Regular Meeting of the Bridgeport Board of Education Monday, April 28

001This is a call to order for the BRE education meeting. Today is April 28th and it is 6:34. We have a quorum. Um we'll start with a ple the pledge of allegiance. So everybody please rise. 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. Thank you. Um I'll do the roll call. Mr. Benahan's um his sheet. So Christine Baptist Perez, Albert Benahan here, press Aisha Casemir here. Marissa Estraa Jimenez, Willie Medina. I'm here. Jennifer Perez, Joseph Zakalic, rising. Robert Traber, Andre Woodson, present. Next, um, we're going to start with the student representatives. So, if you want to come to the podium, you come on up. You can start, Christian. Yeah, you guys can

002come up as you [Music] want. and then click the button on the podium. They're listening one. Okay, I hope I'm live. But hello, my name is Christian Bea and I am the representative for Central High School. And some news I have so far is regarding the seniors. And so far for the for three students, one senior has gotten a full ride offer to Georgetown University, another one to Boston College and Nor Eastern University. And we're doing this because they want to follow tradition of for Central to send a lot of children to to esteemed schools. And last year we've had some go to MIT and Yale. And with their scholarships, they have not paid a lot of tuition. And I find that very well. But for upcoming events on April 30th, we're having a magnet

003acceptance day and that's for our incoming freshmen to the program. And for past on last Friday, we also had a blood drive and we had a lot of people donate. We're collecting over 31 pints of blood. We've also had two students honored at now for athletic accomplishments. We've also had two students honored at the Aqua Turf in Sington. And now we've just wrapped up SAT testing and retesting. And for this week, we have NGSS testing. And next week begins our first advanced placement exams. on Thursday. That will be our junior ring dance and that will be at Anony's Ocean View in New Haven. And for spring sports, right now they are all going well and especially our boys volleyball which is 6 to2 with their good record and wins. And last week we also had

004a also held a STEM night for our families and students. And right now we are currently working with the University of Bridgeport and Goodwing College on developing our college and career pathways. and we want that to be implemented for next year. Seniors are preparing for graduation as well in June and applying for scholarships. And we're also planning a college decision day to celebrate their accomplishments in May. And for clubs in Iraq and HOSA, they've collected imperishables for the Merin House. And so our officers are collecting a lot of those to send over there. And in Iraq Club, they also completed a peace initiative. And in the courtyard of Central on May 20th, they'll be inaugurating a peace pole to celebrate all those accomplishments and what the club has done so far. And our community clubs,

005our garden clubs and outdoors club, they've done a cleanup of the school and a lot of work was done there and we celebrate all their accomplishments. And for students at CHS, they've also been routed through the CHS scholarship fund application invitations if they want to do those. and the senior class. They've also held a fundraiser on Wednesday last week so they can raise money for their prom. In April 19th, several students from CHS went to Vasar College for a poetry writing workshop and they toured the college museum and had a nice lunchon and they had a wonderful opportunity to tour the school and show their achievements. And on May 17, Interact has their epic day of service and they are collecting food for the Morton House at Villa Avenue Stopping Shop on that date. And

006Interact has also been sending 50 personal care packages to Siri, which is for the refugee center. And that's mainly happening tomorrow. They're going to be sending them. And on May 27th, National Honor Society will hold its new member induction ceremony and senior recognition night. And other than that, CHS, they've also been registering to take EMT classes through Echo Host Company in Shelton. and one student and two more are reported to have interest as a way to build interest in emergency medical services and such. But other than that, the year is going well so far with preparing for graduation and junior class events. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Audi Latchbine and I'm here representing Harding High School. Haing high school CNA class has completed their clinical experiences on April 1st. They

007are now in preparation for their CT state CNA cognitive and practical exam taking place in West Haven throughout the course of April 30th to April May May 2nd. Harding Harding Medicals juniors and seniors um will also be visiting the University of Bridgeport on May 5th to visit their cadaavver lab indulging themselves in the human anatomy on cadaavvers. Student council has also successfully ho hosted a class versus class event on April 4th in which surprisingly this a freshman class one. Um seniors will be plotting retaliation on field day May 30th. Um students uh currently enrolled in AP courses are in preparation for their AP exams beginning next week. Uh Harding High School's medical magnet and law and public service academy are also in preparation for their annual health and wellness fair along with their law fair

008where students will be presenting projects based on their desired topics in those fields and capstone students will also be presenting their projects as well. Last but not least, we have also reached a record number of student count of student acceptances into the University of Connecticut this year. We do see a lot of students planning on committing there as well. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have more? Oh, I see you in the corner. Come on up. Good evening everyone. My name is Tawab Agran and I'm the student representative of biotech at Fairchild Wheeler campus. The Fairchild Wheeler campus had a very eventful Friday last week with the celebration of Earth Day. This was a student-ledd celebration that had staff and students playing games and learning about environment issues and supporting environmental protection. This week on

009Thursday, April 30th, we will begin our NGS test uh NGSS testing. On that same day, Fairchild Wheeler will host a McDonald's night fundraiser. This fundraiser will be happening between 5 to 7:00 p.m. and 10% of the sales that happen between those hours will be donated to Fairchild Wheeler. So, please come and support. And lastly, Fairchild Wheeler will be hosting their annual campuswide prom at Anony's Ocean View in New Haven on Thursday, May 1st. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Go ahead. Oh, there's someone. Okay. Good evening, board members. I am Donna Morapo, junior representative for Fchow with our IT team. Last week, we employed a two-day boot camp on the NGSS testing platforms to get juniors familiarized with test questions and testing system for the exam on Wednesday, April 30th. Our students are currently selecting

010their courses for next year and will be able to schedule presentations for May 1st on the Yukon classes that are offered throughout the whole campus. Teachers that teach a Yukon course will introduce their potential students to the course outline and classroom dynamics. All students from IT will pick one of the pathways designed by IT, which were designed to culminate in students receiving multiple industry credentials or college credits. Our juniors and seniors are excited to have our you our annual prom celebration on Thursday, May 1st at Ocean View in New Haven. Lastly, we are proud to announce and congratulate three IT students, Paris Booker, Kylie Neves, and Marley Blackan for being the state winners of the aspirations in computing award presented by the National Center for Women in Information Technology. These are all of the insights

011from it. Thank you. Thank you. Come on up if there's more. Good evening members of the board of education. Thank you for having us here today this evening. I am Shenor Clark, a grade 11 student at the Basic High School. I'm proud to share some exciting news from Bassic High School. Just before spring break, we displayed our school spirit by celebrating spirit week. The student council board created a Google Docs survey that allowed students to be included in the selection process of spirit week ideas. Majority of the students, if not all, participated. Therefore, it was a success. Today's Today students of the TST Today's students tomorrow's teachers visited visited the sacred high university for a tour which was also successful. Our student recently completed the PSAT and SAT exams and we are thrilled to announce

012a 94% participation rate for the SAT. This is a this is a huge achievement for our school and we look forward to seeing some outstanding results. But we are Thank you. But we are not stopping there. All grade 11 students are preparing for the NGSS signed assessments will take place on the second of second week of May. Apologies. Students who have taken AP courses are also preparing to take their respective AP exams on May 7th, 9th, 14th, 15th, and 16th. The building has has much positive energy, and we're determined to finish the year strong. We also want to give a special shout out to our amazing PTSO who organized a big event to bring together our Bassic School community. Seeing Dr. Avery and his team in attendance was excellent, showing their support for Basic. Another

013big thank you goes to board members Mr. Albert Benjen and Mr. Robert Traver who joined us and continue to stand with the Bassix family. Your presence meant so much to us. Lastly, as students, we are excited excited to learn of the move from the old BASIC to the new BASIC building where the Lion Pride Pride will be on full display. Thank you for believing in us and supporting our future with Lion Pride. Thank you. Any other student reps in person? And there any online? Yes. Go ahead. Um, hi, I'm Ashley Beckford and I attend Fairchild Wheeler Arrow. Um, firstly, I want to say thank you for the opportunity to represent my school. Um, things have been busy at Arrow this spring as we approach the end of the year. Recruitment efforts are ongoing with studentled

014tours provided to prospective families. The flight simulator has been a big hit. Our guidance counselors and some staff chaperon me and about 40 other juniors to to the stores camp Yukon campus today. We were able to meet um Yukon students and the admissions team while getting a tour of the campus. Tomorrow we have industry professionals coming to our school for a career day. Students will learn about the colleges and career paths taken by these professionals and have time to ask question of their own. We are excited to welcome these professionals and their and are planning to expand this event in years to come. We are also excited about our prom which is held this Thursday at Anony's Ocean View in New Haven. Student council and the adviserss have worked hard to plant the enchanted forest

015theme night. In addition to all of these fun activities, rigorous teaching and learning is ongoing. Project-based learning is still the heart of Arrow. And I wanted to highlight the current example. Students in our Yukon ECE English class competed completed an Odyssey project. Their final product is an actual odyssey that winds through the halls of arrow, taking ad taking adventuring students and sla and staff through 14 different episodes as they like Odyssey try to make the room to in the in in this word is so hard to pronounce. Sorry in a in aas. Each episode includes a poster with the students original poem, artwork and soundtrack. The soundtrack all include a reading of those original poems in order to capture the spirits of the oral tradition which ha poem was composed. students proudly show their projects

016by inviting inviting parents to take the Odyssey during report card conferences. Thank you for your support to our school and campus and thank you for the opportunity to represent Fair Child Wheeler. Thank you. Are there any other student representatives before we move on? All right. All right, we'll move on. Um, thank you all for presenting tonight and keeping us updated on your schools. Um, the next item on the agenda is public comment. And the first person on the list is Jeff Morsy. The mic is already on. Um, so each each uh speaker will have two minutes to um speak. Okay. Okay. Uh, thank you. Uh, good evening members of the board and Dr. Avery. My name is Jeff Morsy and I'm the president of the Bridgeport Education Association. We have been following the budget discussions

017closely with increasing dismay. We recognize that you are in an extremely difficult situation due to the longstanding inadequate funding from both the state and the city. We also recognize that the cuts you have before you tonight are not because you want to make them. But it's important to remember that these cuts represent actual human beings. The numbers on your spreadsheets represent adults who wake up every morning and choose to dedicate their days to the children of Bridgeport. They represent children whose IEP minutes aren't going to be met. They represent children who will lose instruction in art and music. They represent children whose learning needs won't be met by trained interventionalists. And they represent children who will lose opportunities to research and learn a love of literacy when they haven't the opportunity to communicate or connect

018with a librarian or media specialist. Librarians are an integral part of a child's education. The BEA will also continue to protect our contractual language related to planning time and class sizes. We view these articles as the written minimum standards you have agreed to for our students. Our students deserve to learn in classrooms where their teachers are able to adequately prepare for lessons and meet their needs. Tonight is a discouraging night. Our members deserve better. Our students deserve better. Their families deserve better. And so does the city. When this is over, our members will do what they've always done. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have uh Dr. Henry. a matter that is not just about numbers but about the future of our students and this community. Financial cuts to this department would have farreaching consequences.

019These cuts would not only diminish the quality of education but also limit opportunities for our students to explore their potential. has had multiple students who have graduated and gone on to find careers in the arts. They have become teachers and returned to teach in our district. They have won Grammys while others have been awarded who while others are award-winning performers who have worked with worldren renowned artists like Mary J Blige and Madonna. There are successful business owners, professional photographers, tattoo artists, graphic designers, and more. The arts are a career path for our students. If you want students to learn how to work together and collaborate, have them play in a band, we do that. If you want students to problem solve and develop endurance, have them paint a still life or build a coil pot,

020we do that. If you want students to walk into a job interview and represent their skills well, put them on a stage in a theater classroom, we do that. If you want parents, guardians, and the community to come into our schools, have an art show, a concert, a musical, a play, or a talent show, we do that. If you want students to have rich careers and successful lives, put them in my teachers classrooms. All employers are looking for employees who are creative problem solvers. We do all of that and more. I thank you for your time this evening and I desperately urge you to reconsider any proposals to cutting my budget. Thank you. Thank you. Faith Harrison Viegas. Uh good evening everyone. Uh board superintendent, thank you for having me today. But um pardon me

021after hearing these first two speakers tonight. uh the passion that they invoked. Um I had a completely different topic that I wanted to speak on, but if you don't mind, I'd like to face them as well as speak to you all. And I would like to invite every educator here to what's near and dear to our hearts at the Bridgeport Public Education Fund. It has been a really challenging year. The Bridgeport Public Education Fund has been in the community since 1983 working on behalf of Bridgeport educators, students, and the entire community. And um my voice is shaking. I'm really nervous right now because I feel your pain. I am an alum. So are my children. And I can't put into words how disappointed I am about where we are as a community when it comes

022to funding our students, funding our schools, and ensuring that our children have bright futures. But what I will say is I am trying to do my best um as small as it may be. Um, I feel really bad about asking everyone here to at least um give us a moment on May 8th at the 31st Inspiration Awards where we can find hopefully some support, where we can find some camaraderie, but also we can find some restoration and bring back hope to our district because that is the one thing if we know nothing else, we know how to instill hope for the future. So again, I do apologize. I don't want to be tonedeaf. I'm reading the room right now and it's been a really, really challenging year, but the Bridgeport Public Education Fund since 1983

023has been by your side and as the executive director, I intend to remain by your side as we move forward. Thank you again for tonight and I pray that it all goes well. Thank you. Thank you. Aaron Nukem. Good evening. My name is Aaron Nukem and I'm a teacher at Central High School. And I'm concerned about the district's teacher attendance policy. According to this policy, an administrator may call a teacher in for a meeting after they have acred six absence events in a single school year. and they may may issue an oral warning at 7, a written warning at 8, a written reprimand at 9, and more stringent discipline after 10 or above. Though this policy was last revised in 2012, it is implemented regularly by administrators every year. The 15 sick and four personal

024days collectively bargained by the BEA are a part of every teacher's compensation. And unlike our salaries, our PTO actually shines in contrast to the PTO offered in other industries, but only if we are allowed to take it. The effect of this policy is to reduce the number of yearly PTO days from 19 to 5. It suggests that it is unreasonable for anyone's life in any year for any reason to require more than 5 days away from work, which we know is ridiculous. We know that paid time off makes workers more effective, not less. People are more than cogs in the machine of their work. And teachers are more than just teachers. We're parents. We're friends. We're wives, husbands, partners, brothers, sisters, guardians. and our dedication to each one of those roles and the job we

025love does not have to be a zero- sum game. A teacher who spends a 37-year career in Bridgeport and perfectly fulfills this attendance expectation will have a sick bank when they retire of around 370 days and will be compensated for only 200 of them, leaving over 150 days worth of compensation on the table. I think I'm a good teacher, but according to this policy, I probably shouldn't be working in this district because in all but one of the last seven school years, my attendance has called for more stringent discipline. Now, I have never been called in for an attendance meeting, but I know of several other good teachers who have, showing just how rife this policy is for unequal treatment and violation of the just cause that section 1112 of our contract entitles us to.

026Unlike the budget, this problem is an easy fix. And so I would urge the board to consider revising this policy. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Num. Next we have Giovana Ramos. Good evening everybody. I'm the principal at Thomas Hooker School. This is my seventh year at um Thomas Hooker as principal and 21 years working for Bridgeport Public Schools. Unfortunately, during my tenure at BPS, I've gone through many budget seasons where us administrators speak up to beg not to lose critical staff members. Counselors and kindergarten paras seem to be on the chopping block. Now that I finally have a full-time assistant principal, he is being eliminated. Once again, I will be the only prek to 8 school without an assistant principal. The programming for elementary and middle are very different. Yet, numbers seem to

027be the biggest factor that is looked at. Yes, I am a small school and it has been stated before that schools under 300 do not need an assistant principal. A blanket statement like that should not be made because even though I'm under 300, I have unique things in my school such as a K to2 store classroom, a Krise classroom. Just having these two rooms alone should give me an AP and at least one full-time support staff. Next year, I won't have that if these budget proposals go through. Every single service provider in my school is part-time. Next year, I will be the sole principal in a pre-K to A building with a part-time nurse, no AP, part-time support staff, and no KPR. That's a lot. I will only have three specials offered to my students.

028I have no idea how will cover how I will cover certified teachers, contracted prep times, library media specialists reinforce the love of reading, and so much more. My class sizes will increase to the max, and teachers will not have the support they are used to. The stress will fall onto students and families will feel the big difference. We all want to do our jobs well and give our students everything. And if this proposed budget goes through, we won't be able to. We are already stretched very thin in schools as it is operating with just enough right now. Each year we are expected to do more with less, but it's getting to be bare bones. Our students deserve more and they need more. Thank you and shout out for teachers appreciation next week. Thank you, Jennifer

029Gilbert. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Jennifer Gilbert and I'm a special education teacher over at BLC. It doesn't seem like anybody knows what our kids come to school with. So, I've made my visuals because as a special ed teacher, that's what we do. Visuals. Kids come to school with health issues, abandonment, school instability, safety concerns, anxiety, depression, family instability, ice enforcement. They also come from neighborhoods that are violent, lack of food, trauma, incarcerated parent or caregiver, immigration, foster care, mental health, untreated, mental health, lack of services, addiction, domestic violence, homelessness, sexual abuse, neglect, social media issues, lack of basic needs, and poverty. And I can tell you this right now, some of the children in my school are the kids on these posters. And we need to stop and we need to think

030the Bridgeport schools are the our kids safety nets where they come to school to learn, to be loved, to be successful. And if we keep making all these cuts, what's going to happen to our kids? We close school buildings, we get rid of teachers, we make class sizes bigger, it's not helping the kids, it's hurting them. We need more for our kids. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Jeremy Hittermark. Just waiting for my pass. Good evening. My name is Jeremy Hitmark and I'm an assistant principal at Thomas Hooker School. One of our fundamental goals as educators is to develop caring, capable, and reflective individuals. Students who will become active, informed citizens. Achieving this requires a full team of staff who can meet the diverse needs of students. This should be obvious. There needs to be

031a concerted effort to reflect and take responsibility on what got Bridgeport to this point. Referencing pre-COVID employment numbers and calling pre22 staffing lean is a red herring. The data makes it clear chronic underfunding and underst staffing long predate COVID transcending any one superintendent school or teacher. This systemic it's no achievement to return to pre-COVID staffing levels when even then our students success rates were unacceptable. To suggest otherwise and to minimize the impact of cutting more employees from already strained schools is profoundly disconnected from reality. None of you are asking to make our jobs easier. We're asking to make our jobs possible. This is not something anybody wants, but steps need to be taken so this isn't reoccurring in two, five, or 10 years. The students can't afford any more cuts. We're being told to max

032out class sizes and rooms that barely fit 24 students safely. We have no full-time nurse, even though we serve full-time diabetic students. We have no full-time social worker, even though we run sore and rise programs and are feeling desperate please from families for mental health and behavioral support. We're cutting kindergarten paraprofessionals while simultaneously increasing kindergarten class sizes. We're eliminating assistant principles in schools to house our most vulnerable populations. Students who are being going to be brought back from costly outplacements without the support systems necessary for them to succeed. We're eliminating arts programs and library media specialists when those form a foundation for everything student learn. This does not sound budgeting that is now a race to the bottom. The board must seriously reflect on the historical failures that left so much student potential unrealized. Simply

033receiving additional funding from the state will not erase decades of damages damage nor the systems that have brought us to this moment. If we're serious about turning this district around, the approach to financial stewardship, must fundamentally change. Not only to stay solvent, but to build a system where student achievement, especially in K through8, is the expectation, not the exception. My colleagues and I chose Bridgeport because we believe in its students. We want to stay. We want to build something better. But if these cuts force us to leave, many of us will struggle to find positions elsewhere. Not because we're unqualified, but because districts statewide hesitate to hire experienced educators due to salary costs. Meanwhile, opportunities for administrative positions are scarce as budgets tighten across Connecticut. Before dismissing the severity, I encourage you come to our

034schools. See for yourself how many are being held together by duct tape, goodwill, and the sheer grit of educators who refuse to give up on the community. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Tequa Thomas. Thomas, excuse me. Good evening, Bridgeport community. I was not expecting to speak tonight, but I am born in Bridgeport, but grew up in California. I was in arts schools since middle school. Before that, I was in the slowest reading group, slowest uh math group, repeated the fourth grade. Once I got into the arts, I found my footing, my confidence, my academic and physical gifts. Uh I am a parent of a daughter and a nephew who also did performing arts in middle school. My nephew, before he auditioned for that public magnet performing arts school, watched his mother the night

035before being admitted into a 72-hour hold for schizophrenia. Any other child witnessing their mother going through that uh would have Okay. um he was the only boy at first and then developed a dance program within the arts program that he was going to. He did the same thing in his high school. He did the same thing in his college, the college that he went to because he was part of the Posi program. He was at Dickinson. There was no dance program. He is in a government position in San Francisco uh helping the homeless six-f figureure inaugural um government program. This is the dance kid, not an academic kid, right? So they we build leaders as well as academics in the arts. So I could go on and on and so now of course I'm an

036educator for since 2001 in the arts, dance, and health. I'm at Luis Munos Marin. I could show you video right now of my first graders rocking the house in a dance performance. And again, it's not just about the dancing, it's the leadership, it's the confidence, it's the body awareness, all these things. So, I'm going to just say that much and yield the floor. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's all we have for um public speaking. Thank you all for coming. Um the next item is approval of meeting minutes. Yes. Do you have Yeah. Um the last time you all spoke so eloquently to us, I spoke back about Senate Bill 1511. It's no longer Senate Bill 1511. I'm a strong believer in the KISS principle. Um so now I have to simplify it differently

037for you. Um, Senate Bill 1511 is dead and gone. What emerged out of the education committee and went to the appropriations committee would have raised the base rate for the educational cost sharing formula. It would have meant 20 million more for the Bridgeport public schools. It would not have addressed the poverty factor in the education cost sharing formula. It would not have addressed the multi- language learners in the education cost sharing formula and it would not have addressed the special ed needs in the education cost sharing formula. All of those additional needs if they had been addressed in the original Senate Bill 1511 would have added up to about $57 million more. As I said a month ago, that all disappeared in the maneuverings of the legislature. So that base rate 20 million disappeared in

038the final appropriations budget that came out last week. What came out last week was additional money for sped and additional money for child care, similar to what the governor originally proposed. I don't have the exact numbers yet to present to you for what it means for Bridgeport, but it means no good for us. So, that legislative fight is continuing. So, whoever your state rep and state senator are, you need to speak to them about we still need to fix I I wrote it down, fix the educational cost sharing formula. We need to raise the base rate which hasn't been raised in 13 years. We need to in change the formula to address the increased need created by poverty, the increased need created by the multil- language learners that are in our community and the increased

039need of special ed. And if that gets addressed, then we can deal with the problems that our school district has. So you the the need to speak to your state representatives, state senator, state reps, and state senators is more important than it was four weeks ago when last we met. And I just can't emphasize that enough. There is not a person sitting up here that wants to implement a single cut you've addressed tonight. I can't emphasize that enough. Those of you that know me know I was a teacher. We don't want to see the cuts. We need to get them to fix this problem. The education cost sharing formula needs to be fixed. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. The next item on the agenda, approval of minutes. Um, is I'm sorry. The first one

040is the regular meeting from March 24th, 2025. Is there a motion? Moved by Mr. Benahan. Second by Mr. Traber. Any debate on that? All right. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? The next one is the special meeting from March 31st, 2025. Is there a motion moved by Mr. Mr. Ben second by Mr. Medina. Any debate on that? All in favor say I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That one passes. The next one is special meeting from April 7th, 2025. Moved by Mr. Benahan, second by anybody by Mr. Traber. And any debate? All in favor say I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Mr. Sakalic is abstaining for April 7th. The next item is the chairperson's report. Um we're going to give a quick update on the status of the board trainings. I have it

041here. We've completed um four of the mandated trainings from the state um hosted by Cabe who's um been training us uh my note loading so I'll just go off my top of my head. Um uh we've had four. Um the most recent um was on finance and we had um um Ed Aaron from the technical assistance team who came and presented to us um who helped us with um you know realizing some things that this district has not been doing for years um in terms of finance and also highlighting some of the um things we are working towards. Um and so we've also had meetings to discuss um the goals and um board goals and um our policies um which are a lot of those are out of date. So in the upcoming meetings for

042trainings, we'll be going over those and um hopefully implementing um all mandated policies by the end of the school year. Um, we have our next meeting on May I'm trying to go off the top of my head. I'm so sorry, guys. My notes didn't load. Um May 19th and we'll discuss. Um, board members, just look out for an email. Um, Nick is going to send us two possible dates for the June um, meeting. Um, and I will uh, ask you guys via email um, the dates you prefer. The next um item for the chairperson's report, I do um you know, I want to honor um the poet laurates for the district. So, we're going to um call up first um Mr. Rapise. Um you want to go down there? You want to take all these?

043All right. Um first, we want to we um as a board, we want to honor Mr. Rapise for just the work he's done with not only the poet laurates, but middle school debate. um words on wheels. He's really um been a a um we he's invited us to most other events, all events, and we really enjoy our times there. And so um and we just wanted to first give you a certificate and honor you and thank you for the work you're doing. And then um we'll call if you want to stay there, we're going to hand out certificates with Dr. Rab. Um the first person we're going to call is the 2024 2025 student poet laurate um Saveine Wilson. And we'll call everybody up and then we're going to have Miss Wilson um uh actually

044um speak on hers. All right. Um the next the honorable mentions we have Heidi Abraham. We have Myra Dos Santos, Aliyah Doier, Isabella Gao Gomez, Desia Trinidad, and Isabella Quinones. Uh, board members, if you want to take a picture, we can do a picture, I guess. Go down there. Right. And Sen Wilson is gonna Did I say your name? You can. Yes, you said it right. Okay. Hello. Um, I want to thank everyone involved for giving me this position again. I'm going to read a poem that I created called You Cannot Stop Us Now. You cannot stop the thunder after the lightning. The flash of chance has sparked. The rumble of change will soon come after. We people thunder will arrive like the boulders from a landslide. You cannot stop the landslide from falling after

045the crash that started it. Your scream of control rattled the mountaintop. We've been shaken by the chance of change. Now we people are crashing down. We won't stop till we get the rights we deserve. Till we reach the bottom of the mountain we've been crashing like the force of a stampede. You cannot stop a stampede after it's been driven to start. You've driven us to defiance with threats. Threats to cut, harm, hurt, and hate. You can yell and hurt a single beast, but you can't yell fear into a stampede. We people will keep running. You cannot stop us. You cannot erase us anymore. You cannot erase the knowledge. You may burn the book, but you can't burn the brain. The brain that has already read. The body that already knows. We know. We won't be

046burned anymore. We people shall rise victorious. You cannot stop us now. Like the thunder, the landslide, the stampede, the curious mind. We shall not, we will not be stopped. You cannot stop us now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Rice. Do you want to say anything? I just want to thank you all for having us here tonight and thank you all for your support. You've all been very you show up at all of our all of our events and you give us a lot of support, the superintendent, the board, the executive uh staff. So, we do want to thank you again. Thank you. And u we'll look out for the words on wheels presentation. I know we're expecting that soon, right? Absolutely. Okay. All right. Um that's all I have for

047the chair person report. Does anybody have any questions? All right. Um, I do. Okay. Madam Chair, um, my question to you is, has the, um, commissioner actually come to meet with you or Dr. Arie face to face? I'm just curious if that question has been answered. I apologize, but I just want to know, has the commissioner herself come down to have a meeting with you and or Dr. Avery? since she did since she implemented the team. I reached out to her um along with uh our city attorney um to schedule a meeting. Um I have not heard back, but Dr. Avery has, so he can speak to that. I'm ready. Thank you for that question. Uh we just got notified that the commissioner will be uh coming to the district for the first time on

048Wednesday to meet with the executive uh my exe myself and executive cabinet uh to talk about the progress report uh for her based on when she first initiated uh the technical assistance team coming into the district. So this is the first time that myself uh and my team had the ability to talk with her face to face. Uh and we're very very excited about that. So we don't know exactly what the meeting is going to really entail. Uh but it was real pleasantly surprised that you know uh she paused long enough to be able to say I'm coming to the district. I'm going to spend an hour or so with you guys to see to get an update for what's happening in the district since they uh implemented the technical assistance team. So, I will

049give the board an update as soon as we get through with that uh engagement and I'll follow up with you if if um she does uh uh meet with me. Um I haven't heard back yet. Thank you. Thank Mr. Benahan has a point of personal privilege. Thank you madam chair and good evening everyone uh my point of privilege is for a minute because I know everybody know and it's hard what we going through that the city lost a champion everybody know is Mr. J Perilo um is a man that I can say he helped me so much with parents for all Brisb public school. He never say no to me. He never said no to the parents and he never said no to the committee. Also that minute of silence I want to give it

050to um Mr. Joseph Oshola. He's the PTSO president. His mom passed away exactly the same day that Jay passed away. And I have to say thank you because going through his situation, he went to the Bass PTSO event to be sure and support our parents. So I'd like to have a B in the silent please for these two people that God called them. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. We're going to move on to uh committee reports and referrals. Um uh the finance committee met on April 10th um and we discussed additional uh budgetary cuts for the upcoming school year. That's going to be uh discussed um later tonight. It looks like Yeah, later tonight. Um and so we'll be I'm going over that today. The next committee meeting will be the third Wednesday

051um the 21st of May um if not sooner but May 21st is a tentative date. Um instruction and support services we'll go back to you policy and personnel committee. Oh uh ISS met last week. Um we had an excellent meeting albe it a little long about um uh we uh we addressed the the issue uh that will is on the agenda tonight of the new uh refresh sora program which we will address later and I'll speak to later. Uh we had spoken previously about the suspension rate among sped students and at this meeting we spent um more time digging deeper into what we think is an in in inequitable or inappropriate uh suspension rate among black males and uh we took a closer look at that and uh raised some more questions about what we

052need more data to look at. So at the next meeting we're going to continue that discussion. Um and we discussed uh pack PTSO expenditures, training and pro plans um and had an excellent discussion on that. Um, and so what we're talking about doing at the next meeting is establishing some procedures so that we finish the year in a position that when we start the next year, everybody's going to be on the same wavelength and um hopefully everything starts off the year smoothly and pack and PTSO um uh gets off to the right start and everybody's uh understands how things are supposed to operate and we don't have any problems. next year with uh each uh individual school knowing how much money it has and how to spend it and and how to follow it and

053we do the training we need to do to make sure anybody knew um uh is moving in the right direction. Uh I want to thank Dr. uh Vaga for both of those discussions. She was an excellent uh help. Um and then uh we had a great discussion with the academic uh administrators and um Dr. Planis about uh the most recent progress reports and what they're showing us. Um so uh our next meeting will be the last the fourth Wednesday in May. I don't have the date off the top of my head. Thank you. Any referrals, Mr. Ben? Yeah, I'd like to get um report if it's possible about the school suspension update for new special education. I'm sorry, say that again, Mr. Panahan, please. To get um a report, the update of a school suspension

054of the students, you know, special education update the suspension report. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any other referrals? We're going to go to policy personnel. Thank you. Fourth Wednesday. The fourth Wednesday. Sorry. Go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair. um policy and personnel committee met on April 9th. Uh we tackled some of the policies that are right now on this agenda which hopefully we're going to be running through them very smoothly. Um Cab came up with uh over 20 plus mandated by the state. We have tackled already 12 which include the seven that we're going to be uh voting on this evening. We will be tackling another 16 of the complete 28 uh state men that we want to uh implement in our district that are state mandate. And then we'll be tackling another 20 plus recommendations

055that came uh through the Dr. Avery and the superintendent and his team in our next uh meeting. So, thank you for his team for the everything that's done so far uh and your commitment, you know, to this process. And I look forward to meeting with you shortly for we can plan our next meeting. Our next meeting will be May 14th at 5:30 and I'll take any uh recommendations or referrals. Hearing none, Miss Erimenez. Um, I just wanted to bring up the referral about the contracts if we can add it to that meeting um, from a few meetings ago. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Facilities committee met on April 1st. Um, we discussed um, more on the facilities master plan. We'll have more updates on that next week. Um, we also had an

056update on the decommissioning of BASIC and um kind of uh looked at the timeline a bit for the new the opening of the new school. Um, we also had a monthly operational update on vandalism and um Mr. Garcia is going to uh each month focus on a different um operational uh he's going to focus something different each month to update us on um the next meeting is next week um the 7th is the tentative date. Um any referrals to this committee? All right, moving on. the Cabe report. Is there anything from the newsletter? Nothing much for Gabe. Uh they're in the planning stages for the convention November 18th. We got to decide as a board whether we want to go up for the full time, whether we want to book the expense of a room,

057especially in these lean times. So, we gota really think about that and have us talk about that at some point. Yeah, I think that um should be discussed sooner than later. Um maybe the next maybe by the next meeting we should try to figure that out. Um all right, moving on. We have the superintendent report. Oh, Mr. Chair, do you have something for the committee? Mr. Chabber's meeting is on the 28th. All right. Good evening everyone. Uh for my superintendent report, I would I would like to um I wanted to begin by acknowledging the concerns raised tonight during public comment and throughout the community. I've I've heard a lot of conversation. A lot of people have reached out to me regarding uh the financial state that this district is in at the moment. Uh I

058just want to let everyone know I hear you. I agree. Uh this the situation is not uh ideal. our students, our staff, our schools deserve more. Um, and I think that's very very important to for this community to understand that we are in a very very difficult state. Uh, we are trying to collectively together uh, united trying to make sure that we can resolve some of these as quickly as possible. Uh, and so uh, the rest of my report is going to be very brief. Um um I I will be providing a full comprehensive update uh of my six-month plan that I presented back in December uh at the next meeting. Uh ju just to talk about a few updating uh upcoming events. Uh we have a city uh city council budget hearing May 1st.

059That's that's on Thursday at 6 PM. Uh please make every effort to attend the city council budget meeting hearing this Thursday at the city hall chambers. The mayor's propo proposed budget includes an additional $3 million for education. While we are grateful, uh it is not enough. Uh as Bridgeport stakeholders and voters, your voices are powerful. Uh advocacy does matter. Uh and our students are counting on us to advocate for those additional dollars. Um in addition to that, on May 1st at 6:30 at Central High School, there will be a school uh a middle school cheerleading showcase. uh our middle school students will participate in a district-wide cheerleading showcase. While it cons, you know, uh while it talks a little bit about while we're at the budget hearing, uh it's exciting to see that our students

060are still being engaged in activities within this community. So, I'm very very excited and proud about that. On May the 8th, I will be taking a couple of uh several high school students up to Hartford uh for student advocacy u u afternoon or morning actually. It is uh we're going to be joining five other uh urban school districts and their superintendents and uh their mayors to talk and have the students advocate for additional funding for the five largest suburban school districts, urban school districts in Connecticut. This is going to give our our our students an opportunity to uh to have conversations with hopefully delegates uh state representatives and we're we are trying to coordinate and an opportunity for the students to have a conversation with the governor as well. Uh there's going to be a

061press conference that that morning uh and the students are going to be a few of them will be able to participate in that press conference. So we're very very excited to engage them in this advocacy uh process as well. Uh in addition to that um we are going to be doing uh we are continuing our public forum um opportunities to communities within Bridgeport. Uh May 9th we will be at Trumble Gardens housing um to to talk with the the Trumble Garden, you know, uh community about the needs that they have with the Bridgeport Public Schools. I've given them some time to kind of come out and engage myself and my team about the needs within uh Trumble Gardens and the schools that their their children attend. Um in addition to that uh on May 29th

062we're going to have a district uh talent show and that's again an opportunity for uh all the talented students with across this district to kind of come out that night to um present you know their um their talents to hopefully a an auditorium full of people to encourage them to keep uh doing what they do and show and showcasing their talents. Uh, and that, uh, concludes my superintendent's report. Any questions for Dr. Avery? Mr. or wait, Miss Ashary Mennez. Um, Dr. Avery, can you tell us we've um, oneonone, we've chatted about a priority list. Should we get additional funding from all the advocacy work? Can you tell us if you have a list of um different prior priorities? Um we will be taking on and having to make very hard decisions this this evening. But

063what if we get additional money? Um what will be what we vote start voting back? What will govern restored first? Yeah, I have talked Hold on. Gotcha. I've talked to several board members about, you know, having that discussion tonight. Uh I think um I'm going to refer that question over to uh Mr. Sakovic. We had extensive conversation and then we we'll have an opportunity this this evening to kind of go through a little bit more of that depending on which things we the board decide to consider and then we'll have an opportunity to go. So Mr. Kovic, yes, thank you Dr. Yeah, how it's worked in the past is we rank what we want back first. So this way if the superintendent finds himself with an extra $2 million, he can see I got my

064list already. Uh that this item one is preferred. Item one got $1 million. Item two got $500,000 and $500,000 and he exhausted $2 million as found. He doesn't have to come back to it. So we vote as we cut we vote. You can see your mic. as we cut we vote what comes we vote what comes back too in the same night. Last time we had to do this was like 2018. Thank you Mr. Benahan. Thank you madam chair. Um that area I would like to um because when I watch our website I know we working we talk about that months back but sometime our website needs a little more update because I know from last year I'm going talk about you know last year have a lot of things have to be update a

065lot of things have to be removed too so it's still in the website I would like to you know because a lot of parent ask you know website why we have to still have this why we don't have this I know it's working because I know it's not easy but I know we talking this from last year Can you please No, you're closing. You were on Hold on. Don't touch it. Don't touch it. Don't touch it. There you go. All right. Uh, he asked a question about our website because parents are coming to him about uh information not being on the website. I I kind of want the community to know that we have a brand new website getting ready to be revealed. Uh, but what's happening right now, we're transitioning content from the current

066website that's up now. We're trying to move and and relocate that information to the new website. We are updating photos and things like that. It was supposed to go up live uh January, February, but I've delayed it because there's still a lot of content that have not been updated. So, uh, I haven't gotten with the team to, uh, relaunch a a new date to unveil that website, but the things that you're talking about will probably be updated as we move over to the new one. But, uh, if there's additional information that is needed, I I would say to have parents that contact you to contact my office and then we will give them some updated information in the in the inrum. So if you can if you don't mind doing that, I would appreciate that.

067We got a lot of different, you know, uh things happening. So we're trying to navigate behind the scenes. Uh so when it comes out, it's going to be a very robust, you know, information, you know, informationpacked website that's going to be, I think, uh very um um important for the the community to buy into. So I think they will when you see it. Uh I've seen the backside of it and I think it's going to be a little bit more robust than what we currently have right now. So thank you for that and think that's a great question. Trust me that when some question I cannot answer I let them know to call you you know you the perfect in that part also I want to ask you I don't know what um committee going

068to be but I want to ask you first that I know we have some different departments in our district so I give an example I got grand office you know grad department and we got math department we got different I would like to get um I don't know about committee to have that department come to one of the committee and talk to what they doing how update how's everything go because I know the is there but I would like to listen to them you know how everything go the update what they need and you know the missing job they doing because I know it's not easy and also the last thing I'm going to say I say I like to say thank you to Dr. Henry because as the job she's doing and everything she's

069doing and helping and working to get a grant for our principal public school students she's amazing and thank you Dr. Harry for the background you did for passive BTSO. So she's a kind of person she's working nobody know behind the scene to get grant to our students. So I just want to say that for the record. Thank you. No more question Madam Chair. Mr. Traber. Thank you Madam Chair. Um I want to go back to the ETH. Um are we recruiting other people to go with us on the ETH? Um I I think we have another day set aside for community members. I think the accuracy on the ETH is they wanted to kind of highlight the the this the high school students advocacy piece. Uh so that's really what going to be the focal

070point for that particular day. I think uh where's Tim? Is it the 15th of May? Bridgeport day. When is it the 19th of May? It's going to be uh the Bridgeport day, I think. Right. Uh and we're getting more information is coming out on that. And that's the day that we want to get more Bridgeport community staff uh and individuals to uh Harford for the advocate a little bit more advocacy and will be we be uh providing transportation on the 19th. We are we're in the process of looking at the transportation piece. we have some op some opportunities for some communities to support in that. I know for the student uh advocacy group day uh there's there's some funding that's going to come with that so that we don't have to pay for it. So

071we also have an opportunity with uh we transport to have a a few um days where we get busing for free. Uh, and I think that's the that's what we're going to be trying to use to make sure that we have a transportation up to Hartford for some of our community members. We have to work out some of that those details, but that's what we're doing right now. So, I would say yes. Uh, we are looking to have uh transportation to Hartford for community members on the 19th 18th 19th. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair covered most of my questions. Um, yeah, I want to lean into the we transport thing for it'll behoove them to help us advocate for more money by getting us up there. And, um, every

072question I had about the students was basically answered. Um, except for how do we arrive at the number of five and five students for high school? How did we and how are they being selected? Right. Did it again. Sorry. We're we're working through the um the board representatives for the high schools and then allowing them to go and and recruit additional students to go with them. Uh also the principles are also going to kind of if they can't if those students can't get them, the principal will be recommending some other people within the campus to be able to do that. If you have any if any campus has a specific represent representative that they want to to do it, just either reach out to the principal, myself, my office, I can advocate for that person

073if need be. Are all the other districts bringing five students? Yes. Well, some of the district will because they're closer so they can they can transport more more kids there a little bit easier, but I felt it easier for me to get five at least five from each of the buildings that we that we serve to go up there and we'll be, you know, a pretty good, you know, force to be reckoned with, right? And I would say, how much does a bus hold? How many students does a bus hold? 40 50 47 48 you know I don't know maybe we want to think about trying to fill a bus I mean you tell kids they could get a day off of school and advocate for more money for their schools they might be able

074to pack it I mean sometimes sometimes numbers matter we can we can consider that as well I mean we have a couple of days to to to work it out but one of the one of the things is that the chaperones are going to be my administrators so I have to be very careful of how many there's district rules but about the number of chaperons that have to be a part of the student group. Uh and so they didn't know that yet but they are they'll be riding with the kids to uh to Hartford. So but because we didn't really want to have to take chaperoons from this from the building unless I get some parental involvement uh parental parents uh support to do that. So we'll work through that as well. Thank you. All

075right, Miss Cassmer, can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Um Dr. Avery, the um the day that you bring the students up there, I I would love to just have people from your staff, you know, make a grave effort to reach out to those parents. Um you know, because of the fact that you guys are going to be the chaperon. Um, if there's an opportunity for more kids to come, I agree. Ask the parents if they can bring them. I don't think it it'll hurt. Um, I have two other important things. Um, one is a comment um for the upcoming talent show. Um, I'm hoping Dr. Avery that you were asking all board members to purchase tickets for the show and not expect to get in free. Um, when I went on Eventbrite, there is $12.51

076for the K through8 performance and $12.51 for the high school performance that follows right after it. So, I paid a total of $252 on my Visa card. So, um I am hoping and you don't have to answer me, but I'm hoping that you ask board members to pay um for tickets to that talent show. Um and my last question to you is something that I I just have not got a straight answer about. I want to go back because this is important. It's about finances. I want to go back to the question that I had asked a few months ago about um whether Bridgeport has Bridgeport Public Schools um has a nonprofit organization that's registered with the state particularly the name of it is the Foundation for Excellence in Bridgeport Public Schools Inc. I wanted

077to know specifically is the board responsible for the fiduciary um side of that organization? If the answer is no, that's fine. I'll let it go. But I really really do not remember a straight answer about that. And if you have one for me yet, I still don't have an answer for you, but I will get an answer for you. Uh Nadera Clark will be able to provide that specific, you know, so I'll actually probably email the entire board tomorrow morning with that response. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. We're going to move on to um new business. We have um the first item on the agenda is approval of um Highrises Magnet Schools out of state field trip to Washington DC from June 3rd through June 6th, 2025. Um I

078see um the teacher here. Yes. Um is there first? Is there a motion to make that? Madame Chair, I uh this item came through my committee and I would move to approve the Highrise Magnet Schools out ofstate field trip to Washington DC June 3rd through 6, 2025. All right. And it's been seconded by Mr. Medina. Is there any questions for the um I'm sorry, can you say your name again? Um as the maker of the motion, Madam Chair? Yep. I can guarantee you that we reviewed it in committee and it was fully vetted and properly u uh all the permission slips and everything was all the eyes were dotted and the te's were crossed. Okay. All right. So, is there a vote? Uh all in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Enjoy your trip. Thank

079you for coming out. Thank you very much, sir. Um, next one is the approval of the interd district discovery magnet schools out of field out of state field trip to Washington DC. Let me get this right. Sorry. May 14th through the 16th. Um, Mr. R. Um, Madame Chair, again this uh came through my committee. I move to the approval of the interd district discovery magnet schools out ofstate field trip to Washington DC May 14 through 16 2025 as seconded by Mr. Benahan. Is there any discussion or questions for Mr. Ramos? U my comment as the mo maker of the motion is that again all of the tees were crossed and the eyes were dotted. We reviewed it in depth in our committee. So, I'm comfortable that this should be approved. All righty. See no questions.

080All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Any extensions? That one passes. And then you have another one, right? Um approval of the interd district discovery magnet schools overnight field trip to outdoor classroom at Lakeside, Connecticut, May 14th through the 16th. And again, madame chair, this too went through the my committee. U and I make the motion to approve the inner district magnet schools overnight field trip to the outdoor classroom in Lakeside, Connecticut, May 14th through 16th, 2025. So moved by Mr. Treyber, seconded by Mr. Benahan. Any questions for Mr. Ramos? Uh again, as the maker of the motion, I would assure everyone that the te's were crossed, the eyes were dotted, and the paperwork is in proper form. See no questions. All in favor say I. I. Any any opposed? Any abstensions? Thank

081you for presenting. Thank you for coming, Mr. Ramos. Um the next item uh discussion if poss or the approval of the library refresh to purchase um and subscribe to online resources. I know Dr. Saki is going to come up um and Miss Welch and I believe Miss Valier is online. Yes, I see you're online. Um and um this is um the refresh is a grant-f funed pro uh uh program. Uh it's going to be using grant money and the three items per purchase were bookalicious, Bratannica. There's Bookalicious and Bratannica. And you have another one. Tonight we're presenting on Bookalicious, Encyclopedia Bratannica, the New York Times, and Sora. New York Times. Okay. Sora. Um All righty. And she's fine. Is there a motion to um begin discussing this? Anyone? Um, sorry, Madam Chair. I was cleaning

082my glasses so I could see it. Um, I make a motion to approve the library refresh to purchase and subscribe to the online resources. Any second? Second. Okay, there's a second by Mr. Medina. Um, do we have any questions for Miss Welch or Dr. Saki or Miss Dier who's also online. No questions. All righty. See no questions. Do we have um a vote? Yes. Sorry. All in favor? Thank you. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Thank you for presenting as well. All right. Um the next I the libraries is up again. Um the disc the appro the approval of authorizing the filing of FCC form 471 schools and libraries universal. This is uh I know I'll let you explain it. I was going to try. Uh good evening. Uh I'm here to present on uh the normal

083uh annual renewal of our FCC uh filing for uh -ate which is the sorry it's like hitting me in the air here. Um and so therefore uh this is the program that basically pays the lion share of our internet uh services and also for our equipment that provides that. Um and so we this is a followup to the last approval that was given where I presented on -ate. This is required for the uh purpose to close it out for this fiscal year. So as always every year um if I could ask uh either the board chair or one of the board members to uh read into the record uh the provided statement and if you need it I also have a copy of it right here. Um and uh Madam Chair read into the record.

084Yep. Um I just have one question. Yeah, sure. Uh before I read it, the document before us says Bridgeport School District. Should it say Bridgeport Public School District? Believe it or not, our official legal name for that purpose is actually this. Okay. So, I should read it as it's written. Yes, please. Okay. I just wanted to know whether I should amend it before I read it. Thank you. I will not. Um I move to approve the resolution. Um, as stated, be it resolved that the governing board for Bridgeport School District one authorizes the filing of FCC form 471, schools and libraries universal service program services ordered for the fiscal year 712025 through 6:30 2026. and two authorizes payment of the applicant's share subject to the following conditions. Subsection one, approval of funding of the discounted

085portion of the schools and libraries division s parenthesis SLD of the universal service administration company parenthesis USAC and subsection 2 receipt of the services during the fiscal year 7125 through 6:30 2026 period and then the signature and printed name and dates. and title section. All right. Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Benahan. All in favor say I. Any oppos? I. All right. That one goes through as well. Um and if I may, Madam Chair, uh at your earliest convenience, we just have to sign it like we do every year. So, thank you. The next item on the agenda is the approval to authorize healthy food certificate application for fiscal year 2526. Mr. I don't I don't think we have a copy of it. Do you have one? You could get give it Mr. Traber.

086You can tire my voice. Oh, sorry. Just click on the You want me to read number one? Um, yes. Well, if the board approves, you would have to vote um read into the minutes. Vote one and then we would have to read into minutes the required motion on page two. Yes, I recall correctly. Yes, we have to. Yes, the required motion for combined food and beverage. Okay. So, I am going to make a motion um that pursuant I make a motion that pursuant to Connecticut General Statute section 10-215F Food and Nutrition Services, Bridgeport Public Schools certifies that all food items offered for sale to students in the schools under its jurisdiction and not exempted from the Connecticut Nutrition Standards published by the Connecticut State Department of Education will comply with the Connecticut Nutrition Standards during

087the period of July 1st, 21, 2025 through June 30th, 2026. This certification shall include all food source uh all food offered for sale to students separately from reimburseable meals at all times and from all sources including but not limited to the school stores, vending machines, school cafeterias, culinary programs and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or non-school organizations and groups. Thank you. Is there a second? Um, this I make this motion. Second by Mr. Sakalavic. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any assumptions? That one passes. Go ahead with the second one. And my second motion. Am I reading the entire thing, Mr. K, or just the required language motion? The required language motion. Okay. So I move that the food and nutrition services Bridgeport public schools will allow the

088sale to students of food items that do not meet Did I read that correctly? Correct. Oh, I thought somebody went I'm sorry. Let me start over. I move that the food and nutrition services Bridgeport public schools will allow the sale to students of food items that do not meet the Connecticut nutrition standards and beverages not listed in section 10-221 Q of the Connecticut General Statutes provided that the following conditions are met. One, the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend. Two, the sale is at the location of the event. And three, the food and beverage items are not sold from a vending machine or school store. An event is an occurrence that involves more than just a regularly scheduled practice, meeting or

089extracurricular activity. For example, soccer games, school plays, and intercolastic debates are events, but soccer practices, play rehearsals, and debate team meetings are not. The regular school day is the period from midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the official school day. Location means where the event is being held and must be the same place as the food and beverage sales. Can I get a second on that motion? Second by Mr. Ben. All in favor say. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right, that one passes. Thank you, Mr. Thank you very much. The next item on the agenda is um approval of the workman's workers compensation settlement agreement. That's for executive session. Um if we go into we should we are going to second session for this but um uh Miss Yman's is here.

090Um and we'll go with Dr. Avery. Um and is there a motion for executive session? Moved by Mr. Benahan. Is there a second? Second by Mr. Medina. Yeah. Miss Human I did um you know no all in favor for executive session say I any opposed. All right. Um if you're online I think Tim's or somebody's going to send you the link if they have not already. Yes it's on the um it's on the calendar. All right. Okay. All right. Coming back from session. Is there a motion? Anyone making a motion? Mr. Kick. Motion to approve the settlement agreement as dis to authorize the attorney to enter into the settle agreement settlement agreement for the working workers compensation case as discussed in executive session. I second you got that John that motion okay made by Mrs.

091Scaldic uh seconded by Mr. Benahan. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right, that one passes. Um, next item on the agenda is the approval of the graduation venue. Dr. Avery, are you speaking to that or Yes. Okay. Uh, in in under separate cover, you should have the options for um the venue used for graduation this this year. uh kind of wanted to make sure I have an opportunity to kind of uh explore those those options with the board uh and give you the preferred uh option uh by the high school campus principles for graduation. Uh option one uh and Tim is going to be assisting me, but I'll take the lead. Uh option one is the amphitheater. The cost of that would be $40,000, which is above my um my allowed

092it all uh payment amount. And so I want to make sure that I I put this before the board. Um if we do the amphitheater uh the date would be Tim June 16th or 17th. Yes. The um the move it would move to June 16th or June 17th. That's Monday or two and Tuesday because currently we are looking at it's Friday the 13th. June 13th. Yes. Uh option two, all graduations at the Kennedy Stadium. The cost would be 3,000 for rental and stage and chairs and then that would be uh June third June 13th. Uh option three is a mixed venue um being able to have uh Central Harding Fresh Wheeler on Friday June 13th with a cost of 3,655 for rental stage and chairs. uh uh graduation at decline it would be basic and

093BMA on uh Tuesday June 10th cost of 1,00 uh73879* 2 which is a total of 3,47758 the total cost for the mixeduse venues is 7,13258 uh and so uh again Tim if you want to kind of run down some of the additional details uh for the board and then we can uh have a discussion around that. Absolutely. So, initially we were looking at the Sacred Heart venue um so they were going to be able to house all five on June 13th. We knew that when we sent out the save the date that central would be a viable option as a backup. So, we were not concerned that if the if the logistics did not work, we can utilize central. Um it turns out that they could not house all five um uh on the same

094day. Uh so we uh uh so we we brought it back to the the schools. The schools did prefer to do it at the amphitheater. Um but uh uh uh uh we wanted to present it to the board to to make that final decision. Any questions? Miss extra minus. How much is your allotted money um for the graduations? Well, for me, based on policy, I can't approve anything above $25,000. Anything above $25,000 has to come to the board for approval. So, I wanted to kind of, you know, explore the options because the preferred option by the high school principles would be to have all of them together, which is over my allowed amount to spend. Uh, and so if the board preferred that we had them all together, they would allow me to uh enter

095into a contract over the $25,000. Um, there were some issues last year historically that the things that were not followed and I want to make sure that I followed those this year. Uh, and then you know possibility next year we have an option to look at some additional other options. Uh but again I wanted to kind of explore this particular year there's been a lot of things uh in front of making the decision uh and we're kind of late in the decision process so I'm trying to see what I can do to kind of get a a collaborative perspective to be able to consider uh you know uh the different options. Understood. Um I'm just wondering if we're we're very constrained with funding. We're making difficult decisions tonight. So, I'm wondering if that money was

096allotted and put aside somewhere and if so, how much is had so that that can help us determine which option here is most suitable. There's not I don't have Connie come up and talk a little bit about that. It's really based on policy and the requirements of the superintendent to move anything above the $25,000 uh before the board. Uh and and due to the fact of historically have issues last year, I just wanted to kind of vet that out a little bit more uh and and for us to collectively come together to sideline we're going to do. We have again we have three options. uh and any one of these options would be something that we can do but still I wanted to kind of make sure that we um so you do you want

097to talk about that uh Nester? Yeah, I could talk about it um through the through Madame Chair. Basically, there's no set amount. I mean, the bottom line, it doesn't really matter if a money set aside or earmarked. At the end of the day, you're spending the money. So, you really shouldn't go by that money has been earmarked. In my own opinion, under the financial condition or constraint that the district is on, you have the option to do it at Central High School one day event $7,000. Have the option of spending $40,000. That's what it bogs out to. You any more questions? No, I'm good. Thank you. Um Mr. Medina, try again. All right. Thank you. Um, were any other communications done with Sacred Heart University? I know that you guys spoke only specifically to the

098June 13th date and they weren't able to do all five on that date. Was there anything because I see I guess the mix there was a mix number that you gave that's two locations or that's uh mix in two different dates correct? Yeah, days two days. So was that was that option actually discussed specifically with Secret University also or No. So they um the board only wants to do two graduations a a day. So technically it would take 3 days to do graduation but there's also uh some fees associated with doing graduation in Fairfield uh that we would have to occur. Uh so there's the fee of the the the there's town fees that we have to pay. Uh so while they won't charge us rent the are the stage meaning that we would have

099to get the stage for three days there are things that would happen uh uh that if we would to to go further out would actually be more costful for us. You're talking about traffic control you're talking about security some other additional things that when once they couldn't really have viable dates for us we kind of pivot to the other options. Okay. Respectfully, so do we have those numbers? Because um my options right now, what we're looking at is being presented to me or to the board, to us as the board is 40K or 3K or the mix with the 7K um sorry 40,000 or 3,000 or 7,000. Well, if the Sacred Heart is coming in at 25K or 35,000 or 25,000, I don't know. I don't know the numbers. So um you know this is

100why I'm asking if it is 3 days what is a cost per day for an event over there because um I can't match you know I need to compare apples to apples and stuff. So that's my question why. Yes. So um the so one thing is the date. So the date so February uh the 13th was presented by Sacred Heart. So the issue would be also the date of uh they don't have the availability dates that we would need. The second thing is so there's a uh the rental of the the tent there's the town permits that we would have to pay each time. So, so for because it's not in Bridgeport, there are town permits for Fairfield of $5,000 that we would have to pay each time that we hold it in a different

101day. There's uh uh uh we have to pay the fire marshal. We have to pay the audio visual person. Um I think it's a total of $6,500. So, there's costs that we 65 sorry $6,500 for what? For the audio and visual uh art um production. So, and these are uh per per day. Well, this this is the cost that this is what we were quoted. Yes. As per day. Per day. Yes. Per day. Okay. Got you. And that's why we didn't really Well, that's why we need those number just to know because if we don't act, we don't know. So, like right there. I appreciate that. Thank you to Tim Timothy because that's like 15 and then another 18. So, we're already looking at, you know, a higher cost. So, that's why I want to

102know that when we go all make the informed decisions. Thank you, Mr. Sak. Yes. Have we um reached out to any other venues like the Total Mortgage Arena? It's right next right across the street from there. Definitely. Yes. Um we reached out to and I think on the second page it shows everything that we reached out to. Um we reached out to the uh Total Mortgage Arena. We've reached out to the Klein. We reached out to the uh uh the universities Amphitheater. University of Bridgeport Amphitheater. We've looked at the possibility of doing it at Harding, which is not an option because of the guests like the guests would not be able to fit in that location. We also looked at University of Bridgeport. We looked at every option in in the uh the area. I

103know. Okay. Yeah. Um we've done a graduation before at uh the Kennedy Kennedy Field. That's that's Central Field, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We we've done that before. It went quite well. Other town other towns do it outdoors. Fairfield Fairfield last year did it. Unfortunately, they had rain, but Fairfield is a much more wealthy town than ours. and they were quite frugal with their dollars because they wanted to get a new class. Any money spent on a ceremony unfortunately I love the amphitheater. I love the pump and circumstances. My son's going to be graduating next year but it's a luxury we cannot afford right now. So I I would support the Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy Stadium. Mr. Benahan. All right. I see too many numbers and I get confused. Let's go through the point. How much is

104going to be for Sacred Heart for Sacred Heart is it's it's very hard. Not an option. It's not. Yeah, it's not an option. Which is the options are one the amphitheater. Pause. There is a All the numbers are in the packet. There's a That's what I'm looking for. It's in the agenda, but go ahead and just Yes. Option one is the amphitheater $40,000. Two different dates, you know. Um option two is all graduation at the Kennedy Stadium. uh $3,000 cost June 13th. Uh option three is mixed venues graduation at the Kennedy Stadium Central Harding Fairchild Fairchild on Friday June 13th. Cost 3,655 graduation at the Klein Basic and BMA June the 10th. uh cost is 3,47738 and total cost for option three is 7,13258. So the the two viable options is option two and three.

105The I would like to you know um well option one is viable too if the board approves that. So the preferred option is one from high school principles but option two and three are viable. Uh so whatever decision we can go with we will uh make it work communicate it effective tomorrow uh and we will get everything some some of the parents were asking for dates because families are coming in for the celebration so we need to get it out there. All right. Um my question would only it's more logistical. I'm I'm all for all graduations at Kennedy Stadium. Um it's a large stadium. It can fit um hundreds or more. um thousands. I don't know. Um my only question for that is logistically the parking situation and traffic. Five graduations on one day at

106the amphitheater is messy. How is it going to be on Madison Avenue and Park and stuff like that? So we are working with uh Lieutenant Greck and the police to navigate that. Um so that's more of a question for him in regards to how he would navigate it. Okay. Yes, but they're already in talk. Okay, that's all I want to know that there's a plan to exit that parking lot. Um, we'll go back around, I guess, one more time. Uh, Mrs. Shamera Jimenez. So, for the Kennedy Stadium, it says 3655. Is that per day or? So that is the rental of the stage and the 400 chairs that would need for that graduation. That's that's that's what that cost would would be. There's no cost to hold an event there for us. Um the cost

107would be just with what we would need to have an event there for the graduation. So would 3655 be the rental of the stadium, the chairs for 3 days? The stadium itself. We don't we don't pay for the stadium. We the stage the stage. Yes. The stage and the uh the chairs. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Uh Mr. Medina. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um the Klein will be the one that you mentioned, Dr. Avery, that'll be kind of like hybrid two days. And how many seats is the client? 1400. 1400. 1400. So I know we've had a few graduations there in the past that I recall and everything. They've been great successful because I think the Klein um I mean the Kennedy Stad was always a good place too. I've had my graduation uh but um

108but then if it rains then we're looking at pivoting also but the client is indoors. So I would ask you Dr. Avery like you know would I mean I know it's better to do the amp. I would love to say let's get let's go to the amphitheater and we'll pay for it but I don't have $40,000. Um, but if we do, you know, between the two options, two and three, like we talked about or I mean, what would you be leading for? If we did either either option two or option three, because some of those sites are out outdoors, we'd have to get a a rain. Yeah, absolutely. And we we so decline. Yes. No, no, no. The client obviously indoors. Um but we actually have uh um both have a climb the 17th is

109available at rain gate would be uh so if we want to do at central again outside and try it again or if we wanted to do um the client which is also available on the 17th as of central rain gate. Gotcha. I understand that but but it would limit the amount of tickets that we would give. So so instead of having you know a especially for central it would limit Yeah. limits the tickets as far as participation unfortunately. So Central will give it uh Kennedy Stadium will give it a you know open house and the client will limit it. Do we know a number that we're thinking of? Um so it's it's I I don't have a number specifically um per graduation class. Um but if if you were go by last year's numbers I

110think it was like BASIC was like 217. So you're saying 217 in the seats with staff you're probably saying maybe three. Yeah. Yes. Gotcha. Mr. Chabber. Yeah. I um I I want to want to applaud you for the work you've done. Um clearly you've looked at all angles of this and I appreciate the the information you're providing us, Tim. Yes. Um and Dr. Avery. Um and um uh you've you've given us what we need to do to make a hard decision. Um, I want to express just a side opinion here that I am um appalled as somebody whose athletic league has been pushed out of Seaside Park for three years in a row to accommodate the amp the owners of the amphitheater. our public park gets given to them to run a festival, a music

111festival every fall that they can't come up with a free, you know, donation to the city of Britport for the children to graduate is appalling to me. Um, you know, uh, we literally the first year they did the festival, we had to give up two weeks of Seaside Park for them to do the festival and then they decided that wasn't enough. So they cancelled all recreational sports in the fall from Labor Day till November. Adults, children, everybody get out of Seaside Park. They're doing a festival. So, you know, I just think this is outrageous that they can't come up with contributing a stadium to us for free, the amphitheater. So, um, having said that, um, I really do appreciate the hard work you've done to put into this. Um, and, uh, um, I think that

112Kennedy seems to be the, my opinion, Kennedy seems to be the best choice for what we have to to look at terms of convenience and options. Anybody want to make a motion or do we need a motion on this? See, do we need Yeah, we need a motion. Yes, Mr. Sakalic. I'd like to make a motion to utilize um Kennley Stadium at Central High School for graduation for 2025. Second. Second by Mr. Traber. Uh all in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any extensions? Medina Estains. Anybody else? All right. And Miss Camer. Um, all right. So, we'll be using um Kennedy Stadium for graduations on June 13th. Thank you, Tim. And I guess Dr. Avery, too. All righty. Um, the next item on the agenda is just the approval of the board goals that we

113set during our training two trainings ago. I believe it was the March uh 31st training. Um those have been sent to you via email right after the training. Um we approved it without not at a board meeting. We kind of approved it together. So we just wanted to make a formal approval of it. Those board goals are going to um be used in the upcoming training to really uh flesh out the district goals that we want to work with with Dr. Avon. So um we just need an approval on those goals if anybody wants to make that motion. Moved by Mr. Traver. Second. Second by Mr. Ben. All in favor? Say I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That one passes. All right. Um the next one is approval of a calendar to implement mandated policies. This

114was discussed um in the policy committee last policy committee. Um do you have a the actual dates you have? Um Mr. Medina for this. I know. Um I think uh I don't know if you were able to send it to Danielle. She had emailed you about it um about the dates that you were looking for. Yes. Yes. Let me get your mic on. Sorry. Our last board meeting. It was the Friday before our last board our last board meeting that we were suggesting as a date for the uh a deadline. So I believe our last board meeting is set up I believe I want to say it's June 23rd so I think was June 20th but I want to give reference if anybody remembers when the last board meeting is June 9 June 9 so

115thank you very much madam chair so that will be the 6 June 6 I know that's where we're falling you want the approval of the calendar on the last board meeting the June 9th for approval of all the I'm sorry you want approval of all implement implemented uh Sorry, I'm reading the thing. All mandated policies by June and that was the mandated state mandated once. Correct, Madam Chair. The state man, we were giving ourselves a deadline of June 6th uh because we want to make sure we were prepared as a team to make sure that we can present it to the full board for the June 9th meeting. Correct. Okay. And that's my prayer call. Sorry. So, okay. So, over the next two policy committees, you're going to be um I know what Dr. Go

116ahead. Yeah, he's got he's already there. Oh, no. Just prepping for the actual question policy conversation. Oh, okay. You're ready. All right. So, over the next two policy committees, you will um be implementing the ne the the rest of the 16 I believe it was policies and then bring it before the board um over the course. Okay. So, we're just this is just a training thing from training. So, we're just going to approve that calendar if there's a motion. So, moved. Moved by Mr. Medina. Yes. I really had a blink there. It's okay. It's late. Mr. Benahan, you seconded it. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right. Now, we get to the second read and of the following two policies. um alcohol use, drugs, and tobacco, including performance-enhancing substance P uh

1175131 and the non-discrimination policy. Mr. Mr. Medina, Mr. Sakalic, yeah, I'd like to make a motion to approve the second read as presented in the committee um for immediate implementation. I second. Um, yeah. Um, polic I'm sorry, you're correct. Policy number PS131, alcohol drug use and a non-discrimination policy and the next one I'll have to handle separately. All right. So the motion was to approve the second read of the alcohol use drugs and tobacco policy PF131 and the non-discrimination policy. That is that correct? Yes. Okay. Is there a second? I apologize chair. Yes. Correction. I think it's P5. Oh, I said F. I'm sorry. Miss Came, I know you're going to get all my notes here and and and tell me about them later about my mis mishaps here. No. Um P 5131. All right.

118Sorry. Discussion. It's late. Any discussion on these? Yes. Real quick. Um yeah, these board these policies are mandated by the state. They are boilerplate. They've been presented us through CABE. They've been thoroughly vetted in committee. Um it's been approved in committee. So in the interest of time, I suggest we just approve them as presented and as in our pocket because there's really nothing we can change. This is just basically um boilerplate. Yes, that's all. All right. Um any further debate? All right. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right. The next one is the approval to suspend bylaw 9310 for the purpose of immediate implementation of the following policies. Um, restorative practices, fast completion program, gifted and talented students, preschool special education, duty-free lunch, physical exercise and discipline, and health education programs.

119Is there a motion to suspend the bylaws? So move. Moved by Mr. Medina, seconded by Mr. Benahan. Any debate on those policies. All right. All in favor? I say I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right. That passes. Madam chair. Yes. Just a quick point of information and I requested a superintendent. Could you see that these get on the website immediately so they don't get lost, please? Thank you. Okay. Yes, we'll take care of that. Dr. Saki, thanks for that amazing presentation. Thank you. See you next time. Fantastic. Thank you. All right, the next item on agenda is um You ready, Mr. Nicole? All right. Yes. Do you have a question? Oh, there's a point. Um go ahead, Mr. Medina. Yes. Just want to make sure we just approve to suspend the bylaws only right now.

120So we have not gone to approve. I'm sorry. Oh no. Just want to make sure we just moved. You want to respect you know madam chair. I just want to make sure we I understood what you can make the motion then. Yes we made a motion to uh to approve the suspension of the bylaws for we can skip tending on back for a second read. So, we suspended the bylaws, but now we I would like to make a motion to move uh uh line just read them like uh restorative practice P 514.12A and then uh FA FSA completion program P 6148B also P6172.1A and PS6 61 1 717.2B and P413.12 also P51444.4A uh P614210 uh to the full board for approval for immediate for implementation. Uh again these second by Mrs. KC. Thank you as

121a maker of the of the motion. We just want to present to the board to the full board of my colleagues that these are state mandates. Again, we went through them in committee. We make sure all the dots were crossed, all the eyes were dotted, every name was implemented as far as if there was a staff person or a position person instead to make sure. And these are state mandates presented to us by Cape and brought to full committee with full approval. So, I would like to uh have you guys just, you know, let's come. All in favor? I any opposed? Any abstensions? All right. Next item on the agenda is approval of additional eliminations to reduce budgetary needs for the fiscal year 25 and 26. Mr. Qual. Um good evening everyone. Good evening all

122board members. I cannot recap um the budget gap closing options based on the 30 $30 million that's still outstanding. Um, I did amend. We did amend. Dr. Avery and I went through and we amended some options. So, what we did, I'm going to highlight the ones we we modified or changed. Item number two is state state special education increase in reimbursement to municipalities. What happened here? The state budget and appropriation committee proposed $124 million. this um statewide additional $124 million towards helping all the towns uh on special education reimbursement. So what I did I prorated that $124 million based on Bridgeport sheer of $40 million that we received this year. Basically translates to that all things being equal, Bridgeport will get $5.8 8 million out of that 124 million that's been earmarked for the entire

123state. So that's the best we can get out of the uh Senate Bill SP1511. There's no question again this is that 5.8 8 is contingent and upon all the legis state legislative bodies approving that 124 million. It's also contingent upon the governor approving it and not vetoing it. I just needed to put it out there. But from what I understand, the 124 million was adopted by the budget and appropriation committee and it was supported by both bipartisan party, meaning the Republicans and the Democrats. So, it stands a chance to prevail. Again, it stands a chance, but on it's not guaranteed. Just want to put it out there. So the next one is um item number item number item number four which is districtwide follow union concessions. We we brought it up and Dr. Avery did

124call the union members. Um it was not a my it was not a fruitful conversation. Let me put it that way. So, so that's it had to be taken out. I mean, it's not attenable if you ask me. Um, the next one is item number 14. Where I made the changes, I kind of put asterisks to them. So, wherever you see asterisk, you're going to know those are just changes from what the finance committee had reviewed the other time. The next one is item number 14. Instead of um before it was elimination of five five central office positions, Dr. Avery went back and said he can increase it between eight and 10 positions, moving it up to $985,000 instead of the $580,000 he had proposed initially. So that's what that means pretty much. Again, we

125have to re we have to realize, you know, those are sent from the central office that has nothing to do with the administrators and other positions in the district. Uh the last very last one is um item number 26. Before it was we earmarked elimination of 40 teaching positions. Let's be real. When we really looked at it, I said Dr. every week we're really low running low on teacher I mean teaching positions. So if you look at it, the very first time we did $4.5 million attrition, that's almost 45 teachers in average. When we started this whole gap closing measure, we had $67 million. We used $4.5 million citywide attrition that represents about 45 positions uh teaching positions. Then we pushed 18 assistant principles down into the classrooms. They're going into vacant positions. Then we

126had about 10 more administrator administrator positions, teachers on special assignment, moving them back into the classroom. Now you're down, you already occupied almost 40 or 50 teaching 60 positions. If you do 40 more positions then you cannot fill any position at any teaching position at all. So it's not attainable. We still have vacant we still have teacher teaching positions classes without teachers. We have to fill the special education vacancy positions. We just can't cut every position. We have to staff positions in the classroom. So 20 is probably the maximum I will think anybody will think of cutting more of teachers to me that's actually pushing the envelope but that's that's um that's as severe as it can get you know have math teachers we have you know it's hard to find teachers in the shorted

127shorted areas so we have to pay to bring them on board. So 20 to me is the maximum push if you ask me that I mean that's about the maximum to be very honest with everyone. Uh yes we know we're in financial hardship but we shouldn't look we should not lose focus as to what's attainable and what's not attainable. Yeah. So that's pretty much the changes that was done from what was presented to the finance committee unless if anybody has any question. But at the end of the day with all those changes, you're ending up with $28 million and possible assuming the board approves all these gap closing measures. You're ending up with $28 million total gap closing measures on the table here. Um, one thing before I I I figured I'd put this out

128before the board so you're very well aware we're using $7 million of internal service fund to balance next year budget which is a one-time source of funding onetime revenue. What it means is that after 2026, you have to we have to come up with $7 million after we have to come up with we have to find that $7 million to replenish 20 to start 2027 budget. We're starting with a $7 million hole by default. Then you have to add 12 to 14 million normal cost of living increase onto that. You're up to almost $20 million in 2027. I just want to put it out there. I don't want people to say, "Oh, we thought we balanced the budget in 2026. Mr. Nqu, we balance the budget in 2026." How come all of a sudden we

129have 20 million? Is there is going to exist? I just want to put it out there so people will know. Because that's the very first thing people will say. Oh, Mr. You keep crying deficit, deficit. It's there. When you use one time money, you're going to pay for it. And that's what's going to happen. We're living day by day. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. And the unfortunate thing is the state adopted their by annual budget. Whatever you get in 2026, that's all you're getting. That money stays stable. They did not increase it a penny in 2027. Any any questions? Any questions? Sorry. Go again. I did. Yeah. Um Yeah. Understood about the deficit. Structural deficit has been a fact of life since 2018 when with the advent of COVID and the co funds. It's

130well understood. It's also understood that we're talking about kids. If we spend part of the internal service funds, we're saving kids in front of us right now, a particular service right here and now. With the cuts we're making right now, these are dra draconian cuts. It is my hope and prayer that this is a wakeup call to the people of Bridgeport, to the people of Connecticut, that our schools need to be adequately funded. It's not why we're cutting it, but we are mandated by state law to have a balanced budget. We are not mandated to have an internal service fund. Now, it may seem like even the state state has said we spent money irresponsible. You shouldn't spend onetime funds for recurring expenses. But how many thousands of childrens received psychological services? How many thousands

131of children receive social work services? How many thousands of children had a computer device that never had them before? These will benefit these children for the rest of their lives. I think then that that's just to address the deficit part. And yes, it's been noted structural deficit. I will be the first one to defend you in 2027. If Governor Ned Lamont and Mayor Joe Ganham continue to underfund our school district and hurting our children, I will say Mr. New Quo told us that we were doing that. Mark that date on April 28th. Mr. Sakovic is going to defend Yes. Mr. Nquo. All right. Um, Mr. Mr. Mayor Jimenez, I had a a quick question. So, I I see our deficit closing measures has to be $28 million, but what we have in front of us

132is just short. It's $19.2 million. I'm sorry. You have to add Okay, you have to add the revenues and the expenditures to get to 29 28 million. Revenues are categorized separately. Expenditures are it doesn't matter either either either funding source reduces the deficit. When you get more revenues, you appropriate more expenditures. So it takes care of that expenditure need. If you reduce expenditures, you kind of lower your b your burden. So you have to combine the total revenues of 8.8 8 million plus the total expenditure reduction got it of $19 million to get to $28 million total cumulative gap or deficit closing measure. Yep. The combination of both. Uh just to clarify the outstanding total deficit now is $30 million. We are at 28. We still need two more. So my question was around what

133you were saying we're next year we're going to have a hole that we have to fill 2027 2027 that's correct and it's in part part due to cost of living insuranceances can you repeat that piece because I I missed it we for next year what we present what I presented to the board is that we kind of split the use of our internal service fund Instead of using 26 million that the board adopted this year, I decided to conserve it as long as I could as long as we could. So we used 22 million this year using 7 million next year. That's how we able to bring the deficit down. We use we applying 7 million of the internal service fund next year 2026 in the amount of $7 million. It's a one-time revenue source

134or funding source will not exist again in 2027. So come 2027, we're waking up with $7 million deficit plus cost of living increase of between 12 and 14 million. You're automatically you already $20 million in a whole in 2027. And the state of Connecticut has pretty much the way the state budget stands is by annual budget. Meaning whatever they adopt next year 26 and 27 is capped. They did not increase any allocation to Bridgeport in 2027. They maintain their 2026 funding level. So even after we vote on potentially $28 million worth of cuts in 202 30 million to be exact to we're still going to be $21 million in the hole for 2027. That's automatic. That's automatic. Y I figured I put it out there. I don't want people when time comes I thought you

135were a financial genius. Thank you. And I think that just underscores even more the the fact that we need to advocate for our children and for everything all these um folks ended up coming up, the teachers, the parents. It's insane. 28 million or $32 million as you mentioned earlier and then we're going to have to do this again in another year and some change. It's ridiculous. I mean chair I really don't want to scare people to be very honest with you. The the fact of the matter is by 2027 you literally have nothing to cut. Mhm. I'm being honest. Understood. You have any more questions? I'm good, Mr. Traber. Yeah. Um, I guess I understand the thrust of what you've said now several times. How much do we have in the ISF now? We used

13634. No, no. How much do we have in it now? 34.4. We used all we Wait, wait, wait. I can only write so so fast. Okay. So, we have 34.4. That's correct. And now we're using we've already drawn down $10 million 10 this year. Yes. We have we have to pay bills for the for the 20 25 five budget. We have to pay bills. I just asked the city to 2425 budget. We used 10. I this week I asked So now we're down to 24.4. Let me let me finish now. Okay. This week I asked the finance director for the city to wire in or credit board of education $6 million because we have to pay for transportation, children transportation and special education. We have to pay the vendors. Yeah. I'm I'm not questioning. I'm

137not I'm I'm trusting that if so 8 million. Okay. If you want to know how much we've drawn down. No, I I'm I'm not trying to I'm really not trying to find out what you've spent it on. That would be a worthwhile thing for us to see in a document, but right now I just want to know. So now we're down to having 24.4 left in our account. You're going to spend $22 million by the end of June this year. We have We need to draw down 22 million out of the $34 million. Oh, see you keep jumping around and my num my mind works in a very linear manner. Okay. So, I just spent 10 out of the 34 and I'm at 24. Now, you're saying that I'm going to spend more. What else

138am I going to spend it on by the end of this year? The current year budget is balanced with using $22 million of internal service fund. You have to use all that money to balance current year. You said 12 million more. $22 million. Okay. That's 12 million above the 10 that you just told me about. Yes. Okay. Mr. Nicole, I'm really not trying to give you a hard time. I just want to understand. I have to see it in a certain way. My brain just functions that way. So 10 plus the 12. And what was the 12 for? Anything in particular? To pay bills. Pardon me. To pay our bills. Okay. So now we spent 22 for this year. Yep. And we're left with 12.4 for next year. And we're ear marking 7 million for

139next year. So we're going to have 5.4 left as our buffer. That's correct. Okay. So for 27, we're going to have 5.4 4 million left after 27. And so well for the for the following fiscal year 20 the 26 27th fiscal year we're going to have 5.4 million left. No. Did I miss something there? Okay. 26 27. Yes. We're going to have $5.4 million left. Okay. And this is where you and Mr. Sakalavvic debate. Okay. How much we should leave in that? How much is left? I'm not I'm not arguing who's right or wrong. Sure. That's that's that pot that you two want to argue about. How much can we leave in there and still be prudent? Mhm. Okay. Got it. And then I'm looking at the last set you gave us of data and

140the data sheets you gave me tonight. Yep. And you've added the a as as I was raising not being clear you added the 5.883 comma $800 that we got out of the uh the uh legislative proposal on sped. Yep. Uh for a total of the uh3 million from the city. Yep. And the 5.8 million from them. So for a total of 8.83 million in revenue. That's correct. That we're going to get. Yep. Um from the state and the city. Yep. Um and then you change some of the numbers that you just went through. Um and I didn't get quite all of that, but I'm not going to try and go back through that. Um but what I see on the second page is that you um um the total potential expenditure re reductions instead of

14125 million we're down to 19 million and and a few hundred,000 in expenditure. in expenditures. Yes. Yes. We need to reduce. You have to add the expenditures and the revenues together. The 8.8 plus 19.2 million will give you the $28 million as the total gap closing measure or deficit closing measure. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I get that. Mhm. So, and the last time it was the three plus the 25 got me the 28 in your previous document. The previous document the 5.8 was not there because Right. So, it was the three plus the 25, right? You've removed some items that we needed to um yeah to take the biggest one being the furloss. That's correct. Um I got you. Okay. And now we're looking at um being you said 1 point you said two million

142tonight. I don't see the number on the new sheet but on the old sheet it was 1.9 I'm rounding up a few hundred thou a few thousand 1.8 million. Um but now you're saying we need 2 million more. That's correct because your total deficit is your total balance of deficit is $30 million. That's where we left it. $30 million. Now we come up with $28 million. So when we So when we go to the city on Thursday, we're going to say, "Hey, we need 2 million more at minimum." At minimum, now that assumes that we get all of these other Okay. True, Madam Chair. That's assume that the board approves every line item that's listed here in these cuts. That's correct. Absolutely. So that's a big assumption. I I mean, yes, I'm not that's a

143difficult hard big whatever. Um might not be the best adjective. I get it. Um so I All right. And then Okay. I don't um I think that I what I What I think then I I I want I want to make sure that I understand is we now have the most up-to-date which I appreciate uh information um when we go to the city on Thursday. Yes. Um when we talk with state uh delegation or whatever reps and senators about why they can do better. Mhm. Um just to be clear um the you know the projected uh uh revenue surplus this year alone is $1.8 billion. Taking the $4.2 billion surplus up to $6 billion. Never in their wildest dreams did state leaders envision a $6 billion rainy day fund. Now, for some reason, um, Donald

144Trump has become a convenient excuse excuse to not deal with the problems we're having in the poor communities. Mhm. And he's a real problem. I get it. Um, in terms of cuts that are being made that directly affect people in our state and especially in our community. I get that. Uh, so I don't mean to say it's a it's not a real excuse, a real problem because it is a real problem. Um, but it is also, as we've said at several meetings, and I know you've been at some of them, this is called our rainy day fund in Connecticut and it's raining in Bridgeport and it's raining in several other places in Bridge in Connecticut. Y So we're not advocating that they spend $6 billion to help us. were advocating that they spend a billion

145or two to take care of these problems. They seem to be willing to spend a few hundred million um to take care of problems that affect wealthier communities that could are in a better position to deal with their problems. That's what I find shameful. Um the compromises that came out of the originally the governor's office and now the legislature um are paying for problems that affect wealthier communities. this special ed solution that they've come up with affects us certainly. But it also affects every district in the state. Yep. Um the daycare, the child care problem affects everybody in the state. They're not dealing with the impact of poverty on education. They're not dealing with the 13-year failure to raise the base rate in educational cost sharing formula. They're not dealing with the fact of dealing

146with the the dramatic increase in multi- language learners in our comm in our districts. Uh they're not dealing with any of that which is dramatically increasing the cost of education in our districts. They're only dealing with the problems that affect everybody. Uh and I was intrigued and struck when the uh the missive came out from CAPS uh saying, "Oh my god, isn't this great? We're going to we're going to extend ECS to the 80 districts. Mhm. Well, those 80 districts were scheduled to be phased out of the education cost sharing formula because they didn't have any right to be in it because they were independently financially secure already. Yep. They shouldn't have been sharing in the education cost sharing formula. And instead, they're going to use that money to let them string along a couple

147more years getting part of that pot. And so it's outrageous that the state doesn't see the need to deal with the people that really need it like in Bridgeport and other municipalities that are in the same situation we are. So um we need to renew our efforts. We have until June 4th, I believe, is the day of the last last day of the session to to try and get uh wiser minds to prevail so that we don't have to make the hard decisions on these cuts because as we heard tonight from so many committed and dedicated teachers. I would add one other thing that never ceases to amaze me. Um the teachers that teach in Bridgeport, no matter what anyone else says about them, we do not forget they're teaching for less money than the

148teachers in any community around us. They're making less money to work here. 10 to 15,000 less than Stratford, which is another district that needs more money from the state. 20 to 25,000 less than any other district around us. And when they retire, they'll make less money for the rest of their lives because the pension is based on how much you were paid as a teacher, right? Did they work any less? No. So, these are people who are committed to the children of our district and we need to be able to help them um and to to make sure that we're providing the opportunities for our children that these people that testified tonight we're talking about and that the members of this uh community that cares about our children uh wants to provide our children. So,

149I appreciate your information, Dr. Nquo, and I will try and use it to the best advantage. Not yet, Mr. Nquo. Um, and we'll seek to provide it as best we can. Yep. Uh, to use it to get the money we our children so richly deserve. Thank you, Miss Casemir. Uh, yes. Thank you. Um, Mr. Unquo. Um, so I I got uh the fact that um $22 million in ISF uh through the end of the 2027 school year. What about the 2028 school year? At that point, will the BA will the budget be balanced or we won't won't need as much? Uh what's the forecast for that? I'm just curious. uh through through Madame Chair. Honestly, I really don't want to continue being the bad news behive 2027 first. That's the only way I can put

150it. Okay. Um yes, that that's fine. Uh my last question is um can you tell us or share a little bit more at all about the districtwide furlow slashconession? It was it was kind of like in general and I know that they said you know the answer was no but was that after a whole bunch of negotiation or was it just ask you this and then absolutely no to begin with with no discussion like uh just wondering how if you could talk to me a little bit more about it. I think I'll leave that up to Dr. Avery. I'll leave that to Dr. Yeah. Let me jump in there. I think one of the things that these options were I sat with the president of both unions and had the conversation about just for you

151to know that this is an option that's going to be on the board. You know, they said that's that's really not a viable, you know, option, but I said I have to put it on anyway. So that's why you saw it there. We came back after my conversation with both unions, talked to Nester regarding, you know, this is not even viable. So, let's not even pretend this this needs to happen. We're already impacting cutting staff members both on the administrative side and the teacher side. Have already impacting the classroom as much as we possibly can right now. Let's just remove that from discussion and move forward. That's why you see tonight number four, it's there. The amount that we were originally looking to save is there, but on the line item, you have a zero

152there. Again, it's it's only the right thing to do, and that's kind of why we did what we did there. Uh, and so that's my quick explanation. Uh, and no, that explains it perfectly. Thank you, Dr. Avery. You're welcome. That's it, Madam Chair. Thanks. All right, Mr. Mr. Benahan. Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot I had to do that. Thank you. Your turn. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, this situation stressed me out so badly every second of my life. I know we need to save money. We understand that. But you know what this does me tell one of the staff, you don't have no job. I know everyone who ever work and heard that word lay off or you don't have a job. The first thing you think I'm going to support my house, my family,

153my kids, my bills, everything. Stress me out so badly that I I know we have to save money, but whoever is going to be suffering is our staff, students, BOE, and parents, community, everyone. It's very hard to say this. It's very hard. I don't want to. I know some the board members here, they don't want to, but I know we don't have no choice. We don't have a choice. And it's always true and I always say this that I know the state and everyone they see us and they listen to us that it's always a but excuse when it's about our kids. It's always for so many years. for years. I be almost 20 years in the district and we always going through this. But now this year is more strong and it's it's like

154I say the students are going to be suffering. They don't see how bad it's going to be. You know how many kids from the street they are in programs? You know how many kids there was in the street now they in the school? How many kids from the street now they working with the staff teachers? I'm glad all these two um staff came today tonight, principal, assistant principal, and I take it out my hat for them and I will support them because they're not easy what they go through. And you know what's the most important thing that this staff, teachers, principal, they stay here in Bridgeport. If they want to, they can move to another town. They can make it more money if they want to. And trust me, they can make more money. I

155know another principal um superintendent from another town they really call them and they say no stay in Bridgeport because I care about Bridgeport I want Bridgeport they can leave a long time ago but people they don't see that the people they're supposed to help and support they don't see that they are the staff they stay here because they want the best for Bridgeport public school you know and I take it out my my hat for them and you know it's is you know I I feel very stressful. I don't want to say no. People know I'm against this and everything. I know we need to save money, but they don't see the suffering of our kids. They don't see how hard we working. They don't see how hard our superintendent and cabinet is working so

156hard try doing meeting by meanings because very easy to point and go some people go on social media and talk crap think they don't know what's going on with Bridgeport Public School. They cannot ask can take the phone and say can I have a meeting with Dr. Hey every call one of the board members we're not going to say no and I know we can sit down and talk to them and explain the what's going on what happened what budget what is the reason we need to do a layoff but they have the time to talk a lot of you know negative stuff in the social media and people they don't live in Bridgeport either they don't know what's going on because maybe we don't see it but they let us know and they send

157it to us as I say call one of the uh board members call Dr. Everton's office. We we will glad to answer you and tell you what's going on. We're never going to say no. And I'm very glad that Dr. Ever have a big huge policy. They have the doors open to anyone that going to come. Not only parents, leaders, rep, whoever want to come. Me, myself, and other board member, we spoke with other state rep different places to see if we can have a meeting. We talk. They let them know what's going on. They don't see what we're doing. But trust me, all of us, we talking about other people from the state. I know we got people from the state here and they are amazing people. They see what we going through. And

158I'm very glad they here so they can know what PR sport is doing and what PR sport need and my have I don't like to give lay off nobody but we need to save money we need to save money I understand that but as I say I respect all my staff all my teachers you know they do amazing job I know they're very stressed I really they wake up like I do every morning I wake up I say oh my god what's it going to be enough I'm scared to open my emails of BOE because someday I don't know is it going to be good news or or bad news. So imagine all this st when they wake up come in the morning they said did I have the job that did I receive an

159email that maybe I have a job or not because you know it's not because they they they're great people but they have things to you know to to take care home family the kids bills like we all do but this is very stressful I understand everything this is the way to save money but uh people are hard for they have to understand what we're going through but also it's not only Bridgeport people can have to understand that it's not only Bridgeport we have all the state you know all the city have so issues but what make me mad is that Bridgeport is almost 20,000 students less money when the other town got extra and I'm maybe glad that the one of the um gentleman from the state they really see that and they really talk

160with the commissioner it's not fair that Bridgeport get less money and when other state have less students, less staff, less program and they give it extra and we got so many program that a lot of students that was in the street they end up this programs. So I really don't know what we're going to do. I know it's very stressful but I understand this message. Everybody from the state understand that we trying to do the best to save everybody's job and save money. is is is is our cities is one of the big one. They know they know that. They know that. But I'm not going to give up for my staff. I'm not going to give up for my parents, import my students. I'm going to fight to the and only person that will

161stop me is God. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Medina, I'm sorry. Um, I just got a quick statement and comment for the public, for the teachers, for the educators, for the superintendent, for everyone in the room. If we are not Bridgeport needs to know, we have to sound the alarm. He said it, we said it last year. My colleague to my right said it years ago where we will be last year at close to $42 billion needing. He was off by $1 million. Last year's budget was up. This school year was up $41 million. Mr. Nal just said that the following year, again, we have added cost, but still the ECF formula over the last 13 years have not increased while cost of living all around. This is while our state, once again, Bridgeport, sound

162the alarm. This is while our state is holding over $5 billion dollar in the rainy day fund and I'm being modest with that number. But yet we are still being pushed to the side as a community as a city while every single elected official is being winning elections because of Bridgeport voters. But yet we are not getting the correct representation. We're not getting the support that we need. I'll ask Dr. Avery whenever possible if he can just uh confirm if the delegate is coming down to meet with us together as a board because I know that was one of the things that were mentioned uh when we were in Aqua. Um so I look forward to that. But there's a lot of things that are being planned and being done. I appreciate every person that

163came out to speak in public speaking. Uh I've been an advocate for education all 26 years as my daughter, my oldest daughter went to school. I've been involved heavily in the last six, seven years and I've never seen a more respectful public speaker when it coming to these the budget and cuts and all that stuff because you guys nailed every single fact in the in the in the head. You didn't come after this board. you as years before you guys spoke respectfully, powerfully stating the facts that we can understand. But yet the state needs to hear our voice as a community, as an education community. Our education system is under attack. Again, I'm a Navy man. I bury people in my uh in my uh job where I work at right now and I see

164very every single veteran being honored and we promise and we made an oath to fight either here in our land or out there. Okay? Foreign or domestic, we need to fight for education. Our city needs to fight the right way. So we need to get together collaboratively to do more in the state level. We can't do it here in the local guys. I cannot. We can't. I can't. My My power starts and ends on this table. I am one vote out of nine. If we don't get money, just like that senator stated to the head of the state education said we can't do more. We can't do more with less. How are we supposed to do more with less? It's impossible. Is it impossible to make us have us Dr. Avery to make decisions with

165no money? You need to build a house. We need all the material to build a house. Without plumbing, a house cannot sustain. Without electrician, a house cannot sustain. And I apologize to the administrator that I said I was going to be quiet today, but I can't help myself. We need every single piece from the state to come down. How many mandates are going to be set forth by the state, but then yet they're not funded and they think it's a joke. They think of us as a joke. Think about it when you vote. Bridgeport, sound the alarm. Enough is enough. Our city needs to be knowing this also. Enough is enough. May 1st, we'll be out at city council fighting for funds from our city for them to make a commitment to our students once

166and for all. Our mayor was elected. He is the mayor of the city of Bridgeworth. I would never deny him this that position. He was elected, but yet he needs to make true to his promise that he's never completed yet. So, we need to call him out. We need to work with them and tell them, listen, we need more money. We need to make this thing work. We're willing to make things work as a board and make some effective moves, but we need to sound the alarm. This is why we asked this administration to come forward and tell us what do we need to do to survive next year to pass the budget that we need to pass that is funded. And these are the things that we're looking at that they came to us

167to look at to consider against all odds. So again, Bridgeport, sound the alarm, please. God bless you, Mr. Woodson. Yes. Um have my questions to Mr. uh the Quo. Um have have anybody um made like any type of calculations to see what what how much we could save if we brought kids back with a special if we built a special ed school and brought the kids from out of district back into district. Um through Madame Chair that it's kind of honestly premature. It first of all the board the board has to or the district has to build the two schools and build a mega special ed school and bring students special ed students back to the district as much as they can. In preparation of that I don't I'm going to try to answer your

168question. in preparation of that to when the school is built to make sure we're very operationally efficient. That's why if you look on this handout that I gave you, if you look on page on number 22, that's why Dr. Avery is boldly taking the initiative of putting $2.5 million in there as potential savings. It's not going to come easy, but that's kind of a way of getting ready for when the school is built. So, efficiency will be in existence. So, it will be a smooth ride or much more efficient. Madam Chair, I I think one of the things we're we're in the process of being able to look at those opportunities to bring kids back into the district. Mr. Medina, uh, one of the things I'm sorry, Mr. Woodson. Uh one of the things that

169we're the what we're we're working on with uh effective school solutions is to look at each individual kid. You in order to even do that, you have to go back to PPT to review the kid's needs and making sure based on what the kid was sent out of district for because the district was not able to to meet the needs of the child at that time, you know. So it's an individual process that you have to look at and then if we decide to bring the kids back in it has to be a mutual agreement between the parent and the district and the district has to say do we have the resources to be able to fulfill the educational need of the child in district. So we're doing that process right now. we're uh right

170at the tail end of looking at which kids could do it. But then we have to and then the next step of the phase would be do we have the resources to be able to accommodate the the child back into the district and if that's so whereabout in the district. So yes sir we are going through that process. Uh it's it's it is a process. Uh and then once we identify the kid, we have to go back to PPT to for the PPT committee to make that decision. Yeah. Cuz cuz talk speaking, you know, going to the meeting at Watersville and, you know, speaking with the members of CABE at our special meetings and stuff, I think they're expecting us to be, you know, be, you know, doing this stuff, you know, to to save

171money. That's a that's the our our cost on special special education and and transportation and stuff is astronomical. You know, no there's no other district, you know, in the in I don't I don't believe in the state that's spending 30% of their of of their um district like we spend it. So, I mean, like I said, that I I I would I would have thought that that, you know, that would have been, you know, one of the discussions that we had today. I thought it would have been on this list, you know, especially with the amount with the just the amount of money that we're spending, you know, why why why wouldn't that even be a a thought, you know, but that, you know, I I kind of blame that on the leadership, you know,

172put a point, Mr. Um what's in it? There is a it is a there's a line item on the budget for that for 2.5 million. Yep. But that's but but but you know just you know trying to you know wrap it up a little bit but that was spoken about when we went to the meeting at at Watersville. So I would have thought that from there they would just the number would would have went up by now. You know thinking like I said they they had a strategy like Dr. Avery said of, you know, looking identifying each kid and going, you know, talking to parents and, you know, like I said, just making it uh uh uh, you know, an an important option that we have because I said, we're spending too much money and

173that's I said, building the school, bringing those kids back the the state is expecting us to to to whether we have the money or not, at least make a plan for it. you know, like let showing that showing them that we're that that we're pursuing all options and that we're that that we're doing everything that we can to to try to, you know, get this ship going in the right direction. Thank you. That's all I have to say. Here's a point of information from Mr. Sakalib. Yes. Well, I don't disagree with Mr. Woodson's uh need to need to save money on uh special education costs. But I do have to point out that nearly every large district is at about the same percentage of special education recourse. Having sat through hours of testimony at the

174state level and the special education select committee has raised several times. Almost nearly every single district is at over 20% rich and poor. And the poorer the district the higher the percentage. Miss Estro Gimenez. Thank you. I'll be quick. I just wanted to quickly clarify. I'm very disheartened about tonight and now learning that in 2017 we're going to have potent 27. Oh, sorry. It's late in the night. 2027 we're going to have a very similar issue. When I came up to be part of the board, this is not what I wanted to do. I wanted to help improve education for kids, help them increase the amount of resources they have, and I'm helping do the exact opposite. And I'm not happy about it. I'm actually quite upset about it because I really take Bridgeport Public

175Schools as part of my village. They always say, "No, it takes a village to raise these kids. Bridgeport Public Schools is part of my village raising my children. They're learning how to read h their shapes, their colors. They're very young children. They love being in school. And I love that because that shows the care and the importance that the staff has with their ch with my children. And I just want to say that this underscores what we've been chatting about. Let's talk to our state representatives, senators. Let's go city council to Mayor Ganham. We, like Mr. Medina said, let's sound the alarm. This is not okay. We're stripping almost everything out of our district tonight if it passes and then we're going to have to do it again. There's not going to be anything to

176take away next year in school year 27. So, I just want to say don't love what we're doing tonight and I feel terrible about it, but I do understand the fiscal responsibility as a board member that we have that we have to balance this budget. That's all. Thank you, Miss Casemir. Um, uh, Dr. Avery, have we had any new grants come in um over the last well, at least since you've been here? Um have we had any new new brand new grants that we've written and um and and have actually secured? I'm just curious within the last several months. We've written several new grants, but you know, when uh the executive order went in to kind of halt some of this the federal monies, a lot of the grants we have been receiving are federal.

177Uh and so that's been on hold over the last month, month and a half, two months. Uh and so we have not been uh considered for any awards at the moment. So uh yes written yes nothing has come uh to u a decision on awards yet you said federal grants but what about the private grants that you guys applied for philanthropy digest I believe um I'm sorry what is the grants person's name again um Clark Miss Clark Miss Clark yeah um so I I know that Um there was a time when I was sending over from philanthropy dig digest. This is a list of um private organizations and people who donate money to school systems. Not just school system, but they they donate money all over the country. So I was sending them over to

178her for a little while and then she said, "Oh, I already I'm already signed up with that." So, um, for the next meeting, can you please have her give us an update on the philanthropy digest RFPs that she receives from the email that she receives from there? I would really love that. Um, you know, particularly right now since we're talking about the budget. Absolutely. We we I can have her give us an update from like January through current. Any That's fine. January through current. Perfect. We do have some small awards. Uh again, I can't really think off the top of my head what they are, but she can give you a cumulative number of grants and what they are. And I'll have a get a report together and I'll get that to the board. Yeah.

179And specifically, how many has have we applied for and how many have actually been granted? I mean, if it's z, you know, if it's we've applied for a hundred and we got zero, that's fine. That's something for me to, you know, to visualize. But uh I think that's important to follow up with that. Um another question that I had I want to revisit back again about having a capital campaign. The last superintendent um had said that um she didn't feel like it was appropriate. I forgot what the uh what the reasoning was, but I I guess I want to ask you now that you're in this seat. Um a capital campaign is a feasibility study something that you think that we should entertain or not? If the answer is no, that's fine. But I want

180to bring it up again. Feasibility study in what areas? So like if you want to launch a capital campaign, a capital campaign is we're raising $50 million and the deadline is December 31st of 2028. This is just off the top of my head. So the um the capital campaign is is for, you know, a a specific amount of time. You're raising a specific amount of money. But before you do that, you have to have something that's called a feasibility study. The these are people that come in and say, "Okay, Bridgeport Public Schools, I think that, you know, it's a good idea for you to do it or I don't think it's a good idea for you to do it." So I didn't even get as far as asking how much the feasibility study would cost

181and all that. I didn't get into all that yet because it was kind of like dead in the water when I had asked about it a couple times. But is it something that that you think that we should entertain? I'm not real familiar with it in my experience, you know, sitting in a certain regarding school districts doing that. Uh but I'm open to kind of explore that opportunity. So if you can give me a little bit more information. Honestly, I'm not I'm not familiar with, you know, being able to do that from the school district lens. And so, well, you know, um, Miss Clark, Miss Clark would definitely be able to tell you specifically what I'm talking about with great more grave details since she's in that and and the grant writer. I believe that

182Do we have a grant writer now, Dr. Avery, or an actual grant writer? I think we do. Uh, Nester is in that department. Yeah. So that even that person would know as well to give you more info on that. Okay. All right. And um and and my my last question, one more. Um um Madam Chair, my last question is, is it immoral or inappropriate to ask parents to let us know if the company that they work for gives grants out to public schools? I'm just asking on off the top of my head. Is it is it inappropriate to ask them that or immoral? I don't think it's improp I don't think it's necessarily inappropriate, but we could do something like that from a district saying, "Hey, anybody any public entity that that has grant information

183or ability to provide grants to the district. uh we we can even reach out to our community partners with that and and they normally bring those opportunities to the district because they need a collabor collaborative partner to help write those grants and so again it's not far off saying to ask I mean you know anything will be possible these days because of the our needs and so we need to kind of do a public you know statement about hey we're looking for anybody that wants to partner with Bridgeport public schools to provide like grant opportunities, internships, you know, all those types of things. We can do that in general uh to to get the word out there. Yeah. Because that can go across to, you know, parents who work in corporate all the way to

184retail to all different types of work sectors. There may be grant opportunities at these parents' jobs that they just don't know about and all they have to do is ask. So, I just something in the back of my head, but that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Yes. I two points I wanted to make. One, um I had the discussion this afternoon that Mr. Woodson's raising with uh Senator Edgar Wilcox about um the special ed schools and we had particularly the discussion that was in the answer which is I think that we're doing what we can do. In fact, it's impressive what we're trying to do. Uh if we can save $2.5 million in special ed costs this year. I concur with what Mr. Sakalavic said. Um in the CAB meetings that we've

185gone to, the CAB legislative breakfasts in Fairfield County, um the the CA lobby hill days um and other similar forums. Um everybody's in the same boat. the the Bridgeport's not unique in terms of the percentage of its budget that's devoted to special ed. Uh some are higher, some are lower, but pretty much everybody's talking about 25% to a third of their budget. Um so we're in the same ballpark as as pretty much everybody else. So, if we can start trimming 2.5 million this year, and I assume our goal would be to trim another 2.5 million next year, um that would be a pretty impressive number. Um she then raised with me this question that um Mr. Woodson raised about building the new facility and attracting back uh not only our students, but students from other

186districts. Well, if you recall, as we got our facilities master plan presented to us, the soonest we can get a new facility built is four or five years from now. So, that's not in the realm of reality on the budget that we're dealing with right now. So, in the facilities master plan, the first facility that would be built would be this the the school at the old Hill House site. That would be four or five years down the way. Even if we change the order to tear down the old SCE school and build a new uh special ed school at the old SCE school site, we still have to wait to finish the Winthrop renovation, which means you've got to move all the kids from Winthre out to the uh to the swing space down

187at um um uh Seaside Park and then do the Scain School and Winthrop renovation, then move the SCE. So, it's years down the pike. Um, so I think what you're endeavoring to do is is pretty much as as much as we can do and I applaud you for that. But in the long term, yes, we are moving in the direction that everybody wants to move. Uh, Mr. Medina and I see it at the CES board meeting where they talk about trying to achieve a similar goal of trying to build a facility where they can attract business from other districts. So, I think that's um uh not a new or unique goal for our district or other districts trying to achieve it. Um I do want to finish by reminding everybody that our goal needs to

188be needs to be to get more than $30 million. So, let me repeat this. The budget that Mr. Nquo, not Dr. Nquo, but Mr. and the quote just presented to us says we need $30 million to balance our budget. Our goal needs to be to get more than that. Um if we recall the Senate Bill 1511, the budget that the five mayors and the five superintendents were up in Hartford pushing for a few months ago was for $550 million. It was going to get Bridgeport 57.2 million. And that extra $27 million was the kind of money that would enable us to put a parah back in every kindergarten class. It was the kind of money that was going to allow us to get additional academic interventionists, additional uh social emotional interventionists. So our goal is

189to continue to fight not just to get the 30 million so that we can maintain the status quo. Our goal is to get the additional money that was in that $550 million uh proposal in 1511 so that we can actually start to see some progress in the Bridgeport Public Schools to return services and opportunities to our children that they used to have in this district. So, let's not lose track of that as we go forward and fight for our children. Thank you, Mr. Woodson. Um, really, really quickly, I think we need to um take into consideration Mr. McQuo's um projections that Mr. that Miss Casemir asked him about. You know, thinking down the line, you know, Mr. Treyber, you know, you you have the numbers down pack, but you're think you're thinking like on a

190a year-to-year basis, you know, when when when you're running a business, you know, think when you're talking a a multi-million dollar business, which we're doing, you should think down the line. And if we start, say we start building a school now, when we're projected to be in a hole for the next two, maybe three years, we need to start making decisions that's going to prepare us to be better in a better position down the line. So, you know, we can't we got to stop thinking this year to year uh uh you know, hoping, praying, begging the state for funds when that like Mr. Nicole said, the budget is already out. State budget is out. We're not getting nothing this year. So, you know, we we we need to start being a little bit smarter, thinking

191down the line. I know I'm I'm going to be here another two years. I don't know about other people, but I'm thinking for, you know, the rest of my term and stuff like that. I'm trying to make it better for me. I'm not thinking how previous boards in the past were thinking of dayto day, year to year. I'm thinking about in the future, can we set this thing up so in the future we're in a better position and we don't have to worry about 3020 million budgets yeartoear. Thank you, Miss Casmir. Uh, one more question. The um, number 24, line 24, the elimination of all 15 media library specialist positions. The word all is what kind of jumped out to me. So, if this is voted on tonight to eliminate those positions, the library media

192specialist, which by the way is really super scary, does that mean that we won't have any more media library specialists at all? Correct. Damn. Who Who's I don't know who just said that, but that wasn't me. Oh, well. Um, all right. So, the next person, Mr. Traver. Yeah. I I I just This is now the second time. I don't know who's speaking. Sometimes nobody's begging. You may beg. We're not begging. I heard that word come out of Miss Batist Perez's mouth a week ago. I'm hearing it come out of your mouth tonight. I am not going to beg with anybody. You may be begging and you and she may be begging, but I'm not intending to beg. I am going to advocate for the people of Bridgeport. Now, you may not see that as a

193worthwhile endeavor, but I do. And I thought that you had a little more gumption than you myself, but sir, do not categorize what I intend to do as begging. You may look at what you want to do as that, but not me. There is nothing wrong with going the whole process is based. They pay people a lot of money to go to Hartford and lobby and argue and and fight for more money for different causes. And that's what we're going to do. And we're not even going to charge that lot of money, but we're going to go up there and fight for our children. Now, you may or may not choose to join us in that fight, but that is what we're going to do for the children of our city. And we may or

194may not succeed in getting everything that we want, but that's what we will continue to do. And I don't appreciate it being categorized as begging. So, let's be polite about how we use our words and let's be supportive about how we're doing things. and you I respect your idea about what is the better course to take and I would appreciate the similar respect for what I think is a better course and at one point when you and I were talking you thought was a good course too but I think that going to Hartford and trying to get more money and by the way I would point out that when super the superintendent and the mayors including Mayor Ganham and superintendent Avery were up there two months ago and four other mayors from four other cities

195and four other superintendent from four other cities were up there. They weren't begging for 550 million and they were being supported by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, which is the premier lobbying firm for all of the cities in the state of Connecticut. And I think they know something about how the process works. So that's what we're doing. We're working with them and other cities as well as other unions and other organizations all working to try and get what we think is a fair and just solution for our children. Thank you, Mr. Sakalic. Yeah, as much as I would like to avoid the coming conversation, I think it's time for us to move on and start getting the this budget taken care of. It's going to be difficult. It's going to be hard. I'm sure more

196questions and more debate will come up as we go line by line. So that being said, I would like to make a motion to add a line under revenue increases stating board approved additional $2.5 million withdrawal from the internal service fund. Second motion was made to add an additional 2.5 million from the internal service and fund and seconded by Mr. Medina. And and what that would do, it would give us a little bit more of a cushion as far as some of these numbers, some of these numbers don't seem very stable. Some of them seem overly optimistic and not solidified. for instance, the 2.5 million in special education costs. We cannot count on that. Um there may be some adjustment to the special education funds. So I think we should have that on there as

197a line item to just reduce the need for the time being. And then when we vote then when we vote on the rest of it, we vote on the bringbacks. That could be one of the bringbacks to increase the internal ser fund in the end. So that's what I got to say on that. So there's been a motion and a second. Is there any further debate on that motion? And we'll make a vote on that motion to add an item to the budget being no. Oh, Miss Cass, sorry. I said it at the Yeah, I said it right before you were getting ready to Um, so I I I guess I'm kind of confused about that $2 million. Um, can you explain that one more time? So, it was um he was saying to take

1982.5 million out of the ISF additionally additionally for um this budget. So that additionally was the word that's the word that I I didn't hear. You don't have to say anymore. I got it. I understand. Thank you. So any other questions on that? I know Mr. Woodson's hand was up already for something else, but for on that motion, is there anything else? Okay. So let's take a vote on that. All in favor of adding that to the um the budget say I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? I'm opposed. Okay. Mr. Woodson opposes and Miss Cameray abstains. Um, okay. Mr. Woodson, you have something else. I'm sorry, Mr. Kick. Your time is up. Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Woodson. U really, really quickly. Like what? Last time last I heard something like about assimilation and and you know

199uh you know just just words that you can't use to run a multi-million dollar business. You know I know and people there's a lot of people involved. There's there's lives involved with this and stuff, but in the end, we're we're we're running a multi-million dollar business. And we can't run a business using words like assim assimilation and and and just, you know, just I don't I I I don't know. But that's it. I'm I'm I'm That's it. I'm done. Thank you. Um Mr. Mr. Sakovic, hold on. Go ahead. Oh, thank you. I'd like to make a motion to eliminate the two to one kindergarten par professionals that were funded through Delta T Deate funds that have expired for a savings of 1.327 million. There's a motion. There's a second by Mr. Medina, as a maker

200motion, do you have anything to say about that? Uh, yes. Um, unfortunately, I'm going to have to recommend that we approve this because we need to get to we need to get to zero amount. And as I stated before, we could rank this how high we want, how low we want to bring it back in the case of more funding. But the fact remains, we need to get to a zero balance. each and every maybe to save a little time. Each and every position that we're going to be talking about, every single person in here that spoke, I do not disagree with any one of them. All their jobs are important. All the services that we're about to vote to cut are very, very important to the district. But we cannot spend money we don't

201have. We could be we could actually theoretically be an irresponsible board. Don't cut any of this and then run out of money in March and not be able to pay anybody and have to shut the whole system down because nobody's gonna work for free. That's all I got. So, there's been a motion and a second on that. Is there any further debate on um eliminating line three of this um budget gap plan? Mr. Draper, do you have a Do you have a I'm sorry, I didn't see you. Mr. Sakalovic is proposing that we not do this. Is that what you're effectively doing? Yeah. We're going through this budget item by item and you're now proposing that we're not going to eliminate the Is that what you're saying? No, that's not that's not that's not exact

202opposite of what I said. Oh, I thought you said eliminate. I'm sorry. I've heard I was reading the line as it is elimination. I thought you wanted off. Are you going? Yes. I I think I think we At this point, there are too many people talking now. I have the floor. I have the floor. At this point, are you going to try to go line by line for each item? I think I think we should. I I mean, each of these titles deserve I mean, because somebody might disagree with one item and then vote against the whole budget because if anybody disagrees on one item, they can say it right now. We can vote on that specific thing. But no, I I I I I think um the people that came out here and spoke

203need to have clarity and if there's no if there's no debate, if nobody disagrees, we don't have to have long debates. We could just go line by line and it'll be just like there's a motion on on the floor to Okay. So, so the answer to my question then go back. I will rem you're making a motion to eliminate to eliminate those positions. Correct. Okay. Okay. So, and Mr. Medina seconded that motion. So, correct. Yeah. So, um and we're going to go through this. We don't have to. He's making the motions. Anybody can make a motion. Mr. Okay. So, that would I guess be my next question then. You're you you're suggesting that we're going to do this item by item. So, the approximately 23 items. Yeah. Mhm. No. Oh, 23. 23. 26 minus 3

204is 23. Um items. We're going to do one at a time or the 22. That's his suggestion. It doesn't mean you have to do that. We're going to do 22 items one at a time. Correct. Um Okay. Uh and and just for information purposes, budgets take long time to get through. Mr. Quo could tell you the city council. I'm not arguing. I'm only asking right. Okay. But I I still had the floor. So I'm just asking that's the proposal. Is a yes or no question. It was answered yes. Okay. And so is now you can I'm going to ask you to elaborate why why and now you can go because these positions these jobs they deserve the respect of having a hearing. If anybody has an objection to one of them or a point that

205they want to make on each and every one of these points and it's good. The city council has weekl long budget hearings. They sit there four or five hours at a sitting to do it. We are not the McDonald's of governance. We are making very important decisions right now. I'm not comfortable. I I respect your answer. I respect Mr. Glor. Come on. I I respect your answer. Can we avoid is still going on? Can we avoid the pmics? No. Thank you. So we so we give them the respect that they deserve. It could go go faster. We could have been on the vote already and voted yes or no and been on the next item. But Mr. through madam chair chair I mean again it's just my experience from the city side when things are

206unanimous they generally ask board members to pick one or two things they don't agree with and mass vote the rest of them then debate on those ones individually yeah wi which was again still have holding the floor was going to be my next why wouldn't to just ask to hold out if any member of the board wanted to designate some that they wanted to hold out versus going through them all. So I'm not again trying to argue one way or the other, Mr. Skullik, because I don't think I have a set opinion, but I don't need the McDonald's comment. I do just ask out of ignorance as much as anything which and why you think that's a better way to do it versus letting somebody say I'm going to hold out 37 91 12 and

207you know for discussion and go through the rest. So that would be the other way that I would think you would do it. So that's that's the way the council does it. Okay. So that that was the full question. I'm not comparing notes. I'm just expressing my experience. So, procedurally, I would just wonder if there's a I hear what you just said, Mr. Sagalovic. I respect it. I just think there's also another way. But if there's a draw there for the on the part of the board, but it should it should move relatively quickly if we're if we're all if we're all in enough agreement to get rid of all these positions with a block with a block without highlighting each position and its impact on our students for the people to know that we

208are considering the impact on the children. For instance, the school bus school school buses when we get to that the impact of them walking. We know that we feel that we are being forced to make that cut. The impact of loss of psychosocial services, we know that we feel that we losing that cut. We need to emphasize these things. I think it's been emphasized, but and it it'll take it'll take a could we could be done in 20 minutes if nobody there's a motion on the table on the table right now. on the floor. So if uh you want to vote, there is a motion on this one item and then I would reserve the right to come back and revisit the process. All right. So let's motion motion. All in favor for elimination of

209two to one car uh kindergarten paras were funded through delta t. I say I. What do you want to do? Why is it any opposed? Opposed. Any abstensions? Two opposes. Mr. Casemir and Mr. Benahan. Anybody abstaining? Okay. Or that one's off. That one's cut. Okay. So, I'm gonna go ahead and ask about the the the process of this. Right. I mean, we I'm I'm go if we can I'm going to make the motion like he wants it. Go ahead. Thank you. I would like to make a motion to approve the entirety of lines three through 26 as presented by Mr. Unquo on the budget decreases. So, there's been a motion. Is there a second? Second. The motion is to approve you. Motion to approve the budget reductions as presented by Mr. Unquo from lines 3

210through 26 with the exception of number four which has been removed. And that was second by Mr. Medina. As a maker motion, do you have anything? Yes. I'm just going to highlight real quick. in bullet points. Um, climate specialist positions per DM, three positions. They take care of um, our school. Can you say the number as well as you say? Thank you. Oh, yes. Thank you. The three positions per DM climate specialist as we know our culture and climate in our schools are very important. Um, their jobs are important. They uh could you give us a little bit of an explanation because I'm not exactly sure entirely what they can. Can somebody explain what the climate climate petitions do real quick? Really briefly through you sent out. Okay, we can move on from that one.

211We'll come back to that one. Yeah. um increase Bridgeport public schools walking distance elementary school, high schools, um charter schools and both of ours. Now, this is really concerning to me. Um we've been this before. Our students, some of our schools, some of us streets don't have sidewalks. Some of our schools are dangerous to get to. Um, it's going to increase absenteeism, especially on cold days. Kid got to walk 2.2 miles to school. I'm not advocating against removing this because of the situation we find ourselves in financially and the requirement by the state and the local government to fund our schools. So to be clear, we know this is going to I know how it's going to impact students and how they are going to suffer due to the lack of funding by the city

212of Bridgeport in the state of Connecticut. Okay. So we'd like to go over to school counselors and social workers. Our children have been traumatized throughout their lives before COVID. Some of them are still suffering the effects of COVID. We are removing supports from them and help from them. Psychosocial services which is going to harm our children going forward which is another item we do not have a choice but to eliminate due to the underfunding of the city and state effective eliminating 18 assistant principles. We've already voted on that so I won't touch on that. Of course they're important supports for the building. They free up the principal to do other work. They free up other staff to do other stuff. Um, principles on special assignment. We all know what principles do and the special assignment.

213They free up uh administrators to do other things. Uh, eliminate eight to nine additional central office positions. Although I'm always hopping on central office positions and we should cut there first because it doesn't affect the classroom directly. There is an indirect there is indirect impact in the classroom. It hurts. These cuts even hurt our kids because there's less administrators doing more work which distracts their attention from other things such as evaluations and all that. So their work is impactful as well. So that will also hurt our children. Um performing arts, visual arts, this is one of the ones I want to put on top to bring back because our district's always been star for the performing arts and it's a small price tag. So if we get that, that's something we can bring back in

214my opinion. um excess teachers, maxing out class sizes. We all know increased class sizes are lead to less learning and more issues in the classroom. But again, no choice due to the underfunding of the city and the state of Bridgeport. um cancel of some curriculum and use the state free program that when I see as not ideal but it's not I don't I don't want need to highlight that too much dynamic software I'll skip over reduce attorney outside council usage and cost that's a no-brainer um move one of the two teachers out of the human resource to the classroom they were assistant human resources with um some specific um criteria for educators to be hired. Review all stipen payments. That's something we should be all we should be doing anyway, being careful with our funds.

215Review all sped non-medical students for update. $2.5 million. Uh that's a that says like a wish to me. Hopefully, we could attain that wish, but then we got some backup funds to hold off on that. Uh, district cell phone utilization assignments. That's an easy savings. Elimination of all 15 media library specialist positions. This one hurts. These are certified teachers. They are very very useful positions. Again, these are the least dam. These are some of the most least harm we could do our children due to the fact that city and local local and state underfunding of our schools are being forcing us to do that. Elimination of five additional assistant principal positions. Again, assistant principles are very valuable to our district. These cuts are going to hurt. And elimination of 20 teacher positions. That's another no-brainer.

216That's going to definitely hurt our children. Less staff means larger class sizes and less teachers. And now I'm going to editorialize for a second. Um I feel each and every one of these cuts. Every one of you are valuable no matter how this board votes. I value and I'm sure the rest of my colleagues value every single employee in this district. Every single child in this district. We feel you. Thank you. Any other folks? All right. Um, 44. Okay. All right. See no other Oh, Mr. Traver, sorry. I see I waited too long. Go ahead, Traver. Oh, it was up there already. Um, sorry, I missed you. Yeah. No, I I first off, let me just say that, you know, instead of us discussing how we wanted to proceed to discuss these positions, we sort

217of went from one to the other. and and it's unfortunate and I I would like to have had us decide how we wanted to proceed so we could go through this. Um I hear Mr. Scalivik's uh saliloquy on uh these positions and I respect his position. I I have some questions. How many positions are we eliminating here, Mr. Nuno? I just added 125. I How many administrative positions are we eliminating? When you say administrators, administrators or teach administrators on special assignment being pushed back into the class. I don't know how many administrative positions is this. I I mean I'm sort of I'm looking at five, 18, 3, 21, 26. Mhm. Um, it's about 35. I don't know if I'm missing any others. About 35 because we had done, Madam Chair, we had done some earlier

218in I'm not counting the ones we did already. Oh, okay. But in this proposal that we're voting on, I see 26. Is that correct? Yeah, that's about right. Y and then on teaching positions, I see 48 39. the the other 18 we already did them before the assistant principle we did them before we just cashing in the saving okay so the the the administrative okay the assistant principal you're confusing me now what other 18 I was on teachers and you went back administrator to another 18 so so so through the chair so that when you look at the 26 18 of those that's what you just said 26 administrators that you counted Uh well I I on on line 12 I see 18. Right. So now those 18 are the ones we already eliminated. Correct.

219But this is calculated differently. And Mr. Nquel can answer more to that. But those 18 are the ones you already voted on in December. But what he didn't show in his December calculations was the cost savings here. So that's why it's there again because we didn't eliminate them in December. They're going to June 30th. Okay. And Okay. But in the end, we're this vote will eliminate 18 and 321 and 526 administrative positions. And then uh teaching positions I'm looking at 20 15 35 um uh 31 that would be 66 and eight more would be 74. Right. 74 teaching positions. Well, not the You mean classroom positions? No, teaching specific. I said teaching. Okay. Well, um, so I'm I'm I I I understand why you're asking, Madam Chair, but I'm I'm just trying to see. I

220see 20 on line 26. I see 15 on line 24, the library media specialists. I see 31 on line 16. Mhm. I see four and four on lines 11 and 12. Uh 11 and 10. Sorry. Counselors and social workers. That would be the teaching bargaining unit. Right. Right. Okay. Yeah. By union. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And then um how many paras are there any other paras besides the uh kindergarten? No. No other pars other than the 2 to1 kindergarten par. And how how many kindergarten paras is that? 40. 40. And you know they're not true and chair. They're not really they're agency employees. They're not city employees. 40 who 44 um for the non non board of ed employees. They're non Yeah, they're non board of ed employee. They're agency employees. Mr. Ch, that's 44 actually.

22144 for the Paris. Where were the other four? Huh? 44 for the Paris. It's 44. Line item three. You're saying it's not 40. It's 44. 44. Okay. I'm sorry. I got you. Thank you. All right. Do you have any more questions, Mr. Hold on one second. Let me just make sure I don't. Um, and then do we have an estimate about how many students would be affected by the walking? Oh, yeah. The numbers are there. Yeah, it's right next to it. By elementary school, by school. These are new students that would be affected. No, no, no. These are students that will that use the bus that need to extend their walking distance. Right. So when I look at line item six and I see 1256, right? These are 1256 that are currently riding a bus.

222Yes. They would now be walking. There will be extended walk, right? They won't be riding a bus anymore. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So the altogether the total is going to be let's see about 2 911 about 23 2400 students are going to start walking to the school. Mhm. Okay. Okay. No madam chair that's it for now. Mr. Medina sorry. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I was following him so much that I I lost my position. Real quick on line item just a small question. I think line item 25 just to make sure that I'm reading this right. Uh elimination of five additional assistant principal positions. Mhm. We have a 12 238,685 and it says reduction plus 4674 37 Kelly LTS savings. Let me let me clarify that. No problem. Those assistant principles will

223be you tell them your position is eliminated. They will move to be teachers into the teaching classroom. You're only saving $1,000 for the first year per position. But they are going to be taking slots that where we where we have long-term Kelly substitutes. So once they move in into those positions, we will not be paying Kelly substitutes. I got you. So LTS is long-term service. Thank you very much. I just want to make sure I never saw that before. So I was like, what is that? Thank you very much. That's all I need. You Thank you. I can't write every word here. It's not going to fit. So I have to kind of Yeah, there's a So, the motion's on the table. Is there anything that wants me that that anybody want amend before we

224make the vote? Mr. Ban, you had a question. You have a something. Oh my god. Um, we talking about cut cut this, cut this, save this, cut this. We need to save this and but nobody think the consequence nothing. Nobody think the consequence will for the parent, teacher, students, everyone. That's what I want to say. I respect everybody comments but want everybody say cut this. We need to save this. We're going to save this money because this because that but nobody think let me put your shoes you know put you know all these parents shoes all these staff shoes you know I know the money is there trust me the they always have excuses excuses we don't have this we don't have that but when they have things for other things they're not important things

225is not necessary the money is there and I'm sorry I talk like that because I get upset because I know the money is there and I challenge anyone tell me this not true because hurt me hurt me so much that we have to cut all this. We don't have I know we don't have no choice but they don't think the consequence of these parents, students, staff, everyone. It's easy to say I'm going to cut it. It's easy. I told you drink this bottle of water, but I want to say you you don't think it. I'm I'm going to think did I drink it? Why he want me to drink this bottle of water? They have something inside. This is the consequence. That's what I'm thinking because I know the money is there. Nobody think you

226know I'm I respect everybody's comment but I feel you know so upset that everybody say let's cut this I know we going to save this we're going to save that it's easy to say by mouth outside you know say and that's it but nobody think oh my god these parents going to have this mom going to have this like you say a lot of kids going to be walking you know the consequence all our kids going to be walking so far okay summer's coming up but what's going to happen in the winter we got crazy People driving in the street, they don't drive in the street, they driving the sidewalk. They don't respect when teachers or staff or parents that crossing the street. You know the issues happen when they don't they don't you guys

227know they don't respect the stop sign when the school bus, you know, take it out the sign and they go through. So we they don't think I'm I'm talking I'm talking about the consequence of everyone what's going to happen because after that trust me everyone people going to go after us. Thank you madam chair. Respectfully, I want to just clarify because I know what you mean by saying the money is there and I know what you mean by you're saying, you know, you think cuts are easy, but that's I'm I'm I'm just want to clarify. You're not talking about the board because the the money is not there in our system and and none of us want to make these cuts. So, I want to make sure for the record I say for the on

228the board's behalf that the money is not in our pockets in our in our district. It's in the state in the city. That's where the money is. And I I just want to if you want to clarify that, you can clarify that for the record, but I want people saying, you know, board has the money cuz Mr. Ben said they have the money. If you want to go ahead. Let me clarify that. I'm sorry because I'm upset. The boarding us we don't have the money. It's the state. Let me clarify that. It's this state. We don't have the money. We need the money. State know we need the money. The state know everything. All right. There's one. They are not. Every second they know what we need. It's the state the we don't have it.

229We need it. Thank you. I'm going to go Miss Casemir. I agree with Mr. Benahan. Um you know especially when I look at um you know the increase in the students walking distance and and like he said I don't know if anybody has seen lately but people in Bridgeport they not everybody. I'm just saying there's a lot of people that live here that they just drive crazy. And um it's not just that. is just, you know, I I just wanted to echo that sentiment that the state and um the local government really really needs to step up because not only are we cutting things that are going to pose a safety issue to our students, but we're also cutting things that um is going to continue the test scores, struggling test scores as well. like

230everything all around there are all four um domains of their development um are being affected by this budget. So um I want to ask and with that I want to ask Dr. Avery Dr. Avery are you absolutely certain I know that you and Mr. Unquo worked hard on this budget. You continue to work hard on it, but are you 100% sure that you guys have gone through everything with a fine tooth comb? Like absolutely everything? Yes. Yes, ma'am. I can I can tell you that we've been racking our heads for months now trying to figure out and kind trying to anticipate exactly how to present this to the board. uh we've we've we spent weekends and long hours trying to figure out and kind of come up with the best case scenario. Uh and this

231is what we have before us. And so again, there's it's been a long thought process, a very difficult opportunity for us to and challenging for us to even present the things because we know how it's going to impact kids, teachers, administrators, campuses in general, just the whole community of Bridgeport. Uh but again, I think the advocacy piece now that we're at this moment, we have to continue to do that. Uh and that's the only other option that we have. And I think we can we can we we have to stay together, you know, focused in on what's in the best interest of us holistically and and and make our voice heard. So I'm I'm vowed to do that. My staff is vowing to do that. The board is vowing to do that. So, let's keep

232the the pressure on our state, our delegates, our our our city of Bridgeport. We just have to keep it out there and, you know, and and with the grace of God, he's going to be able to provide a way for us to get through this um horror situation that we're in right now. So, again, that's my hope. Uh and hope is alive is where I see it. Um Thank you. I I sorry, Miss Cass, did you have anything else? No, I said thank you. Oh, thank you. Um the the vote tonight obviously but whatever we vote on tonight um if in the end of the month or end of May and June when when the budgets are passed from the city and state money um is approved, we will come back to the table obviously

233and these are the first cuts we're looking at to to bring back. So I just want to make that clear to everybody. Um, and so I want to if Dab wasn't clear, um, we have a couple more questions and then we'll go from there. Treyber. Yeah, I I just want to be clear, uh, to Mr. Benahalis. Um, I have to see things a certain way. Um, Albert, um, I can't go yell at those guys unless I can explain it. This is too much. They won't look at it. I have to put it in the simpler terms. I have to put it in terms they'll hear me. I I you know, if I say, "Look, read this list, their their eyes will glaze over. They won't give a rat's backside about our kids." They don't. So,

234I have to be able to explain it in terms of how many positions we're eliminating, how many miles our kids are gonna, how many children, 24,00 children are going to have to walk to school instead of getting a bus ride. I have to be able to say it in short, simple terms. That's why I'm asking those questions, not because I don't care. I you know that the the woman that te testified about arts arts when my daughter went to central saved my daughter saved her I can't talk about it. So I have to be able to see the numbers in a way that I can go advocate strongest for them. So don't take my questions as not being angry, as not being passionate. Believe me, brother, I'll be up there with you. being just as

235angry and just as passionate, just as committed and and shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone else up there that's fighting for our children. Um, it's just the way I have to see the numbers to make my arguments and we all have our different way of doing that. And I know how you do it and you do it quite well. So we'll we'll all be in there together. I know. Thank you, Madam Chair. Medina, Mr. Medina. Thank you, Madam Chair. And also, thank you, Madam Chair, for clearly stating that we are the ones that don't have the funds. The state does like Albert was saying, that's what he meant to say. The other individual to Chabber's statement is Dr. Henry is in charge of the fame and the entire arts program. You know, I had a heart-to-heart talk uh

236with a few people during the weekend that were calling me. I had a heart-to-he heart talk with her. And this is emotional for us. My daughters, all three also went through the arts. They all still performing. And I I'm here because of them. I'm here because of what we advocated for. So, this is a reality. Senator Kathy Olston was the one that I was quoting before and I quote, and I'll read very short. you can't maximize funding when you don't have enough to begin with. And I quote and she says Bridgeport doesn't receive the funding it deserves or needs. And again, Senator Senator Kathy Olston, probably the farthest from our from Brisport all the way in the top of the state said that. And I think even Dr. Avery, you know, gave her uh quoted

237her, you know, uh and this is what we're looking at. We're looking at for us to sound the alarm, like I said earlier, and move forward. This is just a reality for the state to know this is what's going on. And I thank Mr. Traver, not Dr. Traver, Mr. Traver, because that's what it is. we need to, you know, take this in a bite-size and be able to explain it to people, you know, and, you know, that's also what I needed, you know, because I needed to make sure and we were talking about me and uh, Madam Chair, just trying to get those numbers and make sure I write it down because this is the stuff that we need to go to our senators and speak to them and just to simplify that this is

238what's happening. And Dr. Nuke, uh, Mr. NL said, you know, 20 more million dollars we're looking for next year, the following year, not 2020, 2027, and then after that we might be at 25, 28, the year after. Reality is it's going to continue to grow, but yet still we're not getting any help from the state with the ECS formula. This is where it lies. The truth lies between 13 years we have been holding this ECS formula to the same amount when cost of living goes up. We need to sound the alarm. Thank you, Mr. Kick. Thank you. Oh, yeah. I just before we vote, I just like to mention um yeah, these job these jobs, these cuts that we may want to bring back. I think we need to vote on them before, maybe not

239tonight because everybody seems a bit tired, myself included. Uh that we should u put on maybe on the very next agenda, the priority list of what we want to bring back should we get the funding because by June it to be wrapped up uh all the budget should be wrapped up in June and if Dr. Davey has that is armed with that information. When the money comes through, God willing, he'll be ready to make moves immediately without having to come back to to the board to seek direction. And that's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Benahan. Thank you, M. I get very emotional because I agree with you, Mr. Treber. Some of his program help a lot of kids. One of them, two of them helped my son and one of them was the soccer

240coach S. He helped a lot to my son. It hurt me. I'm sorry, but it's it's something too hard and people don't understand the suffering of our kids. You know, it's easy to say I'm going to cut them. I'm going to cut them. I'm going to save them. I'm going to save this. How many time I say let's go and talk for these people. They, you know, knock the door. If if I have to be there eight within 8, 10, 11, 12 hours, I don't care. I would do it. I would do it because they have to understand who's going to be suffering. Like I say, Kosa helped my son a lot. And not only Kosa, another a lot of program. Mr. Bloom is um is program. I mean it's almost 45 years you know

241doing what Bass High School helping and I know another schools help a lot of student. We have one of the here sample I could say Mr. Ramos. It's amazing he describ how he take care of his kids. We got principles everybody because they care. Like I say, we got teachers they can leave and say I'm living. I'm I'm done with princip but they don't leave because they care. They want the best for our students and hurt me hurt me so much. I'm doing this for I be here almost for 20 years. My son start in prek um sorry um first grade where the school was open until he graduate. So I have a history and I get emotional. I don't get paid for this because I like it. I enjoy. I like to help other

242ones. And I will not give up until God tell me stop. And I know it's not us. You know, it's not the point. We we don't have the money. But these people, they understand we need it. And what make me angry is when another state, another city have more money. They give it more money. And us, they know that we need it. They don't care. We care. They don't care. And that piss me off. I get very emotional because you know it's it's something that I know there going to something's going to happen with something happen something's going to happen with the staff they can be a a teacher they can be student you know how I'm going to feel that I know I'm against this that I'm going to feel bad it's going to

243hurt me because this is like a family people vote for me and vote for us but I'm going to talk about myself everybody know that because they trust us we elected because they trust us. They know we're here to help them. No, you're on. Oh, so I just want to say that for the record. Thank you. Um, all right. So, we're seeing no further questions. Um, we could go ahead and take a vote. Um, we do roll call. Mr. Sak is requesting a roll call. Let me know when you're ready. Oh, sorry. I had to put you on. Go ahead. She's not here, but for the record, I'm going to call her name. Christine Baptist Paris, Mr. Kisha Casemir. Yes. Himenez. Yes. Mr. William Medina. Yes. Jennifer Paris. Yes. Mr. Justice Suck. Yes. With an

244explanation to be entered into the minutes. and voting yes. Due to the chronic underfunding by the city of Bridgeport and the state of Connecticut that has unfairly discriminated against our city and other large cities, it's high time to have equity and education in the state of Connecticut. Mr. Robert Traber, Mr. Woodson, I want to say no with an explanation. Go ahead. Um, I'm saying no just because there was a proposal by this former superintendent that would have saved all the jobs and would have helped, you know, move us forward, but people voted to to get rid of her. So now we have to lay people off. This is a point of information. Point of information. Yeah. That keeps being repeated over and over again. But we've never were able to avoid layoffs. We were never

245able to avoid this cliff no matter what happened. Even if we made every single suggestion by the former superintendent, we would still been $30 million in a hole this year. There's no way, shape, or form what you're saying is true. I wish you would research it and find out. And please stop saying We're going to go back to Mr. Benham. Madam Chair, yeah, I just call a point of information is that if the original budget plan and school closures for safe facilities would have actually gone through, we wouldn't be in this position now. So, you know, spreading the false narrative and continuing to beg for money when this board has mismanaged it funds and put itself in this position shouldn't be a tax burden on the state of Connecticut for poor fiscal management. But that's

246just my point of information. Thank you for acknowledging me being here. Mr. Mloud, let the record reflect that Miss Batist Perez joined the meeting. Going back to Miss Aisha Casemia. No. Having Miss Christine Baptis? No. because this fiscal mismanagement, the failure to close unsafe buildings, this was caused by the current leadership of the board. So, I'm not going to sit here and pretend to beg the state for money that we've failed to use wisely and failed to be responsible for because these critical cuts are not critical and is self-inflicted. It's like committing suicide and then asking the state to save us after we put ourselves in this position. and myself Mr. Ben Graales I vote no in a spread the reason five to four there's a motion carries um is your point about go ahead

247you explain my vote okay um a false narrative has once again been perpetrated by this uh Miss Batist Perez dramatic entry point of clarification. There's no false narrative. That's like talking about your false. A point of clarification. I haveification. I have the floor. Miss Perez. Mr. Cher, I can talk. You'll get your time after him. I have the right to explain my vote. You explained yours. My understanding from we've had this discussion. I don't know where you've been. The closing of schools would save us 1.25 million. Close five schools. You can do the math. I can do the math. It doesn't add up to 30 million. So, we've had the discussion in in meetings. it would not add up to what you've done or said. Okay? So, I call it a false narrative because it's

248not going to affectuate or do what you said it would do. So, the savings are not there and we have a plan that we voted on and I am voting yes because this is the only way we're going to get to the savings we need with the money that we have allocated to us at this point. Um, what you would want to do is make people believe that there's some other way to get there and there's not. No, what I would want to do is tell the truth. You're talking about staffing a completely empty building utilities for an empty building. You know, if it was just 1 whatever million dollars to run a building, then we wouldn't be in this much debt. But then it's composted by empty years and years. That's it. Miss Chabber,

249I'm ending it now. The next thing I'm going to talk about, the vote's been passed, it's been made. Mr. Rapise has invited the board on May 1st to the law day debate. Um, it's at 9:30 at Winthrup School. May 8th, Miss Viegas, who did not get to actually say what she was here for. She spoke on something else, invites the board to the inspiration awards at the Trumal Marriott. That's May 8th at 3:30. Please RSVP via her email that she sent. Now, is there any further Mrs. Kavik? Motion to adjurnn. Moved and seconded. All in favor? I I ordered uh meeting adjourns at 11:06.