revisions to board policy 3542.22 food service personnel code of conduct as recommended and a second i'll second it mr twofeld and miss craig discussion oh discussion i'm sorry [Laughter] we've been doing them without discussions okay miss craig thank you michael miranda yes dr bruce fletcher yes emily guyan yes beth manky hud wagner yes robert telfelt yes pavasala yes jessica weaver yes the motion passed unanimously 7-0 thank you and we're moving to policy number 4118.112 mr freezy this policy is also being presented to you um as it was last meeting without any changes hey motion miss weaver
083all right move the board of education approve the revisions to policy 4118.112 harassment prevention as recommended second second mr branda and discussion cena miss craig michael branda yes dr bruce fletcher yes emily guyan yes beth menke wagner yes robert taufelt yes have a salad yes jessica weaver yes the martian passes unanimously 7-0 thank you ah moving to policy four one one eight point two three one alcohol drugs and alcohol drugs and tobacco mr freedom excellent thank you it was recommended to add um in the title alcohol drugs marijuana vaping and tobacco so marijuana and vaping were added to the title and if you flip to the next page you will also notice that in about the middle of the page the title there as well you'll see alcohol marijuana vaping and drugs again so those
084were two recommendations that we had for this policy to move forward and those were made from last meeting thank you um can i have a motion for this please i'll do it mr truth move the board of education approve the revision to policy four one one eight point two three one alcohol drugs and tobacco as recommended second on that miss kion i'll second it sure oh i saw your hand up i'm sorry i have a discussion okay and a discussion miss kyle just i just want to know in next time this policy comes up will the name of it change to include marijuana and vaping just in the title of the policy so will it be four one one eight point two three one drugs alcohol drugs marijuana vaping and tobacco that is correct yes
085great thank you you're welcome okay any further discussion seeing none miss craig michael branda yes dr bruce fletcher yes emily guyan yes beth menke hutt wagner yes robert telfelt yes pravasala yes jessica weaver yes the motion passed unanimously 7-0 thank you and uh policy number 4119 staff conduct thank you as we discussed uh this policy last meeting uh it was recognized that in the last sentence of the policy it read the superintendent in building principles shall assume the major responsibility and we recognize that i generally assume the major responsibility so we included the superintendent or designee in building principal shell just to include how we really operate did i have a motion on this i think it's my turn uh okay mr brandon okay uh move the board of education approve the revisions to policy
0864119 staff conduct as recommended second insect this guy on discussion seeing none miss craig michael branda yes dr bruce fletcher yes emily guyan yes beth manky hutt wagner yes robert telfelt bob he said okay yes for me masala yes jessica wag and jessica weaver whoever yes the motion passed unanimously 7-0 thank you thank you thank you okay moving on to policy number 4131 professional learning development mr freezy um this policy is being presented to you uh the same way it was during our last meeting without any changes okay uh motion please dr fletcher move the board of education approve the revisions to policy 4131 professional learning development as recommended second second mr brenda discussion see none we will move to the vote that's craig michael branda yes dr bruce fletcher yes emily guyan yes beth
087manky hutt wagner yes robert telfelt bob yes okay pavasala yes jessica weaver yes the motion passed unanimously 7-0 thank you that's great okay and revision to board policy five one one three point two on truancy mr frisie uh discussion evolved last meeting around this policy in regards to the mental health wellness days and needing parental approval or documentation and whether it would be needed or not needed we went back and revisited the legislation initially the legislation came out and it was not needed or required it was amended very recently and it is required so in order for a student to take a mental health wellness day they would need to provide the same information to the school as they would have to any other day they would be absent from school so what we did
088here and it's very difficult to see if you look in the very middle green section mental health wellness days in the definition there there is a uh in the second sentence there is a line through the word not it reads a student is not required to present and now it reads a student is required to present and it just helps us to be able to manage this these absences in the same way that we manage every other absence so i was happy to learn about the amendment it did take us to gain some guidance from legal counsel on this one so i was appreciative of some of the discussion that occurred to kind of question that last meeting so that was uh helpful so that would be the change that we're recommending to move forward
089thank you can i have the motion presented please miss guyon move the board of education approve the revisions to policy 5113.21 student absences and excuses awards or recognition for attendance as recommended second and a second misleader and discussion any discussion on the revisions as presented dr fletcher the one that i'm looking at is 5113.2 you guys have been saying 0.21 did i miss something here no no they jumped i believe did we we this was five one one three point two and somebody added the two one at the end of it added the one at the end of it okay we missed truancy did we miss truancy yeah i think i think you just did the motion for the demotion for the truancy for the next policy you read that one we missed one oh
090so in other words you've got to read five one one three point two that would be accurate all right stands the q one okay so the truancy policy is the one that includes the mental health days yes yes yes all right i actually when you were talking about it i did feel like it was in the wrong place like i was on the wrong sorry about that all right i'd like to uh do we have to table the first one or something no you can actually vote on it we didn't discuss it and come back to this one right so we discuss the other one vote on it and then go back correct all right can we do it that way yeah one that's on the table is .21 we can discuss that vote on
091it and then go back to the point two well let's do that so um there are no changes to 5113.21 from the last meeting it is presented to you this evening as it was last meeting very good so now can i have that motion presented that motion no that's that's on the table so we vote on this one as there's no changes uh it's open for discussion now correct thank you i'm paul i just wanted to make things one night yeah i thought i was doing i thought i was on a roll and everything was just working out really great [Music] so let's go for discussion on policy number five 113.21 correct yes very good we are open for a discussion on this seeing no discussion i will call for the vote miss craig michael
092branda yes dr bruce fletcher yes emily guyan yes beth manke hutt wagner yes robert taufelt yes pavasala yes jessica weaver yes the motion passed unanimously 7-0 thank you all right now for clarification again are on policy number five one one three point two correct correct we're all on the same page here and emily did you make the motion on this no i messed up the next one we need to make a motion on this one correct correct miss nike huntbanger yeah i can read this one okay let me just click on it okay uh move the board of education approve the revisions to policy five one one three point two one student oh no no oh okay hold on scrolling we're on a roll [Laughter] a lot of scrolling hold on before yeah so move
093the board of education approve the revisions to one policy point two truancy as recommended you got it i'll second it and mr two felt we'll second that and we are now open to discussion seeing no discussion on that we will have a vote ms craig michael branda yes dr bruce fletcher yes emily guyan yes beth manky hutt wagner yes robert telfelt yes paul masala yes jessica weaver yes the motion passed unanimously 7-0 thank you sorry about that folks all right let's move to policy number five one two one and that is high school mid-year and final exams mr farizi um this policy is also being presented to you as it was last meeting without any additional changes motion mr tufal move the board of education approve the revision to policy five one two one high
094school mid-year and final examinations as recommended motion's been made do i have a second second emily yeah yep and discussion seeing none miss craig michael branda yes bruce fletcher yes emily guyan yes beth manky hutt wagner yes robert telfelt yes pavasala yes jessica weaver yes the motion passed unanimously 7-0 thank you very much and the last policy which is policy six one two zero objectives of the edge of the instructional program mr farisi this policy also is uh being presented to you this evening without changes from last meeting thank you emotion mr felt move the board of education approve the revision to policy one two zero objectives of the instructional program as recommended i need a second second second diane i believe in discussion seeing no discussion let's move for a vote michael branda dr
095bruce fletcher yes emily guyan yes beth manky hud wagner yes robert telfelt yes pavicella yes jessica weaver yes the motion passed unanimously 7-0 thank you very much and mr farisi thank you for your hard work and getting that together and i'll apologize one more time for leaving out a 2.1.2 point something or other but [Laughter] we made it well i i i'd like to thank you all as well especially the uh policy committee i appreciate all the work and effort you put into this so thank you so much thank you you're welcome uh communications from board members serving as liaisons to agencies and committees before we go around i'll just make the comment that with the board members just a reminder for the pta pto pac meetings if you cannot make that meeting if you
096try to contact someone to cover for you that would be greatly appreciated and let the building principal know um that you won't be there or whoever is going to be covering for you as some meetings are being held uh via zoom some are in person and i think that'll help everybody keep keep their selves together uh miss spanky huttfanger just a question for clarification if the meeting is being held on zoom uh or google meet whatever are our this year are we being sent a link or should we contact the principal this year just wanted to know like what the protocol was um as far as that goes this year dr brum and i'll i'll i'll ask you i think in the past we've been notified by the milton principal so yes i've only attended
097one pto meeting this year and it's been by google me but i i am certain the principals will send out a link uh or just a reminder uh if it is an in-person meeting and i will confirm that so you will get notification thank you you're welcome miss weaver yes i was just gonna add um i've attended the google meet ones and i've gotten both a hand letter and then an email from the principal depending on the school but you should get one like hey this is the date the letter was helpful and then also the email reminder so i think most of the ptas they got it covered so it should be that if not i've emailed the principals as well excellent um any other communications from board members okay seeing none dr brummett
098any closing comments no i i believe um the board should be up to date on the um anna reynolds project that's the one that comes to mind for this agenda item but we are scheduled to meet with the state department next week to review this the drawings and the current project specs and to keep the process moving along and we did also report out on the air quality testing at anna reynolds both with pcbs and um just baseline air quality and in both cases it was within normal limits so again the gov governor's visit was very successful last week and it looks like all things are moving forward there thank you okay and just a reminder the um teacher of the year dinner was changed from the wednesday to the tuesday night i think you
099all got notification on that but i know i had update my calendar today and i said gotta switch that so um if everybody makes sure that they've gotten that taken care of um anything else for the good of the uh committee of the board seeing none i'll entertain a motion to adjourn oh publicly sorry sorry i get myself here um member of the public wishing to speak can contact us um the numbers are on the board screen i don't see anyone responding so miss kion your hand is raised thank you paul a couple things one just to like to welcome jason plummen gerald hairston once again to the district i'm really excited to have both of you joining our staff um something that really caught my ear when pedesha was speaking was the a new
100club called women in leadership and i'm very interested to hear more about that club and what they're doing and and i'm excited about that i think it's a great addition um i have a few observations of things that i noticed around that it's really at the high school my daughter's at the high school that's really where i have the most experience right now so the things i notice there are um yesterday i was in the school and i got to see the new gym floor and um i was like cried a little tear it was beautiful and i'm so excited about it um another thing that i noticed that really made me so happy is that the marching band is back at the high school in the parking lot i know that's and the buses
101are gone um that's huge for them when they were on the field if it rained they couldn't necessarily go out because it would be wet and i know the parking lot it rains rain is done and they can go right out so i know that they must be thrilled to be back there on in their home practice area and i was really so happy to see that finally and i will close out with [Music] just a reminder to our community the school is back in session so please be really careful there's a lot of um kids walking there's a lot of kids on bicycles there's a lot of parents dropping off and picking up there's um just a lot of people around including a lot of young drivers so there's a lot of 16 and
10217 and 18 year olds who are new to the road with a little bit less experience than the rest of us so please be patient with them and just keep our kids safe thank you thank you very much mr brandon thanks paul um i know we moved quickly through dr brummett's presentation especially having to get to a mean um i i did have two quick things just to i guess request um within the calendar for future agenda items um i believe strongly that we should have appreciation days for our security team um we haven't honored them with any sort of resolution or anything like that at least since i've been on i think i think we should definitely look into that and then also the the pto pta impacts we've just been talking about them
103and that seemed to drop off the calendar as well for a resolution or a proclamation i think it'd be great if instead of asking them to come to the meeting to get that maybe in all of our um assignments we go to their meetings and give them the proclamation in that moment i think that would mean more to them and they would be able to stick to their duties within their um you know their volunteer assignment and then also not take another night away from their families so um but other than that great meeting lots of policies glad we figured all that stuff out and uh hope to see you all soon thank you very much mr brandon um beth and noah someone's having trouble going to bed just so excited about school um just
104want to say again welcome to jason and gerald um and also just to say thank you to the teachers um [Applause] when i walked um by some of the schools and into patching the other day the schools are literally shining um uh you know as far as like the the floors and just so clean um but they're also shining because the teachers are just so happy and welcoming and just to see like the kids running to their bus stops it's just a really good site and so i just want to thank um you know everyone who's working at central office and all of the teachers for just making this such a wonderful welcoming start um onto the school year so thank you great anyone else nope seeing no one well then i guess i can't
105ask for a motion to adjourn miss miranda and miss dion i believe very good thank you folks we'll see you all in the next meeting stay well good night you