001good evening everyone welcome to this special meeting of the berlin board of education it's february 23rd 2022. we're going to start the meeting with the call to order with the pledge of allegiance 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 so we have a packed agenda this evening um before we begin i'm just going to go through some housekeeping items so this is a special meeting and typically on a special meeting agenda we do not have audience a citizen we made sure that this is on this agenda and we want to hear everyone speak if you have not signed up i have the first sheet right here um there's other sheets up
002there and i will be calling from the top the bottom top the bottom everyone will get the chance to speak this evening i know there's been some rumors going around that we are limiting speakers and there's a whole bunch of stuff that's not true what is true everyone gets two minutes when the timer goes off your two minutes is up please be respectful of that right now i am going to read you what our board policy is for audience of citizens so you can see that we are making accommodations to hear everyone because we value your voices okay the board may permit any individual group to address the board concerning any subject that lies within its jurisdiction during a portion of the board's regular meetings so designated for such purposes three minutes may be allotted
003to each speaker and a maximum of nine minutes per topic with prerogative of board chairperson to extend that time as appropriate the board may modify these limitations at the beginning of the meeting if the number of persons wishing to speak makes it advisable to do so that is why we have changed it from three minutes three people per topic nine minutes total to two minutes so please respect that no inappropriate or disrespectful conduct shall be permitted at any board of education meeting persistence in such conduct shall be grounds for summary termination by the chairperson of that person's privilege of address all speakers must identify themselves by name and address so we need to make sure we have a respectful meeting look around there are a lot of kids here we need to make sure this
004meeting is run the same way we expect our schools our classrooms our professionals to act so if someone is raising their voice getting disrespectful i'm going to ask them to stop i'm going to ask them to leave if they don't leave i'm going to ask the police to escort them out and then if we have disruption within the auditorium i'm going to call a recess clear the room and we will have to conduct business without members of the community and it's too bad that i have to see this at the start but i want to be crystal clear on what the expectations are so everyone has the opportunity to talk and to share what's most important to them please be respectful of all opinions even if you do not agree the next thing is you
005have to wear your mask if you are not wearing your mask during this meeting you will be asked to do so if you fail to do so you will be asked to leave if you do not leave the police officer will escort you out and then again if you don't put it on then i'm going to have to call a recess and we're going to have to clear the room the same thing applies so there are children here we have a student presenting this evening and we just need to make sure that this is a respectful environment for all and we are modeling what's expected of our students so thank you for letting me lay the groundwork now i am going to turn it over to our student who is presenting this evening i am
006very excited to hear how all about the stock market and why it's a good investment good evening everyone my name is eileen muses and i'm the principal at berlin high school and as many of you are aware we have a very robust capstone program in place at our high school we were actually one of the first high schools in connecticut that put this program in place going back as far back as 2013 and 14 for all of our graduating students so over time the program has evolved and we're very very impressed with the student products and presentations that they have put forth we've expanded from powerpoint presentations to students that will do ted talks make documentaries do great presentations and tonight you're actually going to see a student's development of a website as well so
007i really hope that you will enjoy the presentation i'm sure you will i would like to introduce shree patel who is going to be doing her presentation on investing in the stock market sri is a senior student she is hoping to study finance in the future she's waiting on her options right now and i'm sure she's going to have a very bright future and i would like to turn it over to shree so please be sure to enjoy her presentation this evening she's a little nervous so everybody just make sure it's a nice warm welcoming environment for her as she is a little nervous tonight so go ahead tree hello and good evening my name is sri patil and i'm a senior at bhs over the past couple of months i was given the opportunity
008to research my capstone project the essential question that i explored from my project is how does the stock market work and why is it a good source of additional income [Music] so i'm indian and until being indian i'm gujarati and if there's one thing we're known for other than food it's our money-mindedness gas stations motels businesses crypto stocks you name it because there's no stone left unturned when it comes to making money certainly my family is no exception to this and i guess it's this mindset that first introduced me to stocks my interest in stocks first sparked when i heard my dad talking about his ge general electric stocks and at first i didn't really understand what all the complex numbers and constantly changing colorful charts meant but i did enjoy my daily updates the
009older i got the more intrigued i grew and although i do not currently trade stocks i plan on doing so in the near future and i'm sure many of you here have jobs undoubtedly you put in the hours and hard work and when that paycheck comes it's like dang i worked so hard just for this you made bank until you see those nice pair of jordans or the grocery list and just like that your money is gone but what if you could take that money you make from work and double it triple it even quadruple it you can with stocks what are stocks according to the website moneyinstructor.com a website created for stock market simulations and lesson plans for teachers if you own a company's stocks then you're an owner or shareholder of the company
010this means that stock represents a claim on the company's assets and profits for example if you have apple stocks that means you own a certain percentage of apple to calculate your ownership of a company you have to take the shares you own and divide that by all the company's stocks so let's say you have 200 apple stocks and apple has let's say 10 000 shares you would divide 200 by 10 000 which would mean that you own two percent of apple if you go to the stock app on your phone right now you will see the apple stocks closed red today the phrase the stock is great or negative means the stock traded lower than the previous day likewise the stock is green or positive means the stock traded higher than the previous day this
011seems great and all but why would companies sell stocks essentially companies sell stocks to generate money which they use for multiple initiatives from funding new projects to paying down debt but wait it gets better numerous companies even pay dividends on their stocks on dividend date dividends are when a shareholder is paid that percentage of profit typically quarterly according to moneyinstructor.com however some companies pay dividends monthly it is important to keep in mind that companies pay dividends if shareholders still have stocks on the x dividend date which records your ownership of the number of shares on that date take for example apple whose declared dividend was 73 cents per share on january 29 2019 this means with your 200 apple stocks you would make 36.50 in four months in a year this number would total to
012146 dollars according to this graph apple has quite the promising history when it comes to dividends since there is a steady increase many companies even split their stocks emmy nominated writer brian beers with 15 plus years of experience in corporate finance and accounting as well as investing describes a stock split is when a corporate action in which a company increases the number of its outstanding shares by issuing more shares to current shareholders stock splits allow affordability for small investors by reducing the price of the stock while the number of overall company stocks increases stock splits are done in ratios such as to one sum to one etc so if apple were to split stocks to a four to one ratio then your stocks would quadruple and now you would own 800 stocks and the price
013of this stock is reduced to 43.69 essentially your total value of the stocks would remain the same this image right here depicts what i just said so you have one stock and ends up splitting into four different stocks as you can see the one stock that was worth 150 becomes 37.50 however it is still worth the same amount of money like many investments stocks come with a risk because there's no guarantee of profits when you buy stocks if a company doesn't do well or falls out of favor with investors its stock prices can fall and shareholders could lose money but rest assured because stocks can be assessed in order to calculate the risk associated with the stock it is important to know how to comprehend a stock market chart author chris muller who has an
014mba and has written about all things finance since 2019 and even builds and runs a digital marketing agency supports this by stating more advanced stock charts will show additional data and by understanding the basics you can pull out a lot of information about a stock's historic current and expected performance as you may have figured out by now the stock market is dependent on probability and statistics now to get deeper into the stock market chart there are many attributes such as the trend line displays the overall growth in stock price over many years where local fluctuations occur due to many different reasons mueller shows a specific example of the trend lines by mentioning in fact the trend line should lead you to dig further for instance apple as a company really took off from 2009 to
0152012. but what happened from 2012 to 2013 the stock began to sink at one time shares were down more than 40 percent drastic changes can help identify potential outcomes for the future and by associating the stock price to the time period the drastic change happened in the nature of the stock can be predicted in similar situations a real life example of a drastic chain is when the stock market crashed in 2008 stocks were significantly lower because housing prices fell and homeowners began to abandon their mortgages another crash happened recently in 2020 due to covet where stocks were decreasing significantly in a short amount of time apple stock prices dropped an entire eighty dollars support lines and resistance lines also serve a similar purpose however they break down the chart even further with support lines representing
016a low level of stock price reaches over time and is the time where traders most likely buy stocks an example of this would be line a resistance lines represent a high level of stock price reaches over time and is the time where traders most likely sell their stocks an example of this would be lines b and line d several trend lines can also be explained by the news which has a huge impact on the market as mueller mentions this is where your trend lines come in handy news comes and goes but when news coincides with a dramatic shift in the trend line it is something important to pay attention to news plays a huge role in stocks because they can influence buyers to sell or purchase stocks and increase or decrease the price of a
017stock it is important to not get easily influenced by what is seen in the news because sometimes the news can be fake and you can put yourself at a disadvantage but keeping up with the news can help you predict the outcome of your stocks according to blaine ryan kinsmer a successful stock market investors with 20 plus years of experience in trading states that by casually checking in on the stock market each day and reading headline stories you will expose yourself to economic trends third party analysis and gender investing lingo for example there's a huge controversy regarding gamestop stocks where some discussion group on reddit started encouraging others to invest in the company they spread false info claiming that the big investors were wrong and that gamestop was significantly undervalued and more investors brought in causing
018a rapid rise in the market so the stock value increased large investors lost lots of money and little investors champion their purchases another way to reduce the risk associated with stocks is diversification and long-term investments according to chadlan gager co-founder of second summit ventures capital and vice president at alta ml states that you could think of it as a financial jargon for don't put all of your eggs in one basket diversification is investing in a range of assets which helps reduce the risk of severely hurting the return of your overall investment if you put all of your money in one company then the chance of risking your money is higher because if the company's stocks decrease you could lose all of your money in one go another useful tip was given by tony welby the
019director at saunderson house in an interview with times money long-term investment is decide what you're investing for when putting money in the stock market financial advisors suggest leaving it for at least five years to have the best chance of appreciating stocks skiing and lose daily small amounts of profit can be earned by trading stocks daily however just because a stock is in profit does not mean you need to sell it now if i'm going to talk about stocks i have to mention the man himself warren buffett nicknamed the oracle omaha who bought his first stock at the young age of 11. buffett along with benjamin graham are some of the world's best and most successful stock market investors whose advice is followed by many at your own leisure you can click their images which will
020take you to a website here are some steps you can take to open an account and get your stock market journey started be sure to check out this ted by oliver elephant bomb or this video by clay trader at your own leisure if you want to learn more about stocks here is my works cited page accrediting the numerous sources i use to aid me in this project i am grateful to have done my capstone project on stocks because i was able to expand my knowledge about a topic i am passionate about i was able to take away that the agility stocks allow for investors is noteworthy because whether you prefer long-term investment or short-term investment is up to you to monitor trade and sell as you please however to be on the safer side it
021is useful to invest in stocks with dividends since they pay a steady amount of money despite the risks that stocks hold analyzing a stock market chart is a useful skill to possess and the news can come in handy essentially stocks have a good earning potential and serve as a great investment thank you [Applause] thank you so much for your presentation that was phenomenal um so i really enjoyed watching this i'm a business education teacher myself so this was right up my alley um and i you know i love how you appropriately cited your sources you have really great sources and lots of awesome information you're a senior correct yes that's correct have you decided where you're going to school next year or what you're going for no i have not heard back from any of
022my colleges yet okay i wasn't sure i know it's still kind of early on are you thinking of studying business yes awesome and what business classes at berlin high have you taken i've taken business survey personal finance accounting one those are the classes i've taken awesome so that do you think that helps spark your interest or a little bit of both between school and home i think it's a majority of it was at home but i will say that they have um pushed me to you know look more into the stock market so it's awesome great i'm going to open it up to the board if anyone has anything they would like to add but very impressive especially with making the google site and all the information and your presentation skills so thank you for
023coming out tonight it's a it's a big meeting so you did great anyone else on the board go ahead adam i just want to say thank you sharifah for being here this evening obviously everyone's here to learn some stock tips from me that's why we have such a large audience um i am sure that when you heard that you were going to be presenting to the board of vet you didn't think you were going to have this many people in the audience as well but i think it was beneficial for everyone to see the work that our seniors are doing with the capstone project so thank you for being here thank you i just want to say that not only was the content phenomenal and i wish i had gotten this when i was in
024high school i wish i knew half of what you know and your presentation was excellent no one would ever have known had your principal not told us that you were nervous it was fantastic you did a great job and so thank you for sharing that thank you anyone else from the board all right one more round of applause that was awesome i will say having students come out this is a highlight of the work we do as a board of education because we get to see what our students are doing in the schools and all the learning that's happening so thank you all right moving on to correspond committee reports so i'm going to turn it over to our student representatives yes so we have a few updates for you so first the bhs theater
025and musical arts department will be putting on into the woods here in the auditorium on march 3rd and through 6th so tickets are available at singingredcoats.ludos.com i encourage you all to come check it out on february 8 on february 15th 8th graders were invited into the school for a tour which was led by the upbeat members to meet future teachers and learn about the possible courses that they could take next year and sophomores enrolled in our ap u.s government and politics class recently had the chance to visit dc this weekend with the organization close up so they visited the monuments and museums debated with students from other schools and even explored some dc neighborhoods and students in grades 8 through 11 are currently in the process of registration registering for courses for next year and
026all course information is available on the bhs website in the program of studies this past weekend upbeat held a trip to mount snow where students were given the opportunity to snowboard or ski on march 5th the pancake breakfast will be held at berlin high school from 7 to 11am and if you need to purchase a ticket any upbeat member will be very eager to sell one to you and on march 11th through the 13th march weekend will be held at camp woodstock and this is a really great opportunity to improve students leadership and teamwork skills and finally for as winter athletics are closing we want to congratulate all winter sports teams currently the boys and girls basketball team are preparing for the state competition boys hockey has 15 wins and girls hockey has 13 wins
027indoor track has 10 girls that qualified for states and one qualify for nationals and the boys swim team is four and one in the ccc south and finally wrestling placed third at the class m division tournament with six kids qualifying for the state open and that's all we have for tonight all right any questions for our student representatives all right thank you for that report i do have my tickets for the breakfast so i'm sorry i can't buy extras but i'm sure there's plenty of people here that would like to buy them um moving on to committee reports do we have any committee reports this evening go ahead tim we had we had an ad hoc committee to review the policies that we're going to be uh talking about later on this evening a couple
028of weeks ago there's only about a week ago now um a lot of legal changes to those policies there was nothing overly concerning so from an ad hoc perspective we are happy with those policies and certainly we can discuss them later but that was it thank you tim any other committee reports yeah we had our communication or our community engagement um committee meeting on the third and what we did was we reviewed some social media policies so the states many towns have social media policies so we brought a bunch of them together reviewed them for a few days and then we kind of picked apart what we would want kind of wrote it and it's now into the lawyers and they're going to be making a mock policy for us and then we'll take it
029further for review and votes any other committee reports okay correct report nothing to report okay and correspondence to the board yes i have a few here dear brian board of education thank you very much for the gift card we are very lucky to have many kind people supporting us during these difficult times thank you lori and tim oakes brian benigny board of education thank you for the card and plant jennifer paolowski griswold food service to the berlin board of education and staff thank you very much for the beautiful plant garden my mother loved gardening it was a beautiful tribute to her thank you for your thoughtfulness jen dimeo and family and lastly i want to thank everyone for the beautiful lily your kindness is very appreciated linda delano thank you all right we're going to
030move on to the next item the revised reopening plan so we move this ahead of audience of citizens i know a lot of people want to talk in regards to this however with it being a special meeting with us sending out the email on friday we just figured we would go ahead and address this first i only received one email in opposition to change making a change um and also in regards to any emails that were sent i did my best to respond to all the emails on behalf of the board i do want to let you know that my whole family has been sick for over three weeks and it you know was a long three weeks so um in addition to my full-time job and my graduate studies and my part-time job i
031i really did do my best trying to get back to everyone so i apologize if i did not respond to an email uh that was not my intention so i just want to see that and i will state that again when we move into audience of citizens but um so i'm going to turn it over to superintendent benignly to discuss the revisions that have been made to our school opening plan and then after we just he shares we will entertain a motion we will have discussion amongst the board and then we'll have a vote so i'm going to turn it over to you so at this time you've seen now this is the third iteration of opening plans the first iteration was when the pandemic started and i believe our plan was you know it
032was several pages i want to say was more than eight or nine pages the second one came before this school year which was roughly a little over three pages this is the third iteration you can see the updated date as february 23rd which was today and the it's now as i said two pages what you see in yellow is what's being recommended this evening to the board to vote on those are the changes from the plan some items were no longer relevant so they've been removed so i just would like to review those everyone is aware mass for students and staff any student or staff member has the option to wear a mask in a school setting this would take a place if this is voted in this would take place on monday february 28th
033would be the first day that this would be in place in berlin public schools transportation maps are required when students are riding district buses and vans which are public transportation fall under federal guidelines so even if it moves forward that masks are not no longer required in school it becomes optional it is not an option on bus transportation that is a federal mandate it's clearly outlined by the state the state does not override that mandate so mass will still be required if your students ride the bus assigned seating may be required in the bus and vans it may be at this point we're not we're not planning to require it but if it's deemed necessary we always have that option to do that so that's with transportation social distancing in classrooms students should when practical
034and feasible sit at least three feet apart that hasn't changed from before practical and feasible we recognize that's not always the case cohorting returning to normal use of areas such as cafeteria gyms and art rooms this was already in place so as i review the rest of the plan if it's not in yellow it has not changed from what initially was in place at the beginning of the year i'm not going to spend the time to read through every part it's on the website you have that there if this gets voted on tonight this will be posted immediately tomorrow morning it'll be on the website you also will receive an email with the copy of this and some few other guidelines on the second page here one part that i want to highlight here there's
035nothing there's one part in yellow school events and activities school-wide events may be modified to allow for social distancing and mitigation practice i think the key word is may if we can do it without modification then we will if we need to there may be some modification we would notify you of those before the event takes place um other than that everything in the plan is the same as it was as we started the this school year the one what's one last thing the one part that we debated about and we did consult the state with is music bell covers distancing etc they remain in effect it's what was there presently there is talk at the state level that that may change the recommendations may change and if there is a change then we may
036change that policy too but at this time for music we're keeping what was in place previously thank you julia all right so for the board of education do i have a motion for consideration i'll move to approve the revised 2021-2022 reopening plan as presented is there a second second so the motion by adam the second by tim now i'm going to open it up for discussion so we'll have superintendent benigni stay there and board members you can go ahead and ask any questions that you would like i don't really have a question just more of a comment um i you know first of all i know this has not been a popular uh issue with regard to masks in schools um it was a decision made at the state level and we were abiding by
037that and we we follow the rules and in the guidance that's provided to protect the safety of our students as well as our teachers i think at this point um i think that teachers are ready to see their students and students are ready to see their teachers for probably the first time for a lot of people um and though it was new since it was a necessary nuisance at the time but i think based on the science based on the numbers at the state level i'm very comfortable making it a mask optional i know lots of people will be rejoicing i did express one one story that my middle schooler will kill me for saying but she prefers the mask because she has braces on and she thinks the mask kind of covers it up
038but for the most part i think that uh most others are ready to get rid of the math so i'm in full support of it based on the the the the science the data and the information from the state thank you adam i'm just going to ask a question that i anticipate anticipate maybe asked just for clarification i know you stated it and it's highlighted in yellow on the revised plan but it does say masks are required when students are writing district buses and vans which are public transportation and fall under federal guidelines there's no possibility that we have any jurisdiction over revising that correct we have no jurisdiction over that that's been reiterated by the state department the commission of education we do not have that at this time it will take the federal
039government will have to then pass something to allow that not to be a requirement they'd have to pass legislation to remove it and another point of clarification if you could explain because i know there's been some talk out there about this is being tied to a vaccination status can you elaborate that that is not accurate mask optional is for everyone vaccinated or not vaccinated this time there's no distinction between the two the question did come up about if you are do contract covid and your requirement for quarantine is five days one of the components was that you returned to school wearing a mask that has also been lifted too you can require required to quarantine for a minimum of five days but if you need to quarantine longer that's also expected if you're not feeling
040well so similar to if you had the flu right if you don't feel well after a certain amount of time you stay out until you feel well enough to return anyone else on the board have questions or comments my understanding is that let me first say that i'm in favor of mask optional as you know we've discussed this previously um but my understanding is also is that the connecticut department of education and the connecticut department of health do have the authority to implement a mask mandate regionally if necessary based on spikes how is that built into this just so that i understand that if the state department of education determined that mass requirement will be put back in place they have the authority the authority has been given by legislation for the state department of
041education to put mask requirements back in place should the metrics require it initially they were putting it back on board of education and superintendents to monitor metrics and decide on individual districts and things that is that the case case and how we're following it is that if there was an outbreak and it was extremely high it would be something that would be put in by the state department of education thank you does anyone else have anything right we can move to a vote yep oh can you hear something else just the last thing to close is as i started to say going from probably 13 to 14 pages reopening plan going to only two we're moving in the right direction so hopefully that sustains itself and and you know we get to next year we
042don't have a reopening plan so thank you thank you for all the work you've done in preparation with this reopening plan and helping the board navigate um you know handling the situation and i do just want to let everyone know that you know the board wasn't waiting to release something because you know we wanted to withhold it we wanted to handle board business appropriately as we should publicly um and and that's our purpose and that's you know our duty to all of you so we had to wait for our meeting this evening so i'm going to move for a vote um if you guys could just raise your hand um when it's time so we can make sure we accurately get the numbers all those in favor aye opposed okay the vote carries eight zero
043so starting monday we will be mask optional until then for the rest of the week and this evening you have to wear masks [Applause] all right so the next portion of the meeting before we move to audience of citizen we met this evening at 5 45 to have a budget presentation the superintendent and i answered questions in regards to the proposed budget and at this point we have had a number of meetings with the board um and we've worked through our budget and there are a number of questions that have been asked and answered so i am going to um just quickly give a quick overview for anyone that was not here but it will be available on the website our screen um yeah if you could put it on the screen that would be
044great nick so our proposed budget for 2022 2023 is 50 million 596. it's a 4.7 increase 3.68 are contractual obligations to make sure that we keep employment whole especially returning from the pandemic in addressing learning recovery and learning loss um you know i think some of the goals of our district are to continue to provide a quality education to all students at the standard that berlin parents all of you guys here this evening expect you all move to this town you all chose to educate your child in this town and we want to continue to provide that provide all students with an education that prepares them for multiple options and opportunities upon graduation that starts in pre-k in kindergarten that doesn't just start in high school maintain favorable class sizes and adequate course offerings that
045means making sure kindergarten is impact at 25 and having favorable class sizes so your students can learn develop strong relationships with their friends and their teachers and get the most out of their education adequate funding for technology which we've learned from the pandemic is necessary in an ongoing commitment for school safety measures and with that we are our contractual obligations of 3.68 of the budget that is a result of union contracts going to negotiation the raises are in line with the state our teacher negotiations came in below the state average our non-certified salaries and other raises are in line with um the town raises we have no new staff added we added um a 0.2 for human resources because we're moving that person will hope to move them from the town because they're split so
046both the town and the district are increasing that position but we're not adding teachers we're not adding paraprofessionals where we don't have anything that is added and it's contractual obligations do you have anything you'd like to add just we have one position to be grant funded it's an internship coordinator for the high school here and we hope to have students out working in internships for the next year and we believe that that's very important we had it in the budget for this year but because of the funds that were required to pay for the current certified staff and where the budget would be we were not comfortable putting that position in with the potential of having to cut that for this year so we decided to fund it during through the grant so those are
047the only two positions that are in the budget um for next year and nick if you could just go to the next slide real quick just so people can see what i was talking about that is what we're coming in at the if you look at the stats bar graph the blue is just our contractual obligations above the blue is 0.95 which is under a half million dollars um in areas that were increasing we're not adding its increases we've had massive inflation but you know it is important as a board of education that we continue to advocate for the educational needs of all the students in our town and again parents do have choice to send their kids to crack schools berlin has to pay and there is an increase in tuition so if we
048you know do have to cut then we will be probably paying more and that will be unfortunate we've done a lot to keep students here in berlin and attend berlin public schools and really maintaining our goals to drive the learning forward so at this point can i entertain a motion the board of education operating budget for the 2022-2023 year and the amount of 50 million 122 596 dollars do we have a second so motion by adam second by kerry all right now i'm going to open it up to discussion for the board i know we've had a number of discussions on the record about this so anyone have any questions or comments they would like to add does anyone have any issues with the budget any any issues of maybe why they might not support
049it or concerns that need to be addressed before we move to a vote okay well we've certainly done our work we've spent a lot of time on this this starts in december for us and carries through this is one of the biggest parts of our job here and so as we go to a vote if you could just raise your hands if you're for it or again so all those in favor i opposed the vote carries vocary's 8-0 all right thank you did everyone vote i think okay okay i just couldn't see down to that end all right so 8-0 nice job thank you so we are going to be sending that off to the town it will then go to the town board of finance and then from there the town council and then
050we have our budget referendum in april so i encourage all of you to go out and vote um and that is really important so you know it's important that we do this for the kids the kids are our future this is why we sit here so now i'm going to move into the audience as citizen i understand that there are some topics that could be controversial that not all are going to agree with but again look around there's a lot of children here tonight please make sure you act in a way that you would expect the staff and the faculty of the schools to act and you know behave um no appropriate or disrespectful conduct shall be permitted at any board of education meeting so even if you disagree with what the person is saying
051please do not boo do not shout out anything and again i have no issue this evening if there is any shouting back and forth or a loud disagreement i'm going to ask you to leave if you do not leave i'm going to ask the police to escort you out if you do not then and then there's multiple voices going back and forth we're going to clear the room and then carry on business without an audience so unfortunately i hate to even have to preface this evening with that i do think it's important to give everyone the space to talk it will be two minutes and i read the policy at the start of the meeting so i think the two minutes is much more favorable than allowing three people per topic at three minutes each
052so with that um there is another sign up down there so if your name did not make this list um you can sign up as the spirit moves you you can only speak once if you no longer want to speak because your issues have been addressed um you don't have to when i call your name and i'm going to go top bottom top bottom and alternate back and forth so we are going to and again if i don't say your last or first name correct i apologize i think i know everyone at least everyone's first or last so i'm going to do my best um we're going to start with aurora this evening so if you want to approach the board and just state your name and address we're quarterville 19 timberwood road i live
053in berlin and i'm going to seat my i'm going to yield my two minutes to sarah patel my name is sarah patel 65 savona road i stand here tonight deeply disappointed in the berlin board of education by dismantling the equity and social justice committee you have let down every child of color every child who identifies as lgbtqia plus every child who attends to school in a wheelchair and any child who might not fit into your perfect image i stood before you last summer and shared that my son had experienced racism each year that he has been in the berlin public schools i would like to expand on that and share specific incidents in the hope that maybe this will have more impact on your understanding the need for this work he was just five years
054old when he came home from with his first self-portrait it was torn through the face from erasing when i asked him what happened he replied i couldn't find any crayons to match me i called and offered to purchase a set of multi-racial crayons for every classroom i was told the school has them they were just forgotten next project came home with an empty face i asked my son why his response i was too embarrassed to ask because you have to go get them from a separate room also at five a child called his skin dirty and she stopped her friends from playing with him at six he sat on the bus while students chanted about white people taking our country back at seven a child on the bus told him their dad said they'd have
055to move if any more indian people came to our town at eight a child on the playground at recess said to him i wish it were like martin luther king jr times where you would be treated bad and people wouldn't believe you because you are brown and i would be treated good because i'm white i was told that it was a martin luther king lesson gone wrong at nine another student called him a liar because keon said he had brown hair and other students insisted that all indian people have black hair so he must have black hair his hair is brown as a concerned parent i met with administrators at every level regarding these incidents and i was assured that berlin was addressing racism and equity i give a great deal of credit to mr
056kitzman thank you sorry the time is up and i have to stick around and i get my two minutes now no it's two minutes per person because everyone who signed up who got their things addressed and equity i gave a great deal of credit to mr kitzman and dr mcgurk they listened to my husband and i and they promised to do better their promises were not empty i finally felt hope when the equity and social justice committee was formed i felt even more hope when i attended the first session and i realized the district's commitment to change was real i was pleasantly surprised by the other members that were present administrators teachers townspeople parents business owners boe members town council members and more i left that meeting feeling like change was going to come and
057i believe that together as a committee in a community we would make a difference this year my son has experienced to true equity in his classroom for the first time he was asked by his teacher to teach his classmates about diwali the festival of lights the students were so excited his teacher reached out and we made arrangements so the entire class got to make rangoli this was an amazing experience for my son he felt truly valued and was so excited to share i cannot emphasize enough what this did for my son's confidence in his class this year they also got to learn about the chinese new year this is what equity looks like and feels like it takes away nothing from others it only enhances everyone's experience sadly though this year has been even though
058this year has been wonderful my son for my son there are other experiences as instances which still prove to me that we need the asg even now more than ever at a concert this year i heard a song introduced as an african-american slave song not appropriate in another unfortunate instance i learned of a young friend who was asked in his class to identify fair and unfair he understood the assignment well choosing to color his face his fair face in white and his unfair face in black but why was this assignment included at all this seems too similar to my son's experience so that martin luther king jr lesson gone wrong i mentioned the children you are failing but i think another group you are failing here is your administrators faculty and staff thank you so
059i'm going to just clarify the ground rules i just first off i need to make sure everyone is being respectful whether you agree or disagree with how i'm running the meeting because i have no issue this evening with ending the meeting that's it we will clear the room and have our own meeting without an audience of citizens number two if you if the timer goes off and you want someone else to finish they can certainly sign up and finish reading your statement i don't care but we need to make sure we're respecting the rules when the timer goes off your time is done there's this is going to be over an hour this evening of hearing from people um and we we can certainly end it at any time so i don't want to have
060to do that please be respectful if you don't get to finish and you want someone else who is not signed up to read to go sign up by all means and they can do it when their name is called and if you don't like how the meeting is being run and you're talking over it i'm gonna ask you to leave the next person i'm gonna go to the bottom of the list tyler who lives at home crest drive i cannot pronounce the last name just because the way it's written oh hello tyler if you can just state your name and your address hi my name is tyler schefliani and i live at 4 51 homecrest drive so basically when i was born i was born with um severe to profound hearing which i have in
061both ears which is bilateral which i have so so basically the mask just muffles the sound for me and like when your mask is off it's like so much easier for me to hear you and i also read lips so it also helps like in elementary school um they used to do clear masks like window masks but then that would just muffle the sound more even though i have a dm system and it just transfers all the sound to my ears but even though the masks are to protect us they kind of bother with my hearing but it also like because if a teacher tells me an extra an instruction to like cut this to me it'll sound like cut something else and um yeah that was my whole conversation and enjoy the rest of
062your night i can't wait to see your faces [Applause] thank you so much tyler for having the courage to get up here and talk that was great thank you rachel richette rachel rochette 61 ellsworth boulevard i had hoped i would be able to speak from a place of knowledge about your views on the topic of equity and social justice thank you adam julia and melissa for your responses to the rest you either didn't see my email chose not to respond or don't want your view to go on record so unfortunately this leaves me to speak based on assumptions rather than facts my guess is that tonight we will hear excuses blame shifting and passing the buck all while trying to placate those who are speaking out i'm here to tell you that's a bad idea
063i think we can all agree that berlin as a whole is not a diverse town for the most part we are a white middle to upper middle class suburban town where our children experience all authority and role models through the lens of whiteness white teachers white coaches white administrators white police officers and white elected officials this is not a bad thing it's just a fact the purpose of education must be to prepare our children for adulthood as an employee of a fortune 4 company i can assure you that when recruiting and hiring we are looking for individuals who have a broad understanding of the world around them there is little to no tolerance for individuals who see the world from one lens only as leaders it is your role to establish the policy and guidelines
064to ensure consistency and effectiveness of curriculum and planning a recent blog by milk college states the variety of personal experiences values and world views that arise from race ethnicity gender gender identity religious and spiritual beliefs class age color sexual orientation disability immigrant status and national origin enhance creativity and learning profession learning potential education works when teachers are empowered to incorporate students backgrounds and experiences as strengths rather than view them as hurdles to overcome that is your job some of you have quoted mlk recently on this topic to close i too am choosing to quote him in his words i have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the negro's great stumbling block in the strides toward freedom is not white citizen counselors or ku klux klan but the white moderate who was more devoted to order
065than to justice let's try to prove him wrong if you won't act i will continue to speak for he also stated our lives begin thank you rachel we're gonna move on to bill you um i don't know how to pronounce the last name 25 gateway drive if you just state your first and last name and your address blast uh yeah bill julius 25 gateway drive um yeah i don't think any child should have to deal with you know what your son did but it's for that reason i'm up here up here to applaud that you did dismantle those uh learning for justice standards because they're very divisive um you know for example i would i would take a courageous conversation analogy with the story of a man let's say there's a man and a group
066of people think he's stupid so you know they they sit the man down and they say to him you know what you're stupid and uh naturally the man resists he denies it um who wouldn't and uh ultimately these people tell the man look the only way you're going to enlighten yourself and not be stupid is as if is if you admit that you're that you're stupid which is really a ridiculous argument um and i don't think these are the types of conversations the children of berlin public schools need to have so i hope that you uh you know replace the standards with something that's fair something that's inclusive i totally agree no child should ever have to deal with that um again i i've mentioned before there's a different standards called fair it's the foundation
067against intolerance and racism that's all i got thanks thank you thanks bill next person is nikki s uh symbitsky okay um do you need my address yeah okay 947 chamberlain highway berlin um i'm scrapping my part about the math since that's already been handled so i want to speak regarding the equity committee i would urge you to keep it disbanded our children do not need to be taught equity they need to be taught equality they need to learn the words and the teachings of dr martin luther king jr dr king said it best during his i have a dream speech when he said i look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character this equity and social justice initiative puts a
068magnifying glass on color and causes our children to feel anxiety and fear and makes makes them zero in on the worst in everyone you cannot fight racism with racism there isn't there is nothing this is nothing more than cultural marxism we need for our children to learn equality and to focus on humanity and the good in everyone we need them to celebrate the best in everyone this equity and social justice initiative does not do that we need our children to learn about dr king and about the civil rights movement they need to be taught that the history of the united states about the history of the united states and about the people who fought so hard to make america what it is our children are better served learning cursive in english science history real history
069united states history math and other academics and not equity and social justice this is a harmful initiative and it should not be allowed to flourish in this town there are other substitutes for such a committee and fair was mentioned and i believe that you should strongly consider that thank you the next person is kanga i can't re pronounce the last name just the way it's written it's 87 cottage street east berlin okay thank you i'm just gonna cross your name out i appreciate that uh lori you're up next just state your name and your address can you hear me laurie schoenfield 300 savage hill um i'd first like to thank the board members who took the time to read and respond to my letters thank you julia adam gina melissa as a retired special education
070teacher of 33 years and concerned citizen i'm speaking to express my disappointment in the board's decision to dismantle the equity and social justice committee as as it is much needed in our district however uncomfortable it may be for some of you it is no longer 1950 our world has changed significantly and we need to provide our students with the tools and knowledge needed to handle the challenges we face in our diverse and ever-changing society i've heard many parents who feel that racism does not exist in our town and that we don't have a need for teaching equity say i teach my kids not to see color that comment in itself validates our need for the sj committee teaching our kids to see everyone is the same is not realistic or helpful you may think that
071it's well intentioned but it's insulting saying you don't see colors implying we see you as one of us it's implying that there's something negative about being something other than white we know that we all see color if you were to look out your window in your all-white neighborhood to see an unfamiliar person of color walking down the street would you not see color i doubt it why would we not want our kids to see people as black brown asian or indian and embrace them for their differences as well as their sameness we all come with different backgrounds traditions and customs that should be recognized shared and celebrated i will continue to advocate for our kids and for bringing back the esj committee let's stop treating our kids like they're too fragile to handle things because
072some adults may find those things uncomfortable our kids deserve better american writer and activist james baldwin said not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it's faced thank you lori i'm going to go to mary katherine larose you can approach and see your name and address mary catherine larose 26 woodruff lane in kensington um the first thing i wanted to address was the issue with the removing of the mask mandate the fact that you moved it up ahead of audience of citizens you may have had good intentions but i feel that you denied the children many of the children that came tonight the opportunity to share the impact that the mass have had on them i think tyler did a great job and i don't know how many other
073children are now going to get up and i'm sure that there were others that were signed up to speak so i i wish you hadn't done that by taking the mask mandate away it cannot erase the damage that they have done to the children over the course of the last year and a half the other thing i wanted to bring up on that is the validity of the claim that the school transportation that's contracted by the board of education is public transportation i would question that with your attorneys just because other towns are saying that and the state is coming down and saying that to you does that mean that i can just get on a bus because it's public transportation i don't think so the last thing i wanted to say was i would
074like you to postpone the the new business part to the social justice and equity committee uh actual dealing with it tonight this is a huge agenda that you have in front of you and i would i think it's really important and so i think it deserves a night that people are going to be fresh and there's going to be more time to reflect on that because a lot of people it's been focusing on obviously the masks and the damage that they have done to the children now that that's going to be over on monday maybe we could focus on this social justice and equity and really look at it and and see what we need to do with that thank you thank you um peter z i just don't can't read the last name out
075here sorry i don't want to mess it up just see your address and name it yeah it's uh peter zerabozo158lwood i just wanted to thank the board of ed for allowing everybody to have the opportunity to speak tonight and i do want to say that i think there is a place for discussion around these issues revolving around equity and social justice i think tonight is a good example of the possibility of what can happen in that committee we have a group where we have a auditorium full of people with diametrically opposed ideas on different subject matter and we're able to co-exist in this room and express our opinions in a peaceful civil manner despite how much we might disagree i think it's the job of the board of ed to create a venue or meeting
076that can allow for that topic to be discussed in a peaceful and civil manner and allow all seeds sides to be expressed because i think there's a lot of misunderstanding from both sides i think the verbiage and then the vocabulary and what you hear on the news and blah blah blah when in reality what what people want to achieve in this community is respect for everyone in all walks of life and to establish that kind of that kind of respect in the children that we're putting through our school system regardless of color creed political allegiance disability so on and so forth i think the way that the social justice equity committee was established was haphazard and slipshod and what we're dealing with today from outrage from the public is a direct result of the way
077it was instituted and just as badly the slip shot way it was potentially dismantled so i would highly encourage the board of education to allow a venue for people and parents to be informed and to communicate with each other in a constructive manner thank you thank you [Applause] i'm going to go to riley hannafan hennepin i don't want to mess it up i'm sorry hanafin just state your name and address riley hannafin 56 madison drive meet my peers from mcgee who signed this hate wearing mass it's better to make it a choice than have people suffer so thank you for making the right choice thank you riley [Applause] i'm going to go to tony dorito state your name and address tony dorito 35 vivian drive i have involved with others i've involved with others to
078help try to help the board move forward with respect to the work of addressing racism and tolerance and our intolerance in our schools and in our community as i sat down to write this statement every thought that finally became a sentence was met with another competing thought that caused me to delete the sentence this went on seemingly forever each revised sentence becoming more problematic than the previous one that the revision attempted to improve on there was little i can do to express a thought that i felt would be acceptable to this entire audience it was a fruitless and frustrating effort but then i thought about a video i've recently seen about a man whose name is daryl davis is a blues musician known for his energetic style of boogie woogie piano daryl has frequently played
079backup for chuck berry and jerry lee lewis daryl was also a boy scout in his earlier years he tells a story of when at a young age he joined an all-white boy scout troop in massachusetts some of you know that i am a scout leader here in our community so i was very interested in learning more about daryl during one of his experiences as a boy scout he was carrying the american flag and marching with his troop in a local parade he was struck with rocks and bottles thrown from the crowd this led to the troop leaders forming a protective ring around him davis did not understand the incident until he discussed it with his father later that night the incident led daryl to a curiosity about the origins and basis for such explicit racist
080attitudes and later shaped much of his future activity what many people don't know about daryl as an african-american he has engaged with numerous members of the ku klux klan and has convinced a number of them to leave and denounce the kkk daryl estimates the number of people he had influence on was about 200 kkk members sorry you can't finish we're gonna stick to the rules tonight um julianne c collazo just take your name and address please uh julianne collazo 801 worthington ridge i want to start with the experience i had when educating our son my husband is hispanic so when it came time for our son to enter middle school and later high school we decided to send him to private school for several reasons one of the more important reasons was the fact that
081we wanted him exposed to a more culturally diverse learning community something that was lacking in berlin public schools that was approximately 25 years ago i now ask have things changed for the better in this regard from what i observe not really and in some respects it's gotten worse the recent dismantling of the equity and social justice committee was extremely troubling after inquiring what prompted this action i was told by certain members of the voe that the issues were too sensitive too controversial and too divisive to be addressed within the school walls yes it's true these conversations are often uncomfortable messy and controversial they require courage and brutal honesty we never want our children to feel unseen overlooked shamed rejected or disadvantaged on the basis of their identity what if it were your child that were
082confused depressed or wanting to talk about their identity what if it were your child being bullied because of their appearance or a disability what if it were your child that was a target of a hate crime because of their religion what if it was your child that was called disparaging names due to their race wouldn't you want a knowledgeable and willing adult to help your child when an individual feels safe and supported within their own identity their potential is maximized in order to set the tone of acceptance leaders and elders in the community need to be willing to pave the way for our youth the starting point is a willingness to engage in courageous conversations on these issues eliminating the equity and social justice committee is a step in the wrong direction thank you at
083this time they're sorry i have to stick with i have to be consistent with the rules are there any other students on here that want to speak because i know it's starting to get later i think jackson might be one um i just in case your parents do want to get you home are you what's your name yeah come on up 8 15. so i know it's a school night all right jackson just state your name and address hi my name is jackson i live at 586 edgewood road i am in fifth grade at griswold i came here to fight for no masks but now i'd thank you for making matt making it optional we were made to wear masks during gym and they made us out of breath in the hot months after recess
084we were only allowed to take them off to drink water we needed time to breathe for the last two years we could not understand each other but now that but now we'll have the chance it will make learning easier most important thank you for letting me see my friends faces again thank you jackson [Applause] we will not be offended if you guys get up and go home but you can stay but i'm just saying because i know it's a school night are there any other students on the list that have signed up okay all right i'm going to keep going um we will go to joann stetson joan angelico stetson 188 stoney mill lane as a resident former representative of this predominantly white community i was eager to serve on the equity and social justice
085committee and immediately reached out when they learned of it those of us who understood and embraced the goals of the committee realized or quickly learned that the work would be uncomfortable at times and some of us would feel vulnerable in confronting our own unconscious inherent racism and implicit bias which we all possess to some extent despite our discomfort we knew how crucial it was we have deeply transparent conversations and respectful discourse to facilitate profound change benefiting our students staff administrative and community most certainly in berlin considering its history of disturbing racial incidents i was stunned when i watched the unilateral dismantling of the committee based upon any thinly veiled excuses for acquiescing to a faction touting a political agenda rather than take a stance in support of the committee's work the board submitted to the
086pressure of a select few citing the issues were too controversial and divisive instead of supporting the integrity of the committee and its goals which are unifying in mere concept it empowered a small group fueled by ignorance and fear i am deeply concerned the message conveyed by the board's actions is that if you bully enough intimidate and spew enough misinformation and rhetoric you get your way and that's a heck of a lesson to our kids i'm so grateful i was raised in a home where supporting and advocating for others and defending against bullies was the norm and grateful to have passed those lessons out to my children and grandchildren in the hopes of creating a more equitable and just world the general principle of the esj committee was learn then advise instead the committee was censored
087and then silenced and to make matters worse there's been hollow excuses and zero accountability there is a very tense majority of immensely concerned parents and citizens who are confused and outraged by the board's motivation and decision i am one of many and we will persist in our efforts to reinstate this committee thank you i'm going to call chris barlow next we're we're a family we do have a joint statement that would take did she did you sign up as well she did as well what's your name okay so once his two minutes is up he'll take it and then can i yield my time to him so he can finish or do i need to pick up where he leaves off um once his two minutes is up if you want to finish his that's
088fine then you'll get yours so so four minutes total but we'll do two and then you can state your name and address because they see you're both signed up so just get your name and address hi my name is chris actually can i move this i'm sorry i don't remember who was here before but i think they're shorter than i am hi my name is chris barlow i live at 15 overheal drive here in here in berlin my family and i bought a home a couple years ago we were thrilled to find a house in a nice neighborhood close to major highways with a well-regarded school system the building is magnificent and i'm looking forward to spending a little bit more time here once my eighth grade sun starts this fall as a black family
089fully aware that we were moving to a predominantly white town after having lived in new britain and middletown we were keenly aware that we'd be a minority but we didn't start to realize what the climate was like and told here we were here about a year we love the school system especially since our son has special needs faculty and administrators has been nothing but helpful and welcoming and while effectively non-verbal our son has had his usual effect of positively influencing everyone that came around him his mother and i didn't really start to realize the racial climate was like in town until one october morning in 2020 while on a walk in our neighborhood we saw a black-faced doll created by berlin predominantly displayed in front of walgreens we both did a double take and asked
090ourselves did we really just see what we thought you just saw we took a picture and sent an email to the superintendent and director of upbeat mr bingini apologized and had the display removed immediately he then invited us to join the newly formed social justice and equity committee we were both encouraged by this nice to see that the town embraces multiculturalism and is concerned about bias insativity and racism the committee was great until it wasn't then despite being inaugural members of this group we heard rumors that it was being disbanded we started talking with others in town and came across numerous indirentness about berlin we learned that in night 2019 berlin's police commissioner was replaced after being caught using racial slurs and reporting that he had trained his officers to use deadly force against african
091americans tales have circulated about apprehension in neighboring high schools not wanting to face berlin high and athletics due to colorful language directed at opposing players that read straight out of an episode of apple tv's hit show swagger thank you can you just take your name and address twana price can you start the timer 15 over hill drive and then you can just go a few extra seconds because i know you were taking over for him so i'm sure it won't take okay um this winter's second grade concert featured a negro slave song called closet key about a slave children the songwriter called in the note fearing punishment from their master these rumors and documented incidents do not paint berlin in a positive light and affect its reputation as the urban dictionary's most racist town in
092connecticut rumors travel and we've heard from members of our own group that berlin high school students who go on to ccsu have been pulled aside for directing colorful language at fellow students some faculty feel these students are ill prepared for life outside excuse me outside of town where the world's more diverse we're here as a group of residents who want to do something about it we're here today following the advice of an ancient african proverb if you want to go quickly go alone if you want to go far go further go together our friends are walking this journey with us are all and already making an impact our grassroots movement is growing we love to have the board of education involved and reinstate the social justice and equity committee while we understand the prevailing political
093pressure the board is under we had hoped that excuse me they stand on principle and not bow to pressure you started this committee please don't let it crumble because things got a little harder if the kids and coaches on swagger can overcome the challenge so can you thank you thank you going to go to jessica next next jess patra 420 lower lane since masks are handled i just want to say jackson tyler riley you guys get to see your friends smiling faces and no longer struggle to breathe so happy for you guys we've been fighting hard for you so now that that's handled um i'd like to see um through willard i'm not sure what control you guys have of this but i'd like to see volunteers welcome in all grade levels not pick and
094choose which grade levels volunteers are allowed i'm allowed in my kindergarteners class not in my second graders which causes issues in my home i'd also like to see us focus on the school's environment what's the culture inside these buildings teachers parents staff students all feeling defeated we've been through two years of misery it's time to get our schools back to life as we knew it we need to take down these shields during snacks in lunch times it's more like a prison visit and enough with the reprimanding the kids for turning around and talking to their peers behind them because they don't have a shield or a mask it really needs to end also super excited for willard um i think it's the 28th they get to dress as their favorite characters and we get to
095see their smiling faces as well as their costumes super pumped for that um and now let's see um equity committee i'm very sorry to hear that some of your children have been through some things that truly nobody should have to deal with um as of right now i would personally rather see our schools get back to life as we knew it i think that this is something that shouldn't be handled at the current moment i definitely think that once our schools are back to life as we knew it this is something that should come back on the table and i believe that no matter your race your gender your culture that everybody should be treated equally thank you i'm going to go to evalisa next good evening i'm elisa mayette 178 lower lane i am
096a teacher here at berlin high school but i also grew up in berlin went through the school system as did my husband as did our children so when we look around our classrooms and the greater berlin community we see a changing landscape and an increased need for educators to learn about culturally responsive practices we know that the population we serve has broadened over time and we must increase our capacity to ensure that every child in our community succeeds and thrives not just some children and not even most children but every child this is our legal and moral obligation the learning and discussion initiated through a committee like the esj committee serves only as a means to improve outcomes for all there should not be a political discussion but a chance for us to value include
097and celebrate every child in our care we know that a stagnant system a system that fails to respond to the needs of every student in our care is a system that fails to thrive overall we wish for no student to feel less than or to feel undervalued we wish every person to feel they contribute to our community i think everybody should be able to agree with that this push towards educating ourselves and having difficult conversations about race identity and inclusion are not isolated to our district but reflect a commitment in neighboring districts across the state to this work ensuring that students feel a part of their school community no matter their background race religious affiliation or identity improves school and civic pride increases standardized test scores and helps every student to be more well-rounded and
098engaged individuals these outcomes mean a stronger more successful growing the success of our community depends on our partnership toward common goals yours and all of ours we want our students to leave the berlin education system as productive members of a global community the work of a committee like esj is a means to that goal when we value support nurture and celebrate every child and make efforts to expand inclusivity thank you evelysa i'm gonna go to lisa b wilcox have i'm just not sure how to pronounce the last name so i don't want to mess it up is lisa here what lisa who lives at wilcox ave dress maybe no okay um then we are going to go to barbara is barbara here okay hello everyone my name is barbara sparkowski i live at 15 fairview
099place i want to say thank you for taking these masks off our children it's been rough it's been a rough one because of that i would have hoped i hope you guys can in this increase in our budget find some way for some counseling some bring in some extracurricular types of things to get these kids through this because they've already started and i appreciate mrs royce she's been amazing ever since you've brought her in please keep her they had talks today about not bullying kids who take them off don't take them off super excited that started because that's a big concern for all of us as well i don't know if you guys finished the rest of my email after my math grant but bullying is a problem i have two little white boys and
100my little white boys have been bullied for six years well my older one now going on six years kindergarten first grade second grade third grade all sorts of reasons his friends now are in counseling for wanting to kill themselves for you know these are very harsh truths that we're going through we're living right now we don't need to complicate it with race they've already it's their kids are not being nice to kids doesn't matter what the hell your race is they can't be nice to little white boys they can't be nice to each other this is a problem it's a problem in berlin it's probably a problem everywhere i come from a school where our white population four minutes away is only 15 in their schools it was a problem then it's a problem now
101i really hope we can put some focus on it and not have to drag other reasons into it i'm experiencing the bullying just the same i i don't have to hide behind the color i live it so there's lots of parents who are living this and i'm not looking to be treated special but we need to really get a grasp on this with our kids especially coming out of the last two years thank you thank you for now you're up next stakeholders 115 skinner road i'm here tonight to express my support of equity and social justice not just as an initiative of the boe but as the moral basis to realize what representative john lewis dedicated his life to the beloved community it's an ideal berlin should strive for it's the rising tide lifting all
102boats that president kennedy challenged us to achieve it's shocking that the committee was dismantled it's my hope the committee will be receded in a timely and transparent fashion and i've heard comments from many members of the board suggesting this work is better suited outside the boe that's a matter of debate what other institution is better suited to educate students as inclusive leaders and lifelong learners than the school system the unfortunate reality of outsourcing esj or removing it altogether is that it seeds the moral ground for the comfortable ground it's an admission the board prefers the tough work of equity and social justice to be taken up by others because the board is incapable of bringing justice onto itself it gives fear a seat at the table while mindfulness and inclusion are considered disposable and inconvenient
103if ever there was a lesson to teach students this is a case study in what not to do and i'll just close with an mlk phrase that he seems to be pretty popular around here these days the time is always right to do right thank you cornell sarah mortensen 56 madison drive i was going to talk about mass but thank you for voting the right way where everyone should get a choice i just want to say proud of my daughter riley tyler and jackson who left and that's it thank you thank you i'm gonna go to julie erickson good evening julie erickson 85 hickory hill road i'm here tonight to express my concerns about the dismantling of the social justice and equity committee first i'd like to thank all the board members for your service
104as a for former board of ed member myself i've been at that table for nine years there are often difficult decisions and hot topics that make us feel uneasy it has been said by many members of the board that the topic of social justice and equity is making the board divisive and polarizing what that really means is that the topic is making you feel uncomfortable squashing the committee is just an excuse to avoid tension one of the things we need to do as board members is to educate ourselves and if you haven't done so already i would suggest that board members attend a diversity equity and inclusion training becoming knowledgeable about what dei really is and recognizing your own unconscious bias is an important part of the process and first step teaching diversity equity and
105inclusion to students helps to instill moral and social traits that will support their growth throughout their younger years and into adult life by teaching these topics each student has access in a safe place to challenge discuss explore and form their values and opinions an education is a civil right and any child who does not feel safe coming to school is being denied their civil right as a board member you have an obligation to dismantle systems of oppression that prevent children from accessing a great public education because of their race gender sexual orientation culture disability or nationality your obligation is for each and every student thank you i'm going to go to corey whiteside hi folks hey thanks for uh for providing this forum tonight and i do also want to jump on the bandwagon for
106thanking for the early decision and the emails about masking that was a that that was definitely um that was on my mind as well but i'm here to talk about the equity and social justice committee uh i did write a letter or an email expressing uh my support for uh some some form of work in this area i think there is space in this community and on this board uh to to discuss ways that the curriculum can be reflective of some of the principles that we that we do agree on uh in my letter um you know on these principles i think that it's it's most important that it should partner this committee should partner with parents and and in the most transparent way possible i think that somebody else also referred to perhaps the
107reason why it became a divisive issue was because of the way it was formed there were some perceptions about it there was some uh there wasn't transparency in uh in in all situations i think so uh i do think that uh if you're gonna reform it it needs to have a very very tight focus that is outcome-based and it should use it it should work toward non-divisive standards applied to the learning environment that counter racism and all forms of intolerance with an emphasis on fairness understanding and a common humanity we want a pro-human approach and not a divisive color based lens applied to everything it should work toward promoting pro-human values in the classroom so students can learn in a welcoming inclusive non-divisive school environment that's also i'm hearing a lot of this the reaction
108talking about promoting division or division being a byproduct so i believe the committee should be reauthorized i very much hope thank you sorry you can't finish we've got to stay consistent with the rules this evening um alan allen v lower lane reading last names state your name in address alan verrastro 535 lower lane excuse me the board is already aware of my position on the matter of social justice i've emailed you all a few times we've had some discussions i just want to say that the the proposed action items i didn't have much of an issue with in in the concepts of having committee to to address injustices in the community is commendable my issue is with the methods and the resources proposed that is what i found divisive and corrosive uh it's very counterproductive
109to the to having equality and unity in our community before the board votes to proceed i would sincerely urge the members to thoroughly review the learning for justice programs and ask yourself is this really the best path forward if you were buying a house you'd buy the would you buy the first one the realtor showed you probably not but this is the only thing that was presented to you i think there's better options that fit our community better a lot of what i hear also there's a time and a place i don't know if the children especially kindergarten is where we want to start with this some of the problems sound like they're more with the adults in this community so maybe it's something that should be more public um and uh so i just
110ask you to consider other options thank you thank you kiarson what it's curious oh you're all set okay great and then there was one other person on the list that didn't come up lisa budras is there anyone else i would like to address the board you can go on up and state your name and address for the record john patrol lower lane i would like to wait sorry what number lower lane 420 okay i would like to start by saying that we all want the same thing for our kids being a safe undivided respectful place to learn having said that i do not agree with the learning for justice curriculum there are more inclusive programs to choose from i would like to ask the board to consider another program one that includes everyone in one
111group instead of separating people into groups this is the very thing dr martin luther king fought against so again i would like to ask please consider a different program thank you thank you before we wrap up this section is there anyone else i would like to address the board who hasn't already okay we're going to move on thank you everyone who spoke and thank you everyone for being respectful of one another with differing opinions this evening i really appreciate it we're moving on to the next item personnel we have a retirement of the science teacher at berlin high school i'm going to turn it over to superintendent big benigny to say a few words yes dave dill judas long-time science teacher at berlin high school has announced his retirement play dave has been a fantastic
112asset to public schools over the years making a huge impact on a science department as well as the relationships he's established with students dave will be surely missed by all of the faculty but more so by the students that he's connected with over and over again since 10 years we wish dave great happiness in his retirement thank you thank you do we have a motion for consideration i'll move to accept the retirement of david del judis teacher of science in berlin high school effective june 30th 2022 also to thank him for his eight for his 38 years of service he has provided the youth of berlin and wish him good health and happiness in his retirement years do we have a second so motion by adam second by kerry is there any discussion yep go
113ahead mr deljudis is an outstanding teacher i had him as a student and sadly i think he's kind of the last of a generation of teachers that i knew thinking of mr warburton in in the deljudice i mean there was just a great group of teachers uh back in the day i'm dating myself but excellent excellent person and he'll be so really missed you're getting old yes you graduated anyone else all right well we wish him well in retirement all those in favor aye opposed okay the vote carries 8-0 moving on to the content agenda do we have a motion for consideration so motion by adam do we have a second second by melissa um any discussion about the content agenda all those in favor aye opposed okay eight zero oh sure i wasn't here
114for two of those okay yes so it's going to be seven in favor one abstention thank you moving too quick um i'm gonna move to the next part of the equity and social justice committee i am going to clear up a few misconceptions that are here um so the first off this was not a board decision to dismantle it as the chair i made that decision i had to make that decision um at the time and i'm going to explain exactly what that decision was and why it was made and why it was necessary at the time so i'm going to read to you what i read at the meeting um when i did that just for consistency so first off this committee was put in by the former board chair without a vote so
115it can be removed without a vote for anyone questioning how it was done why there was no board discussion about it and i don't think it's fair for the board to be taking the fall for that when i made that decision as the board chair number two um with something this important to the community we had an hour of audience of citizen we need to hear from all sides if this committee was not dismantled we probably would not have heard from the other side this has been going on since august the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results we kept putting this on the agenda and we could not move with it so i could not continue to run these meetings and i will also say that
116sitting in this chair has been almost an impo impossible role of the six years i've been on the board of ed the past seven months has been almost more than my full-time job and my part-time job combined it has taken precedent over my family my one and a half-year-old son and i still continue to put it forward and i still continue to navigate the challenges and i still continue to try and best solve the problems however we need to hear from all people in the community and not just a subgroup and without making a call like that we we wouldn't have heard from that many people so i would like to address the recommendation i made to dismantle the social justice and equity committee i recommended that the advisory committee be dismantled that word was
117chosen intentionally it was not dissolved it was not disbanded it was dismantled this word was used intentionally because if you dismantle you can mantle it back together so i also stated that this would be included in this agenda item and all i was doing was restating the board is more than welcome to say their piece um but like i said in previous meetings we as a board we need the opportunity to come together and have honest and open discussion with one another we are a new board and we need to be able to build trust amongst us and have open dialogue without getting screamed at and yelled at and being at constant attack and criticism this job has been harder than any other position i've ever had in my life and sometimes i question why
118am i doing this for the community when they treat us so poorly however we need to come together as a board determine next steps and then come together as a community so we opened it up for everyone to talk we will discuss as a board in a retreat setting where we can talk amongst one another and determine the next steps for this committee and we we want to do what's right and best for our community but some of this is above our pay grade here we're not social justice and equity experts we're just trying to do what's best i'm so happy to see other elected officials are here this evening because as we move forward with this committee and whatever form it takes it's going to have to encompass the whole community and not just
119a small section of the board of ed we want to do things well we want to run a good board a strong board what's right and best for all the children but you know we can't keep going back to the drawing board and not accomplishing anything so at this time we are going to have a board retreat we have one on the calendar i am hoping that we have the opportunity as a board to really discuss build that dialogue build that trust amongst us and really come back and report with a thoughtful purposeful direction of this committee we know it's important and we know the work has to get done in what capacity i don't have the answer right now but you know i just wanted to share that out i will open it up
120to the board or the superintendent if they would like to add any comments sure um first of all i appreciate the opportunity to have a retreat because i think that for one thing being a new council i don't think i've talked to people on that side of the table uh since the beginning this has been a very difficult time even just to communicate as a board not what we're used to that being said i think that you know the the and social justice a committee needs to be addressed whether it's a larger group more community-based with representatives of each area i've talked to some of you that spoke this evening and my own personal opinion i have not shared it with anyone else was just if we did something to have you know somebody from
121the council somebody from the police department somebody from the chamber of commerce from kiwanis to the lions club i mean really make it a a larger group that's more representative of the town um that being said i think that that that is one issue something else that i've mentioned previously as well to a number of you is i think that uh as a board we need to also pay close attention to the mental health of our students right now which is uh suffering coming out of the pandemic i think it's a major priority um you know some will say it's because of math some will say it's because of pandemic it's we have a number of things going on right now that we need to step back reevaluate and try to address these issues as
122best we can in the most collegiate way and in coming together because i think that without a doubt everybody in this room wants to do what's best for the kids and what's best for the community most of us have grown up in this town and love this town chose to to raise our own children here and i don't like to see divisiveness i don't like to see yelling or disagreements i mean but there's got to be middle ground we can't put our head in the sand and say it's not an issue i think it is an issue but how do we address it in what method and what model that is something that we're going to have to dig into a little more for for for the sake of this new board understanding that a
123lot of us came in or a lot of people came in in the middle of covet trying to deal with virtual learning how to get the technology in place what are the rules going to be like we're bringing bringing students back in the the plexiglas the ppe the funding from the state the funding from the federal government there's been a lot going on this has not been a normal year so i do say be a little patient i think we've got a lot going on right now but it is not something that's going to be forgotten but i think it's something that needs to be addressed and hopefully through a retreat atmosphere we can have this discussion in the broader base and then bring something that back that's going to be equitable for all as
124well thank you adam anyone else on the board like to add their two cents i will go ahead um i think you know obviously something that adam just said um really resonates for me given my profession mental health among children has been following a pretty steep trajectory of an increased proliferation of significant mental health issues and that was on the rise prior to the pandemic but the pandemic has really exacerbated that considerably catapulted it um so i do think it's of of great concern i think a number of issues obviously contribute to that i think a lot of adults are struggling with um living in um very challenging times where there's a convergence of very significant challenging issues and i think to echo some of what you have shared adam and what you have shared
125julie the ways to come to um to improved mental health improved well-being improved community well-being is through connection and conversation and inviting one another into conversations right we can only come to higher ground if we help each other there so having members of our community members of our of other boards within town but also just members of our larger community a community of which you know we all that we all share of which we're all apart um come together and uh not only be willing to share their opinions but be willing to listen to others opinions is of vital importance in advancing um anything that we do thank you and reflecting on the work of the committee i think the important aspect is the committee was supposed to have a greater impact beyond itself and
126to hear many of you speak tonight the committee was important to have that impact also on our students but in in being part of the committee and i apologize for my time not when i was not in the district when the committee started being part of several of the meetings and things and then talking to citizens in the community talking to former board members around the committee what was occurring within the committee was not even building consensus amongst those on the committee and i think that we may be in a new place after hearing from this evening of it being greater than just the board of ed and that people now have a greater commitment to making a difference for students for the community and beyond not to say that people didn't have that commitment
127to start but i'm not quite sure that the commitment was actually cultivated at a level where people felt that the committee was moving forward in in the correct manner and what i mean by that is as julia said several times things were brought to the board several things were brought forward speaking to many members on the community on the various subcommittees how the committee's met how those things were brought forward the involvement level how much was being brought forward what the expectations were and not to make excuses but trying to put a committee of this nature together in the middle of a pandemic when you can't meet in person is also a difficult task too so i hope that all of you will give the board and myself a chance to reevaluate where we are
128what is tangible what what we can move forward with in a way to make a difference and not and not just say we're doing something and not actually have meaning i i go back to the work that we did for a number of years and i know it's not the same but it does have some of those overlaps laughing traits and work with habits of the mind the kind compassionate considerate those values that we want everyone to have i know that the equity of social justice is bigger but the foundational pieces were there they were supported across the community they were supported with our students and i really believe that this work has to have that commonality and it needs more support than just one side or the other side there needs to be a
129concerted effort of the whole and those that are on the committee have to be the first step in building what should be moving forward not that it's the national standards here not that it's fair but there has to be consensus on the committee that this is the right direction that we're moving so i i appreciate everyone's comment this evening and i definitely appreciate those that did volunteer their time for the committee i don't want to feel that it was wasted thank you anyone else on the board like to have their remarks okay so that addressed that we're going to move on to facilities related update mr cognor do you have an update for the board good evening board members and all our guests my name is jeff coogno i'm the director of operations my job
130is to give a facilities report i was taking some notes today to to put the most current things down and i realized that we finally got to a point where a lot of things we've been talking about for a number of months are ready to go forward so we've got some happy things to talk about here tonight i'll make it as quick as i can um i'm going to kind of go by when they're going to happen in march which of course is pretty quick we're going to start the stage lighting project over at mcgee which i know the principal's been looking for for a long time as some of the other teachers we wanted to do a much bigger project at mcgee and we will get to it at some point for the whole
131auditorium but the town has decided to start funding piece by piece and that's better than not so we're going to start the stage lighting project with about twenty five thousand dollars of uh seat money from the top that's this coming month uh in the april break three of the projects we've been talking about for a while griswold band room which is about twenty thousand dollars the hubbard student storage uh facility um cabinet work with about sixty five is going to start in april break and the hubbard skylight which i know people are going to be a lot happy about including myself uh which the town put some money up for uh is going to be done so all those three projects will be completed in the april break um in summer of 2022 we have
132three projects at mcgee one the one we spoke about a while ago which is the uh in the library media center the lighting project which was started last year put together estimated a bid designed and that's worth about 185 000 that's going to go forward in the summer mcgee computer infrastructure is going to start at about three hundred thousand dollars and mcgee health suite which is a relatively new project um that's going to start with some grant money it's going out to bid very shortly design is just about completed that's about 120 000 worth of asset grant money the last thing i want to talk about is one we've heard about for a while and that's the willard hvac system i'm sure you all remember that the town is going to be going out for
133money or using grant money to do the hvac system it's very expensive project for all the elementary schools it's estimated somewhere between 2.8 million and probably 5 million per school good news is it's not going to happen this summer i'm being fictitious uh they're not going to be able to start it this summer so everybody that's been asking me whether we can still use mcgee for all the summer school the ymca and a number of other things that happen in the summer at mcgee it's a very busy place it seems by the best information i have that we'll still have we'll still be able to do that at mcgee this summer good reasons for that there's a lot of things still to do on the hvac the process which includes the funding however this monday
134night the town is uh trying to move ahead the appropriation from the arb funding to be able to fund that project and start as soon as we can so appropriation will be march first the plans and specs are all complete on the project the next thing i understand as of today that they're going to do is to put on an rfp for a construction manager the reason they're doing that is that they want a private construction manager construction company come in to run that project it's going to be a complicated one it's going to be a large project and so therefore they'll be going out with an rfp to pick i'm sure a very very good construction manager uh they'll get proposals from a number of pretty probably pretty sizable firms and choose one within
135the next couple of months after that that construction manager's role is to do a cost estimate on the project so they know they can have enough money to fund it and also very importantly to do a schedule schedule is very important for us at the board of ed in the public schools because of course they will close down willard the following summer so in 2023 i don't think we're going to depend upon willard being open for any of those activities to do in the summer which means we will be planning for and working for um having those pro having those programs put in one of our other schools um so it takes some time to to make those plans the schedule will probably be using the all of 2023 and depending on when the manager
136gets on depending on what we can do earlier if possible when designing everything else they're going to see if they can do some stuff in the fall some in the summer and the rest in the spring i don't believe it's going to be just a six month excuse me a six week project and that's all we have in the summer as you know because the rest of the time we're we're occupied with school so it's going to take a while but the good news is as far as projects go it's all going the way it should we've we've got the funding procured we've got the design done we're going to have professionals in there doing the work and now we've got to get a cross estimated schedule so that's that's the news on what's going
137to happen in the next almost year and a half of projects we have on the books as i said we've been thinking about these projects for a while uh they're all going to they're all doing very very well in the process and a lot of them will be done by the summer do you have any questions okay thank you thank you thank you for the report i'm going to turn it over now to superintendent benegne to report out on open choice program participation for 2022 2023 thank you currently we have for next year we're projected to have 93 students returning from the open choice program i am requesting that we accept 20 open choice seats the likelihood that we will have 20 students and fill all those seats last year we did not fill all
138of the seats i am concerned only because of where the budget if we were not if we do fill those 20 seats and all 93 students do return next year we do have students that opt out of the choice program typically the only reason that they opt out is they move out of hartford so they no longer become eligible to attend the berlin public schools that would give us 113 choice students in the berlin public schools for the next school year that puts us roughly at four point two five percent if we do not maintain the four percent our amount of funding that we receive from the state drops by two thousand dollars per student so we're looking at a two hundred thousand dollar deficit if our numbers do not maintain that so right now
139the students would be recommended that we have ten students at the k level divided up four students at griswold two at hubbard and four at emma willard heart when you declare the seats you need to declare what school they'd be at also and then in first grade we'd have four at hubbard and six at emma willard heart so a total of ten if all students all seats were filled the only thing that would give us additional seats is if the students have siblings that are in other grades typically when we can we will accept them we don't guarantee it but we will accept the meaning if a student had a sibling in fifth grade we would take that sibling that's in k and and and fifth so that's the seat declaration that i'm asking for
140for the 22-23 school year will be 20 seats before we open it up to discussion do we have a motion for consideration regarding the level of participation in the open choice program for the 2022-2023 school year as presented do we have a second the motion by kerry second by adam now we can open it up for a discussion thank you for reporting that out um does anyone have any questions comments concerns reasons they may not want to support this brian right now we have 105 students enrolled is that am i reading this chart correctly right now we have 105 which as of today it was reduced by two because two students withdrew so we have so it's 103. yes and so if we're at 103 that means 10 are graduating out essentially if we if
141we'll i'll just use the term graduating yes okay i just want to make sure i understand how this this was put together yes could you also address the misconception that's floating out there that by accepting the students we are now creating positions and adding classes because i know this comes up every single time so when we accept the students as i spoke we have to designate what school they'll be attending and then those students will be dispersed so right now we have four attending griswold at the k level kindergarten so we would might put all of them one in each different classroom so it would not mean an additional teacher it means if there was 17 they now have 18 in those in those four classrooms so we would add one additional student to them
142that's why they're dispersed amongst the three different schools and looking at the numbers for griswold going from k to one it seemed more pertinent to put the students at willard and hubbard four and six and that's how we've done in the past and the other model is that we don't offer seats in the higher grade levels we try to take as many as we can at k and one um in some years we've only tried we've only needed to accept 10 students and we try to do the k level first but this year being that we need 20 we thought that greater likelihood of filling the seats by doing kn first thank you thanks for that clarification anyone else on the board have any questions or comments concerns you guys could yeah this is pretty
143consistent i'm actually sorry it took us a long time i was pulling up the history of our enrollment since like 2016. so i was seeing the consistency so this is keeping up with the same consistency we try to stay a little over four percent usually four point three four point four um but sometimes we come in right at four this year i think we were 4.09 um so in one year we were like 3.98 right 3.98 in the state wouldn't round it to four that year even though you know so a couple hundreds anything else from the board i just want to comment because i um will not forget a presentation that was offered by a number of students who are identified as open choice students come from harvard um and it was such an
144incredibly moving um presentation um because they spoke about the positive experiences that they did had in the berlin public schools and and really um i wish we didn't have to kind of differentiate between who is an open choice student and who is a berlin student and that they we just refer to them all as berlin students because i think they do feel and i hope that they feel that they are all berlin students i also think it's important to recognize that there's a value add in having people come to berlin public schools to be berlin students that doesn't translate into dollars and cents um so i just want to add that as a comment um especially after some of tonight's comments well i think i think important comment is not to refer to and we
145don't suggest referring as open choice students we have students as a regional school that we're going to have we have students that reside in hartford we have students that reside in berlin i think it's important to refer them but i do think it's important to think about the number that we're accepting and the importance of being in them is that those and the moneys are tied right to our budget and and staffing and so on so um not maintaining a four percent of choice students could you know lead us to a two hundred thousand dollar deficit in the budget i think it's important let me just say i think it's important to highlight that fact i just also want to extend that conversation to include the value added because people are a part of our
146community we try every other year to do that um interview with the students and share it with you so yeah absolutely thank you for that we will move to a vote all those in favor is there anyone opposed okay the vote is eight zero thank you and now we are going to move to our next agenda item the discussion of the graduation site for 2022. um and i'll show you i'll turn it over to superintendent benigny so principal use has put together two options for you in the packet option number one is that on friday june 10th at 5 30 pm start we would have graduation at sage park outdoor on the football field as we did in the past year it's important that we're offering these two options because wealthy hall is not available
147or hasn't been it may have changed but when we checked they were not renting this year yet so the rain date would be if there's inclement weather should the weather and then we'd have the rain day on saturday with an 11 30 start which would be in the gymnasium here at the high school using the agent the capacity is about 1 500 students would use the auditorium to hold additional 600 and they would stream the graduation ceremony here that's option one weather call we made no later than two o'clock on that friday to notify families that so we could set up appropriate weather emergency administrative personnel would also assist in making the decision that's option one any questions about option one pretty option two would be friday at 5 30 still rain or shine does
148not mean it would be outside at stage park if it's inclement weather we could move we'd move indoors at 5 30. so we'd be planning if this isn't that we have to plan two setups for for the graduation one would be set up inside won't be outside if there was a chance of inclement weather same day allowing families all night grad accordingly so option two could cost more as far as a setup if need be and some more logistical issues to deal with but it will would allow for all blank grad to happen as it has in the past so in speaking to principal eustace she wants to provide you with both options let the board decide which option they feel is would be i guess more appeasing to the parents for graduation i guess
149is the best way to put it principal so if you have questions uh we had a dialogue about our thoughts and if you'd like to talk to eileen by all means you can have a link so i know we should probably make the motion in a second before we open it up for discussion but i will say i am slightly reluctant to make a decision right here and now based on what has happened in the past but um with graduation um before we open it up and ask eileen eustis any questions do we have a motion for consideration a move to hold the commencement for the class of 2022 at sage park do we have a second so the motion by adam and second by harry now we can open it up for discussion so
150i will turn it over to the board i'll let you guys take the lead on this one go ahead adam i know just because my wife is on the calls for the all-night grad party and that is going to be that's pretty much locked in for that friday correct the thought of the seniors coming back from an all-night grad party turning around getting home at i don't know 7 or 8 a.m and then going to graduation i don't think it's really going to work um i personally would be in favor of option two uh keep it for friday let people plan accordingly for relatives coming into town um and uh you know hope for hope for good weather and if if there isn't then at least still on that day all night grad party continues
151on that evening and we move on thanks adam i don't want to be no i agree i think the option locking in the same date and we have too low two solutions to keep it on the same day makes the most sense what's the consensus of like everyone else like the teachers and you and would you prefer one or the other ideally it's nice to just know the day and the ballpark of time so if you have inclement weather we could adjust the time accordingly so like if we know showers are going to come through right at 5 30 we might say we're gonna push start time to 6 30 okay let the showers go through get everything dried off and let people come so i will say it it's a little bit more of
152a challenge to get people to work because you're now asking them to commit potentially for two days and things like that the bottom line is we'll make it work we're gonna be there no matter what um so i think you know we we really can make either option work there there is as far as the setup for same day it really doesn't matter whether you decide friday or you know option one or option two because you're still gonna make a weather call on saturday as well so really the only you'd come inside if it's if it's inclement weather dangerous weather i i have done this at some other schools that i've worked in and honestly sometimes we've even been out there in a little bit of mist because people would much rather be outside and
153be together versus coming inside but i will say at least our inside option although it may not be completely ideal we have a beautiful gymnasium it's air conditioned there's plenty of seating don't keep in mind too we'll also have seating on the floor for the graduates we'll set up a small staging area just like what we would do outside and if we would also be able to then have overflow seating in here should we need it and be able to simulcast right in here so i think we would be able to actually i know we'd be able to accommodate just as many people indoors as we would outdoors if you recall last year we didn't have that option because of the pandemic we had no option whatsoever to come inside so that's a little bit
154of a difference for this year but again i think if you if you set the day and the time it really if you think about family planning people have family coming into town they're planning family celebrations and dinners and things like that things the next day and you definitely have the all-night grad party to consid consider because there's a lot of time and planning that goes in and they don't have any flexibility so if we moved it to saturday all night grad would still be friday night thank you thanks lindsay do you have any thoughts down there i don't mean to put you on the spot but you are graduating this year sorry you guys have been quiet all night i would agree with option two just because of what mr celina said i agree
155the all-night grad is kind of important to the seniors and i think it would make the most sense to know that that would be after our graduation so [Music] okay okay and then what about um gina or matt i know you guys or tim have had your children graduate from oh and tracy i'm sorry any any of the parents who have had to so i mean julia realistically if you go back to the pitchforks and torches the last time we brought this up a number of years ago is you know that i was in favor of actually having graduation in town at that point it seems to me that we don't necessarily have an option for where it's just when and honestly any graduation celebration is exactly a celebration the kids are just as excited
156to walk across the stage whether it's at sage park or wealthy hall wealthy hall is not available so yeah i see that it's it's more expensive for us to do it at sage park but that's okay thank you anyone else so it sounds like the second option appears to be best so we set the date and we stick with the date does anyone oppose that option you know they said the fall of 2022 so we'll just resume back to welty hall after 2022 and this fall for next year i think once that option becomes available it would come back to the board and the board would need to make a decision on that last year the response from the graduation though we had no choice that people was a beautiful day enjoy being outside it
157may not be the case this year if it's not a beautiful day but i think it would come back to the board when wealthy becomes an option and then we would make that decision at that point you know in the past we've done you know surveys and things to see where people feel about graduation maybe that's something that the board directs us to do prior but it would come back to the board just at the graduation date and the location any other questions so are we going with option two just like because i know people are already asking and it'll be that that'll be great news to share yes okay all right excellent we have to change the motion right sage park i think option one versus option two is up to you we prefer
158to but you do what you want so we can move to a vote all those in favor i opposed eat zero and then there is last item almost the last item um policy review and revision there is first reading shipment in goodwin has recommended recommended revisions to a number of policies and bylaws noted in the summary sheet posted in schoology so i will turn it over to either superintendent benigny or tim who chairs this ad hoc committee um and just to share about it there's no action that needs to be taken on this item this evening and if any other board member would like to chime in by all means i mean typically we don't it's a first reading the the notes are there the policies are in schoology a lot of it is just
159legal updates uh i think a lot of it was pronoun neutralization as well um a couple of interesting ones that were in there related to bylaws and board meetings and roll call votes going forward um things like that so just different things to take a look at as we go forward but nothing major in terms of difference none of them are new they're all just updated revisions so it's not as though you're having a new policy it's just whatever changes either because of legislation they felt the policy to change or because of the times it just was time to update it i guess as we've done in the past that people have questions they should route them through you julia yep and we will get those answered and then the second reading and adoption will
160take place at the march 14th meeting so certainly if you have questions beforehand send them to me and i will do my best to get answers sent out to the whole board and if there's anything that comes up that night we will certainly have a discussion um but you know if there is anything that you know we may not have the answer to that night i would i would really appreciate hearing about it beforehand so we can do the appropriate research and get an accurate answer so thank you for that any anything else in regards to the policy review first reading all right one last item on the agenda do we have a second so motion by adam second by kerry said it before melissa all those in favor aye opposed 8-0 22 we have
161it during the meeting thank you everyone for a great meeting and thank you to all the members of the community who came out and spoke you