Bolton Board of Education - August 20, 2020

001meeting is called order thank you oh flag wow how convenient thank you i pledge allegiance to the flag honor god indivisible with liberty and justice oh yes comments from the audience yes i do have one this evening if i could ask everyone to mute their um systems thank you this is from greta brone first i want to thank the bolton public school administration for their exhaustive work over the past few months ongoing adaptability and continued communication with parents greta lives at 58 tinker pond road i next want to make the case for students and families from the perspective of a parent and a public health professional and reiterate the notion that our current viral climate supports in-person learning for students who choose to do so taking this step towards normalcy is critical to the overall

002health of our community remote learning for families that find it impractical and infeasible due to employment lack of education instructional skills young children and elderly to care for at home etc will continue to foster inequities widen achievement gaps and damage our social determinants of health economic stability education health care housing the things we know substantially impact health outcomes both acute and chronic we need to carefully weigh the burden of cover 19 with the increasing burden of the unintended consequences that impact our children's health now and in the future i secondly want to support the notion of giving families choice for those families in which copa 19 would be a high danger they should continue as is being provided to have the choice to keep students learning remotely lastly i want to remind parents students faculty

003and staff to enter the school year with a positive attitude about the changes put in place that will keep teachers and students safe as upbeat as we can be at the present moment this is a high anxiety time for everyone masks are the new norm and the most effective mitigation strategy we have right now let's make sure to let kids know it's okay to wear a mask to wash their hands frequently and social distance as appropriate these shouldn't be frightening or negative measures albeit a bit uncomfortable let's continue to focus on social and emotional health and be reminded that children are in fact our future we need to rally around our teachers and students support them bring them back to the classroom while always remaining flexible to our ever-changing environment again our case transmission and

004positivity rates are so extremely low at the present moment that it will be difficult to even suspect cover 19 as a diagnosis among ill students entering the classroom this fall it's time to give in-person learning a try that is all i have for public comment this evening you um in addition to the agenda i know we need to add a personnel committee report and board buildings and grounds committee report is there anything else no that is all i have so i thought we would add buildings and grounds under 2a and personnel under 2b yep got it under board of education committee reports 2a2b onto routine business items uh the approval of minutes do i have a motion to approve the june 11th 2020 board of ed virtual business meeting this is chris davey so moved

005sir second pike second uh any discussions edits carrying on all those in favor of adopting the june 11th minutes say i i i i opposed uh abstentions was there someone who was not there i don't recall i don't think so uh that passes uh do i have a motion please to accept the july 22nd 2020 board of ed virtual special meeting minutes this is chris davey so moved al second anne decker thank you is there any discussion or editing on the july 22nd minutes hearing none all those in favor of adopting july 22nd minutes please say hi hi anyone opposed is there any obstacles hearing none that also passes and finally we'll be looking for a motion to adopt the august 3rd 2020 virtual special meeting minutes that would be august 5th please oh i'm

006sorry that's okay yeah that date hasn't happened yet or today actually maria makes a motion to accept the minutes thank you riaz or a second super second do we have any discussion or editing or questions on the august 5th meeting minutes hearing none all those in favor of adopting please say aye hi hi hi anyone opposed any abstentions those also pass uh routine business number two board of education committee reports uh 2a was that personnel did we say buildings and grounds please okay okay let me unmute um so building and grounds committee met today um and john gave an update on um just some of the happenings and some of the business that the school has had over the summer um first off he talked about how the custodial crew has been daily cleaning and

007disinfecting the entire schools they've been working really hard doing this but working uh split and alternating uh shifts to limit exposure to a coven they've also done normal summer cleaning and stripped and waxed some of the floors of the school with a future goal of doing one quarter of the school per year so that in every four years they would strip and wax the entire school [Music] they painted classroom door frames at bcs rooms 1 through 22 were completed hvac has been checked and fixed several times recently there was a motor seized at bcs which to my understanding does not have a cost at this time but they're getting fixed vhs carpet has been replaced uh in several areas including the library the office and guidance a couple of things related to cobia 19 plexi

008was installed in the offices desk shields for both teachers and students supplies and disinfectants were delivered and distributed classrooms were reorganized and excessive furniture was removed to maximize social distancing when students come back and full ppe kits were ordered and hopefully won't be needed uh additionally relating to the recent storm there was no uh nothing major on the school grounds uh regarding the storms um the tennis courts uh work is underway on the tennis courts uh concrete will be poured next week i believe um and then finally at bcs 28 of the 44 windows that need to be replaced have been replaced um i also wrote in my notes that kristen really likes john what i really meant to write very highly commends john and uh his group for all the work that they've done

009recently and over the summer and uh in turn john also really had very high praise for all of his staff also um and then one more final thing uh the the new position in administration that we had talked about uh will free up andy to give john some more support um as needed thank you there was a lot of stuff i was kind of writing quickly if there's anything i missed i apologize but i think that's a pretty good synopsis that's a great synopsis and i'll add a few more things under my part i think chris has a question yeah a couple questions um what was the purpose of replacing the you said the bcs library carpet because i thought that that's vhs perfectly that makes much more sense um and then what is the

010purpose of disinfecting the entire school every day if there are currently no students there no that i think that was um maybe just yeah what i meant was that cleaning of the school was taking place every day to clean the area of the school was cleaned and disinfected every day so cleaning has happened routinely throughout the summer including deep cleaning as well as stripping of floors painting things like that and back when covered first when we first went out and the guys went to a split shift and we're doing a lot of deep cleaning um so if there's been cleaning right that general summer cleaning that happens and we are prepared to do uh you know a a deeper clean if you will each night once students and staff are back in the buildings okay

011uh personnel yes uh personnel committee has met over the summer and of late a number of times and all these meetings were in regards to our upcoming teacher negotiations yep thank you and and now we are on is there any community meeting reports a correct pta not none of the above very good um i'll turn things over to superintendent heck for the superintendent of schools report thank you so as uh the board is aware uh the bolton public schools will be opening in a hybrid model this approach blends traditional face-to-face instruction with flexibility of synchronous and asynchronous online learning to curb the spread of coronavirus we are planning this phase-in approach with the hopes of returning to a full in-person learning on october 14th the decision to return to in full in-person learning on october

01214th or to move to a full distance learning model at any time will be made in collaboration with local health officials and driven by health metrics in bolton and our area the hybrid model is a phase in return to school model similar to the state's reopening phase-in model it allows for the focus on proven mitigation strategies including social distancing cohorting wearing a face covering by all and enhanced cleaning and sanitizing our goal is to keep our staff and our students as safe as possible and to prevent community spread on wednesday bcs and central office administrators hosted parent meetings for grade level bands 2 3 5 and 6 8 in the morning and at the high school for grade 9 and then again for grades 10 and 12. the purpose of all of these meetings was

013to share information and to answer questions from parents the meetings were very well received and appreciated school will begin for students on wednesday september 2nd the first three days of school as a reminder are early release days for students only wednesday september 2nd will be the first day of school for students with last names a through k in the buster group the first day of school for students with last names l through k in the bulldog group will be thursday september 3rd all students will be working remotely on friday which will give us an opportunity to test out our technology which will have been handed out in the first two days the following week is labor day and the buster group will be in school on tuesday and wednesday the bulldog group will be in

014school on thursday and friday of that week while we are in the hybrid model our regularly scheduled early release fridays will be on wednesday afternoon of that week and uh both mr misselli and mr giard will be sending out reminders as we go along we've extended the survey for return to school for parents to share with us their plan uh until this friday august 21st i would like to thank debbie wagner and our wonderful ladies in the cafeteria for the great job they have done since this pandemic hit feeding our families in bolton they have served over 22 000 meals i would also like to thank john buttremovich and our custodians for their outstanding work getting us ready for the start of school i would also like to thank our administrators who have been tirelessly

015working over the summer along with the numerous staff members who are so dedicated who have been part of our reopening committee our teacher leaders who have been working tirelessly as well to support our administrators so that we're ready to go for any of the three plans that we have for this year whether it be the hybrid full opening or the distance learning model we have amazing staff in bolton and i feel so thankful to work with such amazing people i would also like to thank the board for your ongoing support and i would also like to thank the community for theirs i'd now like to turn it over to mrs malinowski for an update on curriculum and technology good evening as we prepare for this school year our work will focus on continuous learning and

016equity for all students in order to ensure this we have secured the important instructional technology tools that will assist our teachers and students we have secured chromebooks for all students in the district now that's great news even if you can hear that over my dog barking first time all day sorry um these devices will be distributed by classroom teachers on wednesday and thursday of the first week of school students use and technology expectations will be reviewed during the opening days to assist with instruction for both in-class and remote students we have stationary webcams similar to the separate webcams many of us have on our computers for all classrooms and microphones have been ordered so as we may have heard on the news technology is a hot commodity things have been ordered our bags for the

017chromebooks and our microphones are ordered so we are getting them as they come in i will assure you that the microphones on the webcams will suffice it will be better with the microphones as we get them the webcams are stationary as i said and will have limited scope where the teacher will control where the camera is projected for students on the remote parallel learning track chromebooks and supplies will be distributed distributed and coordinated through the buildings a communication about this will be forthcoming in terms of curriculum last may we began the process of reprioritizing our standards content and skills at all levels and with all subjects i have to thank our staff for getting ahead of the curve it's set up has set us up beautifully for the start of this year we're not starting

018from square one teachers met to identify standards contents and skills that were most impacted by distance learning and communicated this with the receiving teachers this information was documented and we would be able to pick up where we left off with this planning we have time dedicated during this teachers first six days to revise their opening lessons which will also include an added emphasis on developing a strong classroom community mrs goldschnider will speak more specifically about our lessons and other social emotional supports that will be included with our opening units this year grading will return to a traditional standards-based report in the k-5 level and a numerical grade in 612. so yes we are going back to grading we will not begin the year with a heavy load of assessments we want to be clear that

019our students are welcomed back to school in whatever form they are choosing to come and our focus is going to be on that community first instead teachers of traditional assessments that we may have used earlier in the year in previous years our teachers will use a variety of formative assessments that may even look like games that will help them determine where their students are and help them plan for the next steps as students adjust to school teachers will just determine the best time to return to some of the assessments that we've typically used at the start of the school year for that we certainly will look at that as a developmental level and as we are are getting to know our students it's very different this year and that students are coming to us new

020and we really want to focus on building that community for all learners in order to accomplish this in a hybrid model we will be using a blended learning approach to instruction blended learning is a model that combines online and face-to-face learning spaces with experiences that are both synchronous and asynchronous to the students this model might look very similar to some of the some of the things they did in distance learning but with the added benefit of time with their teacher and peers in class that's for those who are able to come to school this allows for teachers to engage with the students who are not in the classroom as well so for families who need to choose the remote option our platforms google classroom seesaw and at times zoom will be our options where teachers

021will engage with all students on all pathways at various times the blended model allows for this flexibility for both what many are calling live streaming but also some asynchronous like to talk a little bit about the idea of life uh live streaming we would not be expecting students to be sitting in front of a computer for an eight hour day or seven hour day students on the remote parallel learning track or assigned to the buster or bulldog group will follow a schedule outlined for their specific group and by their teachers they'll be expected to check in with their teachers daily and follow the same classroom assignments and schedules teachers will provide specific times for when students should log in and join a google meet so for example at the elementary level if a student is

022on their their day when they're learning at home or their remote learning parallel track teachers can still organize a learning a reading group that may combine some in-class students with students who are home so those are the types of activities that we'll be looking to to build as our as we open our schools we have developed new digital protocols for the teachers to follow that will help students and families know their weekly expectations this was developed in response to our survey information from last year and i have to send out a huge thank you to mrs sullivan and mrs derosers who went above and beyond to work collaboratively with their colleagues and with the administrative team to develop these guidelines so that we can set up our platform seesaw or google or google site in

023a way that may be more parent-friendly teachers did an amazing a phenomenal job last year and we learned a lot and now we know we can do a little bit better so these expectations will be shared and part of our beginning uh trainings we've also planned for ongoing support with this throughout the opening of school so that this is um this can we can assure that this will be developed be developed for families the most significant change will be that there will every classroom or group group of classrooms depending upon which level we'll have a google site where you can just go to one place and not have to log into a google classroom or multiple google classrooms and you will see a week's plan overview of what the learning expectations will be for that

024in closing i also want to thank the board of education for their ongoing support your tremendous support for our learning our professional learning our students and to the community thank you i'm going to hit pause there for a second to see if there are any questions for me or for sarah okay hearing none i'm going to now turn it over to mrs goldschneider good evening i will start by talking about social emotional learning which will be a big focus for us when we return to school our school counseling staff and our sel committee met during the summer and came up with a number of ideas to support social emotional learning upon our return to school whether we're all in the classroom or we're learning via other platforms we still need to develop that sense of

025community some of the ideas and some of the activities that we've come up with is um we the staff were worried that kids wouldn't know who we were because we'd all be wearing masks and we have little id badges but um it's still hard to see those so we have taken our staff pictures and we've blown them up to about a three by three i think it is and to put into a holder that has a magnet that all staff members will be wearing so kids can actually see what our faces look like without a mask so i think we thought especially for the younger children that this would be important but i think for everybody it's nice to really see a face so um our staff really worked hard on getting that together uh

026mr miscella was great he was able to get pictures printed for us and the committee has uh put all that together so those will go on day one um we also have we talked a lot about how the little kids k through two would let us know how they're feeling if they're feeling sad or happy because again we rely on facial expressions so much and we can't see facial expressions with the mask so in order for us to try to address some of those feelings before we see the crocodile tears start we have given um our committee made a happy and a sad face and we've put on a tongue depressor with a nice big happy face on one side and a sad face so we teachers can kind of do a check throughout the

027day like how are we where are we so we can show our happy face or our sad face um so that's something that we've done for the younger children we've also sent home some social stories for k through two so it's a picture with a story about wearing a mask in social distancing we have a couple more that we'll send home probably tomorrow or monday just for parents to practice going over some of the new routines the new norms in the school it's a nice way for them to practice and then they'll be used in the classroom again teachers will be going over all those things when how to wash our hands and how to put our masks on so we have social stories for those and we'll also be practicing those things in the

028school um we'll also be implementing the zones of regulation for grades three through twelve and the zones of regulation is a framework for teaching strategies for self-regulation and emotional control for all kids it uses a color system and it's got different colors we have charts that we've printed off and laminated for all teachers the school psychologists will be giving a short presentation on the zones it's a very easy system to implement in the classroom and it's really common language for everybody so it's you know kind of it talks about the color yellowing and feelings that are associated with the color yellow and what do i need to do to get from yellow to maybe to get to green and don't quote me i might have those colors mixed up but you want to move from

029one to the other so it's a very easy system there's a nice visual um and all teachers will be able to use that once we get it really up and running with grades three to twelve we're going to hopefully bring it down and start to bring it down to maybe grade two in grade one because the little kids can also use it but we don't wanna overwhelm anybody at the beginning so we're gonna go into things slowly also community building activities are planned for the first few days of school school counselors and and i will be working on during our first six days we have a few meeting times set up we'll get those activities ready so the high school will be doing some during connections and the elementary middle school children will be doing

030some of those in their classrooms with their teachers just to kind of build community and and kind of again as mrs malinowski said we need to take care of that part of the child and not focus on assessments and and all of those things first we need to get back into being with each other and some of the children haven't seen each other or seen other kids for a long time so we need to get them comfortable with being around other kids and in their teacher and so we're really going to have a focus on the social emotional learning so that covers that part um iep services and 504 accommodations ieps and 504 plans will be in place on the first day of school all staff will have access all staff who have children with

031504 plans or ips have access to those through power school power teacher um and case managers will be going over that and sending information out so that everybody knows how to all the new teachers will know how to access those plans teachers are responsible for implementing new goals and objectives and accommodations and things our students will receive their iep hours on the days that they're in school by special ed teachers paraprofessionals and related services staff and on the days when they're at home we will continue to do um distance learning with them or remote learning via either seesaw or zoom telehealth for some common listening services so we are meeting the ieps to the very very best of our ability um again just as with the general ed teachers special ed teachers are strongly encouraged

032and need to be attending their classes on the days that they're not in school so you know reading class will be math class things like that they'll be expected to be at those 504 ppt meetings at this time we will continue to to hold them via zoom someday we hope to get back to in-person meetings but for now this works and we are able to um to continue with with our meetings in this format so we will be doing that i do have to add one thing um mrs malanowski did say that we're not going to load the kids with a lot of testing when first come back i just do want to put a disclaimer that state and federal regulations have not been um let go at all so we still have to meet

033allstate and federal timelines for special education so we got a little bit of a reprieve back in the spring when schools were actually shut down but now that we're back open we need to finish any evaluations for specialist students who need evaluations and hold ppts that weren't able to be held back in the spring so some of those children unfortunately we will have to do some testing when those those children come back because um we are required to meet guidelines and timelines um preschool we i'm very excited to say that we have worked really hard and come to the decision that we will be holding our preschool program this year all children will be able to attend the two days a week and in order to make the program work we have all of the

034preschool children attending on the same two days so they'll be coming on mondays and tuesdays that will be the preschool cohort we've been working since osborne and i met the other day we've been working in the classroom to make sure it's a safe yet fun environment for our youngest learners and safe for staff as well we have ordered some new materials for the children so even though preschool children are allowed to perhaps share a little bit more than other children we are still trying to have separate materials for for those children as much as possible but as you all know it's really hard to keep three and four-year-olds from sharing or being close to each other so we have put a lot of practices in place and i feel very very certain that we have

035a safe program for everybody so we're excited to have them i think the children are excited to come into preschool so that is all i have for my update thank you beth are there any questions for beth okay hearing none i'm going to turn it over to mr g yard good evening uh highlight some of the bigger topics so we're in the final days before staff return next week which is exciting uh we'll highlight some of the bigger topics like i mentioned this evening in regards to our opening in the hybrid model uh the cave five and six eight schedules that we've been working on there's a couple of samples in the in the video that i sent out the other week um have students remaining in their home rooms for the majority of the

036day with the exception of going to lunch recess mask breaks and specials so they're not going to be sitting in their room all day long but for the majority of the day at the middle school level teachers rotate between the rooms that the students have all their content areas each day that'll help us to maintain the cohort fidelity by the teachers moving and not the students the schedules include numerous mask breaks throughout the day that was a question that we had in the parent meeting that they only saw two mask breaks in the in the video that i sent out but i emphasize that it's a minimum of two mass breaks but there'll be many more than that because it's a long day to have the mask on the first three days of school as

037the superintendent mentioned are early release days for students september 2nd and 3rd are going to be treated like first days of school so when the buster group comes on september 2nd they're going to go through all of the getting their chromebooks going through all this having some social emotional activities like ms goldschneider miss malinowski mentioned to build that relationship with the teacher talk about google classroom google sites all the intricacies in case we ever were to have to go to just full distance learning those first few days of school first few weeks of school are extremely important to set up routines and practices so september 2nd is our first day of school for the buster group and all that same information will be repeated to the bulldog group on september 3rd so it's another first

038day of school with all students at home on friday learning from home the calendar for september 2nd through october 9th has been sent out a few times it's posted on our website and that has laid out all the buster days the bulldog days it's very easy to follow i've had a few follow-up questions from parents about which cohort group that they're in because of some child care issues and we've been very flexible um if there's a hardship at home um so if there is anybody listening and you need to change anything just please reach out to us the scheduling has been a little bit tricky with the teachers moving and the kids moving a couple of things that have occurred as a result of the new scheduling that we had to do was that fifth

039grade will not have world language this year but we were able to get computer class for the fourth graders so we lose one thing but we gain another overall uh things turned out much better than i thought they would but those are just a couple of the things that was a result of periods in the teachers moving rooms each student will have one specialist class per trimester this year along with physical education and that really is in direct uh response to feedback from the springtime uh students had multiple specials especially in k5 and it was a lot of work i mean remotely getting activities and all the different specials was a lot for the teachers a lot for the families so ms stafford and i worked with the schedules to have one trimester of a

040special and then the trimester break there would be a new special and so on so it'll be much more manageable for families with a reduced number of students because of the hybrid model um for music art and library students are still going to go to the specials rooms uh that was a conversation that we had but once we made the switch to hybrid with so many fewer students going to those locations we're going to be able to clean the surfaces and get classes out and maintain the safety and the fidelity of the cohorts so that we're looking forward to students be able to go down to the art room like i said only one class would be going to those for a little bit more information about music uh so before like seventh and eighth

041grade would have music at the same time with multiple kids going from multiple rooms to the band room into the chorus room and as you know there's been much said about the water vapor from singing or from playing the instruments and the music department has been tremendous i know they met with mr miceli with me mrs malinowski uh to talk about different research that they've read different equipment that they need and we've ordered it so we're super excited to be able to have music but we're still only sending that cohort of kids that are together in the classroom to those rooms so they're not being exposed to any other students for music class uh we'll have continuous learning throughout the week that's been a question from parents about is there is the new is the

042learning going to stop is it just the same lessons taught on monday and tuesday has the same ones talk to students on thursday and friday and it's not there's continuous learning throughout the week and friday or wednesday is not a day off it is a day for students to work synchronously with teachers whether it's live in the morning or asynchronous in the afternoon completing assignments our grading system which has been mentioned a few times but it never hurts to reiterate is returning to normal in our traditional p to five with the standards base grading and six through eight with the numerical grading the average turns into a letter grade on the report card we'll be taking attendance every day so it's easy with the students that are in front of you but we will be

043looking at the online platforms google classroom google sites seesaw to see if students are checking in um and with that i've had a few parents that said well because of child care i might not be on during the day but we're going to work on in the evening and i just keep emphasizing that we're all being flexible to just communicate with the teacher first that's the most important and with administration and we'll work with you on that part most importantly it hasn't been said enough is that the building is in tremendous shape and i had a big thank you to john vatramovic john lejoy norm harpin jeff johnson dan sanders alex baer and vance berba for all their hard work this summer they've done an amazing job with getting furniture out of the room so

044the rooms look great uh doing a final walk through in the coming days uh with john bergerovich and the fire marshal so everything is in great shape again we like we said we took furniture out of the rooms to maximize social distancing and students will be cohorted in certain parts of the building we did move a few classrooms of their middle school classrooms from the edge of the elementary wing further into the middle school area just because we really don't want students crossing over elementary students with middle school students so they're in specific parts of the building [Music] another big topic is traffic flow patterns and the superintendent ms goldsteiner myself were in the parking lot today in front of the school it looked like we were just taking a break but we were really

045looking at the traffic patterns and uh with moving to one schedule for k-8 this year was going to be a transition with buses arrival dismissal early pickups because of the sheer number of kids coming at one time but with it being hybrid actually we're able to ease into it a little bit but there's a much more complicated plan to ensure the safety but also now the cohort fidelity we're using multiple entrances and exits to the building uh students will be loading in the morning on the buses back to front regard irregardless of their um grade so a third grader has the first stop on the bus run they're going to be sitting in the back of the bus and then we'll load back to front that information will be sent out to parents soon it's

046probably going to be a video because i i tried to give it to my wife to read and she goes i have no idea what this means so i think a video of all the traffic pieces ms safran will put together we'll get it out to the families another big change this year is that we're not allowing as many visitors into the buildings unless if there's an appointment with administration so if a child is being picked up or if materials are being dropped off families have designated parking spots in front of the school with those big sandwich board signs that you see in front of take restaurants for takeout they'll call the main office uh the secretaries will communicate with the classroom so for the student to come down and again all those procedures will

047be communicated with families next week we had three very successful parent meetings on wednesday and i think the key to that was we allowed families to send in questions before the meetings so we were able to spend the first half of the meeting fielding those questions sharing information and then the second half of the meeting was any questions that arose from what we said so the q a was it was really good there was a few questions that came in afterwards but overall the feedback i got from parents was very positive i'm almost done overall parents have been very supportive our planning efforts and i can't thank the board the parents everybody it's not easy every decision it could go two three different ways so we're doing the best we can to ensure first and

048foremost the safety of our students we have grade level meetings on friday august 28th miss after and i we're working on that schedule today so there'll be zoom meetings for every grade level and we haven't really done that before it's mainly just k to five had the in-person meet and greets but every grade level's gonna have a virtual meeting because we really want parents to take the time to hear from the teachers meet all the teachers at that grade level to hear about where they're going to be posting the weekly schedules because that information is very important and we want parents to develop that communication with the staff right off the bat and all the grade levels overall we have some work left to do but i feel like we're in really good shape and

049more than anything i'm excited to get the staff and the students back in the building because working in isolation in front of a camera at home it gets it stops so we're looking forward to having everybody back thank you any questions for mr giard all right hearing none mr miceli joe you're on mute you'd think the guy driving would be able to manage something that simple um so we've shared several communications with families about our hybrid schedule and the different rotations um and we will treat those first two days as as each first days of schools for each of those cohorts the a through k and the l through z groups and that friday we're putting an emphasis on students connecting from home that's going to be important part of what they do on the

050three days when they're not in the building so we're going to make a big emphasis on that make sure everybody connects with their teachers and we're also we're not giving up on our bigs and littles program the board members that have been with us in the past know how successful and important that program is and we've already started to put a digital or virtual twist on that so we're looking forward to kicking off bigs and littles on that day and as we've also shared we're planning on cohorting the best that we can by grade uh each grade is going to have its own wing but the reality is in high school you're not going to cohort by 100 i just want everybody to know that we're we're doing the best that we can but it

051won't be a full separation between grades that's just you just can't manage that um we are having grades enter and exit by different doors um taking turns for managing mass breaks all those kinds of things so we're we're putting in all the effort that we can in with regards to the cohorting i am super grateful to mr butcher moving mr moore mr vincent mr johnson mr lejoy and mr clark for the amazing work they have done um they have been so accepting of all my detailed often changing uh requests to move repair and modify and they do all that with with a smile so i'm very grateful to those guys i hope they're listening um and we're ready to provide those that continuous learning in the blended model that ms monoski spoke about for all

052of our students teachers will set out those weekly expectations and a clear schedule so students will know when to be online when to check google classroom when to email when to submit work and all those kinds of things our hands-on areas music and tech ad and and culinary have really been working to adjust their curriculum in a way to plan to keep our students safe we've rearranged our art room with the help of our custodians our physical education program is modifying their planned activities and the uh music teachers are prepared to meet the creating performing and responding national standards using both traditional and blended learning experiences when they're doing their singing and playing in school they're going to be following the csde safety procedures including the proper pe the distancing performing outside we hope we

053can do that for a while we're lucky that our music program has an exit door right out the back of their performance area and students will not be sharing wind instruments and they are going to continue to monitor updates there have actually been a lot of music instructionally focused research studies going on since late march early april uh focused on aerosols that you know as they are associated with music teaching and performance and our our staff is deeply connected with those groups we've laid out uh very careful plans regarding transportation for students on buses or student drivers or students being dropped off we're also grateful for with our transportation partner m j who have actually worked out a plan for the town of columbia to provide direct service for our columbia students for the time

054being foregoing the typical hub system that's experienced in the past and real quickly for the members of the board of the public watching that don't understand the hub system columbia students can choose from several different high schools and typically what they've done in the past is pick up students from around columbia brought them all back to their uh their town school a horse porter school and those kids have gotten off one bus and got another bus to transfer then over to their high school and bolton high school students will not have to do that this year and we will work with our returning faculty and make sure that we're communicating all of that information with students and parents regularly i know our teachers are very eager to to get back in touch with each other

055and with their students and their families and they've already started planning a virtual open house for october thank you mr miceli any questions for mr miceli this is ria hi i would just like to say that i watched your videos and i thought they were really informative and i was just wondering and i thought they were wonderful i was just wondering what kind of feedback you've been getting from um thank you for that yeah so so typically when a high school principal hears nothing from parents after some communication um he or she tends to do a quiet dance in there in the office i've actually been been been deluged with um with some positive feedback and i've made an effort so uh back in march uh when we went out i tried a couple of

056different kinds of communication platforms and i did surveys and it really landed on the people like those webcasts i really try to keep them not not overly brief but you know not 20 minutes long um and they and i've continued to check in we had the parent meeting the other day uh and i believe the superintendent asked everybody in our parent meetings hey what do you think of that feedback and we got some positive feedback then so uh it's a platform that's working and as long as it continues to work i'm i'm certainly willing to to take the you know the the time to do those if anybody ever tells me that's no longer working then i'll certainly make a shift but at this point it seems to be very well received thanks and did

057you get the survey did you get a lot of surveys submitted after you requested them and after i said eight times in one minute video turning the survey yeah there was a little pop in numbers right there the other one could you share at this point where we're at survey wise as of roughly yeah i actually took a look right before the meeting the anticipation right we are um so if we're just under 800 in our typical enrollment we have just over 600 students accounted for so we're you know we have some students still to reach out so yes if anyone's listening you know anyone spread the news pass you know finish up the survey we will certainly um start reaching out to families i was talking to safran today about some plans to making

058sure we get the most accurate information about 80 of our students will be returning for uh in-person learning so that's uh that's a nice improvement from this survey before correct thank you i would also like to say to bolton center school we'll be doing a virtual open house as well we just haven't gotten that quite that far yet but that will be in the works as well anything else chris is this uh chris davey um two questions uh one are the is the uh tech ed program continuing at goodwin college and are other programs that you know might involve transportation of students to mcc or things like that continuing and then secondly what is happening with athletics so the goodwin college program is continuing we don't have any students selected to participate this year but

059i did have a conversation um with matt dedona who's running the program at this point just this week actually on monday that the three districts will need to regroup in the winter to plan for what will be happening next year for our continued plans because we were in the plans of trying to ramp things up and then covet hit and unfortunately the superintendent there passed away due to kovid in in the in late spring so there have been a couple of bumps in the road for our ability to um continue to move things forward but we are still keen on doing that as for athletics i do not have an update for you at this time other than to say the ciac had come out with we were having athletics and then the department of

060public health released their thoughts about athletics and put different types of sports into different categories about you should you should not you should consider the following after they did that in the meantime our athletes were being allowed to condition which they were doing using all the proper social distancing and all of the requirements and then on friday mr miceli and i received an email around three o'clock friday afternoon of course after all of our students had trained for the day pretty much that all training was to cease until august 24th until ciac had an opportunity this week to meet further with the department of public health so it is my understanding that they were meeting with them late this afternoon or this evening and i don't have any other update other than that at this

061time uh just for uh for clarity um what mr davey referred to um two separate schools goodwin and manchester community college so we've had a a long time standing relationship with both the university of connecticut and manchester community college letting students enroll in those schools in courses being taught by bolton high school staff that were certified to do that so students received high school and college credit the mcc program for that fell apart through no fault of bolton's uh they fell apart statewide it was it was a it was really disappointing frankly so last year was really the last year for that we were then courting goodwin um through the efforts of primarily mrs hecht really trying to get them to ramp up to offer a similar similar program where students would be taking courses

062with bolton high school teachers but getting goodwin credit that's what we had to put the pause on there's also the goodwin manufacturing program where we actually sent students at the end of the day to goodwin so that's a little different program and that's the one that is kind of active but right now we don't have any students that you know are good fit for that so that is likely to continue and we will circle back what we miss as heck to try to get a dual enrollment program going with goodwin as well but our yukon program is still standing strong thank you yes other questions i just have one question if you could take away uh or two or three things that you learned that uh from last year's distance learning that you're going to

063change for this year the most important ones what are they great question sarah i'm looking at you sarah oh i can't tell you thanks i appreciate it it's a good it's is a great question so i have to say our continued focus on um uh well for the blended learning so we really i you know i can't say this loudly enough um because in what we learned i don't want to in any way imply that our teachers did not do an amazing job um with everything they did last year but every time we try something educators we always want to do it better and so we have walked away with really recognizing that we need to understand this concept of blended learning better so that we are able to um we know that our future

064is just we don't know we just don't know but we do know students need to learn and so blended learning allows us the flexibility for both synchronous and asynchronous opportunities ways of thinking about learning uh that's just different from ways we've taught in the past and we've not been so we've been a very conservative district with technology we've not been one-to-one so this is huge i i can't emphasize that enough um i know at homes everybody uses technology bolton hasn't gone down that road we've been very mindful mindful of screen time mindful of student etiquette all those pieces as we we've educated the whole child and now we jumped into this very digital world without having some of that backup pieces so we've really invested some time in learning about that uh getting some resources

065for teachers to learn and we recognize that we're not going to be perfect out the gate we did learn that last year we were i say this all the time and nobody's disagreed i'm probably wrong because every generalization is wrong but teachers tend to be perfectionists and hold themselves to super high standards and they don't like to do things that aren't perfect for their students so i think i hope we have are providing opportunities with embedded pd as we're looking to how we've scheduled our time so people can support each other and learning how to set up their classrooms their virtual classrooms and their their live classrooms the best you know teaching students only two days in a row and then not seeing them those these are so many pieces so so i think the

066blended learning approach uh our academic leaders have gotten ahead of that in in learning we've been sharing resources with each other they've been talking with other educators so that piece along with um really looking at our platform i think that the work that becky and katie did was in concert with their colleagues they look at the best of what we heard what we got feedback from students parents and colleagues like oh boy i love the way so and so did that and they tried to create a template we didn't have time to do that last year so we now have some resources that we're putting forward for teachers for that and i think the last thing that um we've learned is the importance of connection and really making sure we need to pause you know

067you heard ms goldschneider talk about the importance of their for um learning how how are we going to read kids behind masks we're having to learn how to read each other like brie i didn't even know you're looking at me that it's like well all those things we've learned a lot about that we've learned about zoom fatigue that's a real thing it's a real thing it's a real thing but you know our bodies we're programmed to read read body language and see expressions and you know and all of a sudden this world it's not meshing with our biological way you know my eyes are incredibly dry so i might be looking like i'm making faces of people and i don't mean to and then it's you know now we're sending mixed messages so we've learned

068about that and now this importance of developing community so we're developing the children and supporting our teachers it's that mental health piece so i think those are my big three takeaways i'm sure my colleagues have others because this list could go on we learned a ton we did i know mr giard had something too but i'd just like to pipe into you know i think for years and ria you were an educator so you know this right the pendulum swings different ways depending upon what's happening right and for the longest time that the swing and the push was just on testing testing testing testing and i think prior to this we were working really hard in this district about focusing on the whole child this experience so as awful as this is i see that

069as a a ray of sunshine in all of this in that it is causing i think all schools and all educators and i think politicians to get back to looking at how important it is to really focus on the whole child darryl yeah i know miss fr and i have talked to him at the admin level we've talked a lot about from the springtime we've learned a lot about what's manageable and realistic for families working coming home workload from teachers so we spent a lot of time looking at what our schedule would look like if we're i'm in a full distance model if we end up going to that point of how many classes each day how much work is given how much online time so we've refined a lot it was kind of a

070lot of trial and error that we've taken and feedback from families and i feel like we're a much better place with scheduling and workload and working with families joe beth yes please so as everybody knows i supervise the school counselors so i work closely with them on a regular basis about social emotional health for a lot of our other kids who may need it but at this time i think our my biggest takeaway or our biggest takeaway was how important it is to focus on the mental health and the the social emotional piece of everybody anybody who knows me knows i am not a kumbaya kind of a person however i do think and i do believe that um you know we often forget about that the relationship building the community building and we can

071teach teachers how to teach math well but we can't teach teachers how to have good relationships with kids so i think all the things that we're really working on right now is helping to foster those relationships with teachers and with other kids and with support staff and with everybody so i think that that's like my biggest takeaway is that how important is just to make sure that we're taking care of the whole child with that that emotional and that mental health piece mental health is such a big thing right now i mean i've gone to so many workshops in the last year or so on mental health and suicide and drug overdoses and things but really focusing on those the mental health of everybody just to make sure that we are really helping to to

072foster healthy beings thank you joe did you want us i don't want anybody's i don't want to put anybody in spawn yeah no no and i and i certainly agree with all of my colleagues but um and this isn't something i would change ria but just something i i appreciate more than ever um you know i've been at bolton high for a while and i have always appreciated this faculty um but never more so than march 13th um and actually i should back it up and say about a week and a half two excuse me two and a half weeks before that when they dropped everything else that they were busy doing and started planning and did a heck of a good job and and humbly i'll say on their behalf a lot better job

073than any other district that either that i interacted with in any way including schools all over new england because i belong to some groups um and and they were tired and they needed a summer and they didn't take it they're still in the trenches they're still digging in uh we're like turning away volunteers to to do stuff at this point and um we're not ready to open school under hybrid model no anybody who says they're 100 ready is is is lying to you but i don't think we could be any more ready than we are at this point and i and i make that i really give all the credit as as much as zoom fatigue as this administrative team has uh that's nothing compared to to the work and the dedication of our teachers

074in the trenches so i just i just want to say probably how grateful i am for them yep thank you jessica christine would you like to say anything just go ahead mine piggy backs perfectly off of joe to add on to the things that have been said um it's the collaboration of the staff because as we've said and um kristen has said things come up we've never thought about in these little moments but we get together in our boxes and all of a sudden somebody thinks of something that's like i hadn't even thought about you know and then it's just the problem solving it's not you know so many of our staff are just working together to help each other problem solve they're motivated it has not stopped all summer and it just i'm so

075beyond proud of them and they are helping us and it is just been fantastic because every day but every minute something new we have not thought about pops up and if i put it out to some that they've got an idea or we just talk it out and all of a sudden it's like all right anything you know it's a domino but the support and the caring for each other is beyond um it's just amazing so i'm just proud of us all thank you jess christine yes thank you for giving me an opportunity um i think the biggest takeaway for me was realizing how much our students want to hear our voice and they want to hear from us one-on-one and you know you wouldn't think that a senior boy would want to call and

076talk on the phone but they do and they need that so for me i've um you know i became a mentor to to a few students and i realized need is great and you know i've been able to plan to ensure that all of our students can have that mentorship if they need it um you know that's it was just a surprise to me that the old school telephone actually you know was a savior for for many of our students so yeah you know i'm looking forward to um sharing that information with our faculty and making sure we match up our students with just whoever they feel like they have a relationship with yep thank you the last piece i want to end on really echoes um a lot of what you've heard today but

077it really is about our staff this group of administrators here they're nothing short of amazing i have to tell you we have spent i swore i was going to do this hours days weeks months at this point planning there are days when i have looked at them when i think oh my god what am i doing to these people because they have worked so tirelessly and so hard on behalf of our kids and our staff and i feel truly blessed to work with such amazing administrators and such amazing staff we this is a very special place i'm gonna stop there thank you okay anybody have any other questions thank you for your answers they were it's uh i think everybody should hear that it was nice to hear it and i'm proud of you all

078too for whatever thank you yeah and thank you for the question it was a great question can i ask a quick question ben yes ben yeah i just want to um kind of ask a question regarding um mask wearing in the classroom so obviously that regarding our hybrid model is mandatory um i've also seen though that you know i have family members who are teachers very close friends who are teachers and in other districts you know people are saying things to you know administrators are saying things like um well you might have enough room in your classrooms to not wear masks it's up to you if i were you i would wear them type of thing but really let me get to my point are we helping our teachers you know find a way that's

079not a combative way but more of like a helpful way like you remind me i'll remind you like if it slides under your nose because i know that you know having worked in an environment for several months now in an office environment with people that wear masks people get laughs with it very easily and even just wearing it all day it slips under your nose very innocently and you know my wife was you know she works as a high school biology teacher and it you know tells her you know co-workers hey friendly reminder if mine is slipping let me know so that it doesn't have to be like hey you you're not wearing your mask and it doesn't want to come off as a combative type of thing but i just want to make sure

080that it's you know obviously it's mandatory according to our plan but we want it to be um so our teachers feel comfortable approaching people about it and you know would say something about it that it comes off right daryl that's a few words um so part of the first six days uh pd days that we have planned is kind of figuring out the intricacies of scheduling talking about when our mask breaks going to be given how are you going to give a mass break where how are you going to get out to that area and also the conversation like you just said of encouraging students what about the students kind of melting down and there wasn't a scheduled mass break coming up how are we going to handle them so those teams of teachers talk

081has been some of the conversations we've had beth yes please so that this is also another part of what we're talking about in our social emotional learning meetings is really trying to get everybody on board and teaching these things we did videos at both schools about wearing masks hand washing using hand sanitizer social distancing we have a couple more coming out as soon as we finish up with our the state and the health district about signs and symptoms when to stay home so we did a set at the center school inside at the high school with staff in the building so everybody's familiar and they've already gone out and they're gentle reminders they're not you know it's not like you have to so it's kind of like hey this is why we're doing it and

082we we want teachers to be teaching those skills and going over this how this is how we put our mask on so after the mass break we'll practice it so we want it to be so teaching and in that kind of a nice we don't want it to be punitive and disciplinary we've we've talked about that a lot in our social emotional meetings not only for the adults like hey get your mask on daryl you know or whatever but um but for the kids too we don't want to become a you know a terrible thing that we're arguing about and fighting and sending you to the office because you don't have your mask so we are we really did focus on that how we can do that and help in a helpful way by practicing

083and why it's important to do it so instead of you have to do it but this is why we're doing it we tried to hit on that in our um the videos is to the reasons why we're doing all these things so we agree with you that we don't want to become you know an argument or a fight and we certainly don't want teachers spending time or kids spending their two days being disciplined for not wearing their masks so we're sensitive to mask breaks if somebody feels like they're claustrophobic or they just need to you know we've talked today we talked about going out in the hall maybe have some exes out in the hall outside the classroom so you can go stand on the x out there and be socially distant so you can

084take that mask off for a minute as long as there's nobody else right there so we appreciate that question and that thought because we have considered that and you know come up with some some ways to problem solve that too absolutely thank you ben chris uh christian are you confident that our board policies pertaining to you know discipline and dress code and those sorts of things are sufficient to address any disciplinary issues that that might come up so i have some policies that i need to review to then send to you and to sue from shipment and i'm going to be quite honest i have not gotten to them yet my plan is that after convocation happens on tuesday and our trainings happen that between this weekend and next week i will be digging into

085those to see which ones we need to take care of there will be one mandatory policy change that has to happen as a result of legal changes in the law that the board will need to uh approve um at the september meeting but like i said it's coming your way you guys i'm sorry but it's coming i've been plenty busy with other things fair enough i'm not disappointed that we did get the summer i also wanted to ask um i'd seen some you know posts online from teachers elsewhere in the country who had received their allotment of masks and protective gear and it was like two masks you know two surgical masks and one cloth mask for the entire year i'm hoping that's not the case with our staff are are we in good position

086do we have enough masks that we're and we're not expecting staff to have to purchase their own we're not expecting staff to have to purchase our own we've been buying ppe i think beth puts in orders for ppe almost like every day if not every other day and she's found a good connection that we have been able to utilize and she has done she and john have done an amazing job of getting all of that ordered um you know we have told staff that they can wear their own cloth masks you know if they have a mask that they're comfortable with or masks plural um you know they certainly can do that but i believe that we are ready to go beth would you like to add anything to that or yeah so we went

087around um the high school every classroom every certified staff member has a vial of hand sanitizer in the classroom so we did that every certified staff member at the center school will have the big bottle with the pump and they're all refillable all labeled ready to go and they're also in the staff workroom so and there's signs about cleaning machinery and there's hand sanitizer we have masks for everybody if they need it we have um i bought was able to get quite a few pediatric masks as well before they got the short supply came into effect so we probably are the reason why there's a short shortage of them because we have them all so we have pediatric masks adult masks we have face shields for every staff member if they so choose to wear

088one and i have face shields for students on order um that they're being made for us so we have those and we also um i asked the principals yesterday to put out a google doc with glove sizes so we should be able to give every staff member in the building we're hoping um a box of their own gloves so they can use them whenever they need that is our hope if we don't have enough we'll order more but i'm pretty sure we have plenty of gloves to do that at this time and a new cleaner um we had purchased um cleaning solution but it has to sit for 10 minutes before it can be wiped up and so we were trying to figure out how that's going to work but that's what was out there

089and a new cleaner was approved on july 29th and john placed an order for that cleaner today and that sit time is three minutes and it's been approved so we are in the process of purchasing that as well and we'll be able to use the longer sit time cleaner the guys will at night for for night cleaning and on wednesdays and the other cleaner every teacher will have that cleaner in their room and in between periods like at the high school when kids leave a room and different kids joe correct me if i'm wrong have to come to that room and the teachers spray down the desk and the kids will wipe the desks themselves so that we have that happening throughout the day as well absolutely yep and the same you know obviously cleaning

090in the cafeteria and in between waves and things like that i just want to add for chris just so you also know for the nurses offices we have some special materials so we have to have an isolation room separate from the nurses office so we have gowns we have goggles if they need them we have shoe covers as well and the nurses have been fit tested for n95 masks so if they have a child with with cover-like symptoms and need to go into the isolation room they have the ability to wear an n95 mask and we also purchased air purifiers uh one for the nurses each nurse's office and one for each isolation room as well are there other questions thank you for the question all right seeing none i'm going to move on to

091my facilities update which been pretty much covered but i'm going to take a quick look and see if there's anything that's um that um air conditioning at bolton center school so uh we have rented air conditioning system for bolton center school until through october 9th this is not a cheap purchase it's about 58 000 but there's just no way in the heat of that building and students and staff and masks i'd be calling half days every day because there would be no way we would be able to manage that so for purposes of air quality and everybody's safety that has happened unfortunately we're not in a position to be able to buy it because in another year or two we're going to be ripping the roof off roof off of center school and really that

092will be the time uh and it is my hope that that is something that this community will support and that is air conditioning center school so that then both of our schools are air-conditioned um i will share with you at this point we have fully expended john's budget it's the middle of august um you will be seeing uh transfers um in september we do um have some savings um in uh staffing so i'm gonna move on to that piece next that we will be transferring funds from many of our new hires are newer teachers so there was some savings there we have also had some unexpected resignations which you'll hear more about under that part this evening so as a result of that and the fact that we have some open positions and it's not

093that we don't need the positions but for example currently we have five open paraprofessional positions we are trying right now to fill two not sure that that's even going to be able to happen um because of the application pool we have a special education teaching position that's currently open and with being in the hybrid model and being able to move some things around think we're going to be able to manage for the time being anyway to not fill that position which is a good thing because there really are no um viable applicants for that position at this time but i do have great news and so i want to share a staffing update with you so at bolton center school we have hired alexandra goslin as a new middle school math teacher lauren smith new

094middle school language arts teacher kelly de hart uh new middle school language arts teacher sarah andrews fourth grade teacher christa parrison a bcs reading teacher aaron breen bcs fourth grade teacher and we have increased mary dembroskis from 0.6 to a 1.0 uh because that we needed that addition of that position to a full 1.0 to make all of the changes happen that daryl has had to do in his building we've been looking at that for a number of years now trying to get that to a 1.0 um but we couldn't make it happen we could make the schedule happen um without it and at the high school arian silas is a new science teacher amy hewn a new school counselor she was our intern last year melissa hubbell is a science teacher at the high

095school and nicole ravis a new school psychologist we do have a few other positions that we need to fill and we're working on that as we speak and now i'm going to move on to the 2020-2025 bolton public school strategic plan could we start with slide one here we go thanks so um as the board knows you approved our new strategic plan and so i just wanted to share with you um you know what we've been working on everything else uh i've also been working with a graphic designer that uh miss saffron as a friend of hers set me up with and so this is our final product that i wanted to share with the board tonight i'd like to thank sarah's husband for this beautiful picture of the farm that i love which is

096why it's on the front page okay page two this is our amazing uh class of 2020 and the great job that our photographer did with each individual photo of our class that was taken and able to put it together for our table of contents message from the superintendent you guys are all going to receive this so i'm not going to read it to you but i just wanted you to see the layout go ahead mr moselli our new mission statement mission of the bolton public schools is to inspire all students to grow as learners individuals and citizens our new vision statement that all students in the bolton public schools are empowered to embrace learning and a healthy mindset continually build knowledge develop skills and become engaged global citizens our new tagline empower build develop become

097our belief statements okay a new graphic of our portrait of the graduate our strategic goals goal one focused on student success goal two a caring culture goal three talent development and goal four resource stewardship all focused and working collaboratively and in conjunction with one another on all of the attributes and focus of our portrait of a graduate which is really our north star and finally the explanations and further information about each goal thank you mr miceli any thoughts or comments about the strategic plan the the presentation looks great everything pops really nicely i think thank you i appreciate that yeah you did a great job you get a lot of back and forth wish i'd gone to graphic design school all right uh unfinished business i don't believe we have any uh not that i'm

098aware of and if you're not aware of any then we'll move on to new business okay on resignation yeah so i have a number of resignations uh from bcs math teacher tiffany novak bhs teacher math teacher kurt kaiser bhs psychologist leah goudette bcs occupational therapist danielle o'connell and bhs kitchen manager linda levine and we thank them for their years of dedicated service to the bolton public schools and they will be greatly missed thank you uh onto boe subcommittee meeting schedule yeah i shared um the meeting schedule uh with you all and uh we you know we left the committees the same as we has been past practice and if any dates need to be changed just just let me know and we'll figure it out okay um on to board of ed meeting format um

099i had asked in the discussion with kristin i said that i felt that it was time that we resume in-person meetings for the board of education um i'm on a chair list serve and it's kind of come to my attention that a number of other districts if not most of them have returned to in-person meetings many of them started with their july meeting and a large number of them seem to have started with this meeting so uh i think that we can do it safely uh there are some number of details that we should work out uh and work together on them but uh he obviously we would need to be spaced out more than we have in the past he would need to be wearing masks uh whether or not the speaker would be

100marrying wearing them maybe we can discuss that also i'm not sure where we're at with executive order and what's even allowed but as far as allowing members of the public to come we probably would have to initially limit that certainly the celebration of excellence that we've done in the past would have to be something different or i i'm not really sure we have some details to work out but uh also this would certainly not be a mandatory thing we would have to work out so that anyone who does not feel safe or is not it just feels uh you know uncertain about coming back at this time uh would have to be able to be able to follow along live and interact normally as we are doing now and has been done in the past

101but uh this is i think we should be leading by example we're asking everyone to come back there's a lot of as we transition back to normality we should try to have an in-person meeting perhaps i don't know if chris wants to add anything or if anyone else has any thoughts on this matter i would can we go back for just a minute though because i maybe jumped ahead a little too fast i need you guys to vote on the boe subcommittee dates if we could just do that and then we can come back to this sorry oh um did you get a motion to approve those we'll look for a motion to approve the board of education subcommittee meeting uh schedules as sent so much that's scott uh we have a second this is

102chris second any discussion or questions on the subcommittee meetings dates i mean obviously there's some flexibility built in but we just need to post something so we all can start to mark our calendars anyone want to ask anything happy at the time all those in favor of adopting the subcommittee meeting schedules say hi uh opposed abstentions okay thank you this and we are back to meeting format so i don't know um we have a couple of things to share about how we think we might be able to do it and actually joe's going to share that but i don't know if you want to hear from board members first before we shed what would be the preference i don't know either i i agree that if we're asking teachers and students to come back that

103it's not too much to ask that we try to find a way to meet in person as well this is chris i would be strongly in favor of meeting again in person as long as we continue to do the meetings via zoom for those who are in the public or even on the board who don't feel comfortable or have other reasons why they can't be here i think zoom has been a great way of increasing attendance at at our board meetings and i don't see any reason as long as it's technically feasible uh i don't see any reason not to continue doing that and i i know you had your mic yeah yeah no i i'm gonna echo what christa said uh i agree that we should get back to meeting in person and that

104zoom has been a great resource for us so let's continue doing that and allowing the public to join us however way they are able i agree i like the idea of meeting back i know personally i have a lot of anxiety about going back into the classroom and what i'm going to be exposed to so i love the idea that i would have maybe for the first meeting the option of doing it via zone yep okay mr misselli would you like to share sure um so in my head um as as mrs heck and i spoke about this last couple of days i think there's a couple of layers i think first is the physical space um and i you know the board would have to decide did would they want to continue use the

105library um and what that configuration might look like currently there's no tables in the library we've torn that all apart and made it a classroom it doesn't mean we can't move furniture again but um so maybe the current layout is more or less conducive to your thoughts and obviously then the next option if you want more space would be the student commons which currently has very few cafeteria tables in they've actually got the library tables in there because the cafeteria tables are in the gym so it's all that shuffling of furniture but and we don't mind moving furniture once a month for a meeting but i guess some parameters maybe for uh john's staff and myself to plan how many tables how far apart all those kinds of things so that's the one the first

106layer is the physical space the second layer is the technology so there's two ways of looking at it one is that you all device yourselves as you are doing right now and you just bring that device into the high school for the meeting so that would be one way of doing it then the output would looks very similar to this everybody's faces everybody's got their own microphone and everybody is an independent member of the zoom meeting as we all are right now the other way of doing it would be to gather you together in the in the space set up one camera which admittedly would be far away and you would not have up close images of yourself it would be the room overall view of the room but we could still hook up those

107uh those wireless microphones that we we have for the board meetings and pipe that in so from a zoom perspective you all would be one zoom person uh your audio again could be mixed between all of you but there would be one image one name and again that image would be a webcam you know potentially you know kind of across the room with with small people but those would be the two ways the uh one of the things to think about in that other than the video size because the audio i'm not worried about the other video size the other thing to think about is what you view yourself so if you if your chosen space was the library we could drop the screen and we could project all of the other people on that

108screen for you that's a possibility we could also do that in the commons but you can't really see well in the comments unless you turn the lights off and then you're in the dark and so there's there's that piece to it as well so that's options uh as i see them but if you have questions you want me clarify any of that for you or ask me about other things i'm i'm ready for you sarah um and i would like to add uh just to help with your decision making if you should choose the device option joe and i spent some time talking some more this afternoon where you're on individual individual devices if your personal device is not one that hooks up readily to the system or what you have we may we like

109we would need the heads up to make sure we could secure you a device for that as well so that would be a piece that would be important information for us to know so that you could participate yep and also for your knowledge currently um the number at a public meeting is 25. so it may be that if you decide to be in person you're in person but the public comment period is via zoom and people can join the zoom meeting and give their comment themselves after they state their name and their address um instead of sending it in to me and you're all present here in whatever room we're going to come up with at this point in whatever system that's going to look like i would ask um you know i think celebration

110of excellence is is a huge challenge um for us right now um you know we've done a lot of videos and a lot of in-person pieces with that for all of you as part of celebration of excellence so that is something that i think we're going to have to hit the pause button on for the time being um you know i think if there's you know i don't want to project out to when we get to the spring and student awards because i'm going to go with there's a vaccine we're back to school and things are good i'm feeling positive so because i don't know any other way to be so i guess i don't want to cross that bridge so we have to cross that bridge but i'd like to say that the celebration

111of excellence peace is going to have to be a pause and we may find ways to weave things into the superintendent's report um in in ways if we can but i i just want to put that piece out there as well so i'm hearing that the preference is for you to be back in person and that's i i guess i would say that you know the governor's executive order ends on september 9th and your meeting is on september 10th that is if he doesn't if something doesn't change in the meantime to give additional executive office um pieces so we will plan to have you in person um i'm thinking i'm just talking out loud and i don't know how other people feel about this i'm thinking that just one camera and everyone on zoo i

112i i mean we're going to look like ants i don't think that's a good idea so i think it's bring your own device bring your own mask i'm saying thumbs up from some people thank you um and um we'll spread you out and the public can participate via zoom because we will be on zoom how does that sound to everybody that sounds good to me that's good all right so i guess the other the other thing i could just throw in if it if if if that plan gives you pause because well if we're all on our own devices are we really what's the point of being together because it's going to look like we're separate if you still want to go that way one thing we could do is set up you may have

113noticed earlier in the meeting a bps admin or bps ghost or something and that was me checking recordings and stuff we could in theory set up another device with that overall view of the whole room with no audio and people go oh look they're the ants um but yeah we can still see them up close so great just a thought yep that's great and i think we're just gonna have to work joe you and i um with john on what's going to be the better space whether it's going to be the library or it's going to be the comments i think we'll have to and i'll just have to let you guys know where you're going i mean they're right next to each other so okay all right back in person we are for those

114of you that wish to do so and those of you that don't and i hear you sue loud and clear um for sure um you know and that will be true you know we may have administrators for whatever reason that will be joining uh via zoom at any given time um i'll be on zoom but i'll be right down the hall in my office and control center pushing right that's what i'm saying from their location right so all right great thank you so some details to work out but we'll plan on that for a regular meeting at least our next one yes and everything as always is subject to change yes sir do we have any future business no all right so then we are now looking for an executive session a motion to go

115into executive session to discuss the superintendent's goals sue pike so move um you need to invite me to attend you know and invite superintendent to come with us thank you all right thank you second anne decker any discussion uh all those in favor abstentions baby abstained thank you everyone who is here and thank you administration