001good evening this is a call to order the Bridgeport uh Board of Education regular meeting today is March 24th and it is 6:35 um can everybody rise for the Pledge of Allegiance na indivisible for all thank you Mr benan can you take the roll call thank you even everyone Christine b spis Casmir here Miss Mara jenez Mr will Medina Miss Jennifer Paris Mr Justin s president Mr Rober tror Mr Woodson Pres thank you um we're GNA hear from our student Representatives um and we have a few we have four in person and may have some online but we'll go in person first good evening members of the board my name is Daniela Gomez and I'm a junior at Fairchild wheeler biotech these past few weeks have been very busy for us on March 12th our
002Junior students participated in our SAT boot camp where we were able to practice using Blue Book which prepped us for the SAT that will be taken on April 10th on March 14th our National Honor Society students hosted a Pi Day fundraiser where students could buy tickets to paa teacher and we had a lot of fun then on March 9 19 Mr Reyes and his civics class were able to visit the Superior Court in Bridgeport and were able to see some live cases in action now for some things that are coming up on March 26 our students will take part in our ngss bootcamp giving them a chance to practice their skills for the ngss also coming up report card conference days are on April 23rd and 24th for us students in BIO this third quarter
003has been super busy but super super amazing and the quarter will be ending Friday April 4th so that's all thank you and have a good night thank you good evening board members I'm John Moro I's Junior representative two weeks ago we had the Marines join our physical education classes in which students participated in a boot camp style class and learned the different opportunities available with the Marines on March 12 we successfully completed our SAT blot Camp through college boards blue book blue books app which simulat how the SAT PSATs will be with similar test questions and timing after completing those tests students receive their scores and the yearsas of improvement and learn and learn test taking strategies in preparation for our SATs on April 10th teachers are engaging every day on sat doils in which
004students answer an SAT question and review why it's correct and why others are incorrect a group from our fundamentals of it and advanced IT problem solving classes attended a nurturing field trip to the ID to the Ida Lab at Sacred Heart University in where students have participated in soldering virtual reality and 3D printing while understanding engineering processes our embroidery machine for our maker space has arrived and is currently being set up to create School merchandise and understand the management behind it all proceeds will go back to supporting School school activities and Technology upgrades on April 2nd we will have our pathway showcase to raise awareness of the different opportunities available for students before they graduate which include gaining college credits or industry credentials to booster postgraduation plans six science for projects from it were presented
005to the state and three were selected as finalists who presented their projects at Quinny Pak University that is all thank you board members good good evening everyone my name is Christian beika and I am the representative for Central magnet and for Central this is what I have to share currently we are celebrating women's history month and right now we have daily student announcements over the intercom about famous wom in history and we also plan to have an end of the month assembly about the matter spring Sports practice has also be begun today for volleyball tennis track and baseball and they are going very well we are also planning a nice Spring Dance on April 4th which is open for all Central students and is meant to fund the upper classman events now for for classman
006events the junior ring dance it's set for May 1st I believe at anony Zen view which is in New Haven and for our senior prom that would be I believe May 30th at Cascades which is in hamom but the dates are subject to change I believe and for now we also plan to hold a college acceptance day and that will be in early May for the class of 2025 but we also have began announcing the set graduation day to students as Friday June 30th the board said and for ongoing and what we plan to do for the future we are currently having a prom dress drive and we are taking in any fitting dresses suitable for a prom's usage for the girls and the CHS scholarship fund committee they're also raising money for the graduating
007seniors local businesses were contacting them for a subsequent donations and if possible if you want or you want to make a donation you can contact the director of the magnet program Miss Bernard Patterson if you are interested in donating other than that things at Central High School have been eventful as we plan to prepare for the SAT more and we look forward to a good rest of the year thank you a do we have any online any students online okay all right thank you for sharing all right um let the record show that Mr traber has also joined the meeting next up we have um public comment so we'll begin and Miss Baptist Perez has also um joined the meeting all right our first uh speaker is Rebecca Rebecca Cabrera you just click on the
008microphone there you go good evening um we also have two other speakers signed up consecutively that they're going to yield their time to me if that's okay SAR Smith and Lindsay Davis dear members of the Board of Education and Dr Avery we come before you tonight as the bcast membership to discuss the immense need to save our current districtwide assistant principles social workers school guidance counsel and special education District level supervisors for the 2025 26 school year and Beyond the current B proposed budget cuts will result in the loss of approximately 24 positions including 18 assistant principles it has been stated multiple times that we don't want to affect our classrooms but cutting these integral staff members at the school and District level will have a major negative impact on our classrooms and is not
009in the best interest of our children Bridgeport Public Schools is the largest and one of the most diverse school districts in the state of Connecticut however despite our size and ever increasing needs we continue to cut human capital which is our most Val valuable resource cuts on paper do not reflect the real human impact on our schools one of the most impactful decisions made for Bridgeport Bridgeport last year was hiring assistant principles for each elementary school as you know assistant principal responsibilities at any level extend beyond administrative tasks they work alongside principles as building instructional leaders to guide and scale the instructional priorities of the school district and to provide for the evaluation and coaching of our teachers and staff they also work to build a positive climate and culture in the school and assist
010with shaping positive student Behavior within the school they assist in the supervision and safety of all of our students and staff in the school building and assist with medical interventions when there is no nurse to support the building for the day they build trusting relationships with our students and our children rely on them for their continued behavioral and academic growth in addition each student with special education services must have a minimum of one PPT per year as their annual review some students may have may require more than one PPT depending on whether it is their evaluation year a principal or assistant principal is required at every PPT and they act as the chair of the PPT meeting they work to ensure compliance with special education laws and regulations many schools hold ppts over multiple days
011per week to meet the needs of their school in addition srbi meetings which support our students who need tier 2 and tier three intervention supports require administrative presence as doe 504 meetings which are run by our school guidance counselors with the loss of our H School coordinators in years past the responsibility to maintain and increase our prental involvement has also Fallen to the administrative team we have worked diligently with our parents to maintain pack meetings host student recom recognition ceremonies and host and plan multiple larger parent involvement events thus the need for assistant principles who can take on multiple building responsibilities remain imperative last year due to budget cuts we lost valued staff including our easy teachers at the elementary level Who provided tier three intervention services for our struggling students this loss of Staff
012has increased the responsibility onto our classroom teachers and others it has also potentially led to an increased number of special education referrals the need for special education supervisors is periment as the number of students who have special education needs continues to grow the district special education supervisors support in District outof district and Charter Schools however due to the already experienced Cuts in the special education department this year they have even less time to support our specialized programs in our district schools their guidance is integral in the PPT process and program and placement of our students with IEPs their guidance is also needed as many of our schools our school specialized programs are being covered by long-term substitute teachers not certified teachers we need more special education staff not less in addition the long lasting impact
013of covid is definitely not over we are experiencing a mental health crisis with many students who are exhibiting significant academic behavioral and social emotional difficulties including trauma-based responses social workers and our school guidance counselors are the staff who specialize in utilizing trauma informed practices with our students social workers service many I many students IEPs and are involved in the student special education evaluation process they also work as a valued member of our crisis team school counselors coordinate and craft students 504 plans work on Student Success plans support student attendance concerns support high school and college and career Readiness and support the counseling needs of many students in addition to their other responsibilities how can we consider cutting social workers and school guidance counselors who work directly with our students to improve their lives in closing
014please do not eliminate or reduce the number of bcast positions nor the school social workers and guidance counselors as it would be a detriment to our school communities we are willing to brainstorm with you to find other cost-saving measures other than human capital we are an excellent administrative and support team who have the education and support of our children and families at the Forefront of our daily work respectfully the bcast union membership thank you hello everybody uh do I have to say my my address okay I'm here today to talk about my job as a restorative interventionist and um how important it is I understand you you face difficult decisions but I urge you to consider the impact that that our schools will take my name is Omar Resto I'm a bridport resident for 46
015years and I served the board of ed for 24 years uh I like many other restorative workers were ISS officers originally and we transitioned into these positions unknowing that we were going into a contract position we provided a layer of support we provide a layer of support for administration social workers guidance counselors teachers by supporting a mentoring in some of our most atrisk students our effort significantly reduced the burden on administrators and improve school safety and student well-being we Empower students to advocate for themselves communicate provide sa we also provide a safety net for unnoticed trauma that slips by um some of this uh support uh we support academic prevent bullying and monitor attendance which improves our attendance in our buildings the results are clear lower lower suspension rates fewer physical altercations reduced chronic absentee
016isms our workor is coste effective and essential for fostering a positive School environment I urge you to reconsider our value and reconsider any cuts to these positions every day we make a difference with our our children in school thank you um Jess Resto uh PCM pack president par to two and um a wife dedicated to a restorative special a wife to a dedicated restora restorative specialist about a year ago many of us stood before the Board of Education warning of financial irresponsibility I person was spoken over and my speech was nearly suppressed now here we are facing the consequences of those decisions tonight I had to choose between attending the state listening session which they conveniently scheduled at the same time of this meeting are standing here to address the very real impact of these
017parah and restorative Cuts I chose to be here because these Cuts directly affect our classrooms and the overall School climate how do you expect our overall are already overworked and underpaid teachers to take on responsibilities of Paras and restorative staff the roles are not optional they are essential my husband has dedicated nearly 20 years to this District supporting and uplifting our children ver as a parah then one-on-one ISS and now as a restorative specialist I have never seen him more fulfilled than he is in this role he makes a profound difference in the lives of our students every single day he ensures that each child feels safe valued and respect it he listens to them supports them and yes even cries with them everywhere we we go former and C current students stop us to
018share how much he's impacted their lives and I'm proud and honored that my children get to witness that the truth is we all have benefited from someone like Omar Rau I know because I was once that neglected child and now I know exactly what you're taking away from these kids and I hope you do too thank you good evening I want to talk a little bit about special act uh you guys got a chance to hire 20 teachers for special a that's a blessing because we can't even get one you got a chance tonight to vote to put 20 of them because my commitment was to work with Dr Avery and his staff I haven't from one complaint yet one lawsuit you take my lawyer's money and your lawyer's money invested into that but that's
019up win all day long 20 teachers you imagine you can't get one we're going to get 20 I hope you vote and send those teachers to school and get that that diploma and put them in the classroom good evening Board of Education my name is stavo Martins and I'm a student representative uh I for but today I'm not here only as a representative uh of it but I'm also but also as a student we're here today to discuss two important topics including the possib the possible elimination of restorative practice positions like Mr Omar he's one of my teachers there I can name just myself I can name 20 St 20 students that every day work with him and talk to him about things that happen in their lives say how he helped them um during
020the day and I want to emphasize the importance of this word his job and their job uh it provides essential support for students helping helping us navigate challenges and build a positive um School environment so before we vote for their job today I hope we keep in mind that how important for us students their job is to help us so thank you thank you for your attention and consideration thank you we have Ashna wh Witter just click on the microphone okay good evening to our Board of Education members Dr Avery our Acting Superintendent of Schools and everyone here in person and for everyone watching online my name my name is Ashna Wier and I'm Audrey badia both from basik high school we are happy to welcome back Dr Rola back to basik Dr riola and
021the rest of the administrative staff have been working have been working consistently and colle collectively to change the climate of our school we are happy to announce that last week our UniFi team took part in track at at Brian McMahon followed by St Patrick's Day Parade we learned that bassic is in the process of joining the Southwest Conference today our Juniors took the IAB for ngss science test tomorrow at March 25th our n9th and 10th graders will be taking their PSATs while our Juniors take the acts the national Hest Society has had a St Patrick's Day fundraiser to improve and donate to the school we are happy to report this few amazing things from our school thank you for having us here thank you good evening everyone Mr Albert benan um very simple I believe
022everyone say everything clear here we don't to be de cutting stuff I know we need to save money we understand that we need to save money but I believe we need to save money from the people from the top not of the people low income they work very hard sometime they got two job to take care of the house business family everyone um it's very obviously I believe every everyone here say everything very clear how to um save money and we need this staff because sometime when people there inside the building these people were working so hard they outside sometime after hours they do a lot of thing with the students that sometime some people they are home board members they know sometime we outside deal with a a lot of parents and students we
023all know that right board members we do a lot of things including um weekends too but these people work so hard sometimes job three jobs I know staff that have three jobs and you want to cut we got people that you can maybe you know can cut from the people from the top but not the people for the low income they work very hard you know and I'm going to stand next to them and I'm going to fight for them because I know they need us they need to be sure they need our students how many how many do you do do you really know um board members that we have students they Trust the staff a lot 100% so let's think before we act because I'm not here to cut no more I know
024we got to cut but I'm done is done we need our people we need our staff the people work very hard for brisport public school thank you there is not a member of I said hours on Senate Bill 15 it would give us $55 million we wouldn't have to make Cuts Senate Bill 1511 if each and every one of you went home and spoke to your estate rep and your estate Senator call them up tomorrow tomorrow about Senate Bill 1511 it would go a long way to giving us the money so that we won't have to cut anything and can add things to the schools our deficit is 25 million we'll be talking about that tonight this would give us 30 million more think what we could do with 30 million more not just not
025cut add finally start to make progress to improving our schools instead of trying to keep our heads afloat you all know me I've been with the schools since 2001 I I was a parent since 1993 I have a granddaughter now prek K3 another one coming in two more years Senate Bill 15 1911 the governor won't support it but there are people in the legislature that do we have a chance to get this bill passed please go home please talk to your neighbors please talk to whomever else you know this is what we need there's nobody in this room that wants to cut a thing we're not sitting here tonight going oh I can't wait to cut some more staff believe me about that thank you madam chair next item is the approval of meeting minutes
026um from the regular meeting on March 10th 2025 is there a motion moved by Mr Medina seconded by Mr trabber any uh debate on that all right all in favor say I I any opposed any extensions that one passes um next up on the agenda is the chairperson's report um I want to thank Mr rapes who invited me to um the um Middle School leagues debate at the capital this past week um and was hosted by uh Senator gakar Wilcox the students were able to um debate on the senate floor um in a mock debate and um it was a nice opportunity for the students and also um just to see how far that the league has become has come um there is a debate this weekend for um a tournament for women's History Month
027at Discovery School so um that's at 8:30 this weekend um we have our board training next uh week on the 31st um there is a conflict obviously with the the community Forum so we're working on um adjusting the times of both so that'll be sent out to you um by tomorrow morning if there is a adjustment of times or the location of our training might be at the same location at as the Forum all right um board members you just received in your emails um an email from the state's attor uh the commissioner's attorney um regarding superintendent search that is going to go to um our legal to discuss so we'll we'll meet as a committee of the board to discuss that um that was just sent at four o'clock today so we'll leave it
028at that and if you have questions read your email and we can talk as a committee for the search um there is no other items I have so I'll take questions yeah misso I have a question it's more so of a request so we're here and a lot of the discussions tonight are going to be around cutting I'm proposing that we reconsider where we host these meetings because they are more costlier um to the district to have them here at aquaculture and it's much more cost effective to hold them at City Hall here we have to worry about security we have to worry about overtime increased utilities so I propose that we move them to City Hall where the city um already covers those expenses that's it I'll I'll chire with the city on that
029we have to get permission from city council okay thank you um any further questions not right it's no we're not taking public comment right now but but you could if you you if you'd like to ask a question you can email us you could provide email or you want to talk to him directly you can all righty um next up we have uh finance committee referral or reports Finance good evening everybody since the last Finance report at the last meeting there were several encouraging developments before the meeting there was a decent follow-through on advocacy efforts suggested by the committee and resulted in a good turnout for cave day on the hill where board members and staff turned out in numbers to Lobby our legislators to discuss our financial needs testimony surrounded a few bills mostly
030Senate Bill 1511 and act concerning disconnected youth which Mr tra just thought turn talked about that had a decent turnout from the City of Bridgeport more than 10% of the speakers were Bridgeport residential staff six members of the board provided testimony for Via zoom and two submitted written testimony superintendent and staff also testimoni testified a special thank you to City councilors ER Ernest Newton Dasha spell and Maria vaj for also testifying in favor of this bill I hope it passed it passes that being said budget cannot be balanced on hopes and dreams which brings me to the last committee meeting and Report the committee met on March 20 2025 and there were three agenda items listed today that will be voted on one will reduce the budget Gap one will raise the budget Gap and
031one will have a neutral impact on the budget I will defer that discussion until the agenda items appear most concerning this during this meeting where it was expected the Gap would potentially be reduced it went up this was due to one budget neutral item being voted on tonight being incorrectly included as a savings of $936,000 and a light item of an additional $2.5 million that was included with a generic heading with no suggested Cuts this raised the total projected expected Gap at the end of the meeting by a net of $ 2.11 million because of the lack of recommendations the CFO estimated we need to cut about $34 million to balance that assuming no additional funding there was some discussions daating there was a delay in eliminating the assistant principal positions which is irrelevant to
032the 2425 budget as that's already balanced and it's already baked into the 2526 budget I literally felt the the need to explicitly state that we are legally obligated to deliver a balanced budget and that the committee needs to have a superintendent and it's Finance staff prepare a menu of potential cuts for the very real eventuality of tens of millions of dollars in additional cuts that will have to be made prior to June 30th at the close of the fiscal year a couple of concerning stat statements were made we don't want to cause a panic there will be a significant impact on the classroom seems that there may be a climate of fear that is causing a paralysis and decision making fatigue among the board and administration we need to push past that once again to
033all who are listening we as a board cannot do our jobs without information and we need to balance the budget a failure to do so and if we don't get together the state will likely come and do it for all of us the board and administration next we we discussed the February 28th 2025 Financial update and how it needs to be posted by law on our website the CFO Express that it would be done we were told it would be posted to date this website is still lacking the December and February quar delivery reports in violation of CT General statute 10248 C I would hope that gets posted as soon as possible this brings me to my final concern and update two order firms submitted bids on February 28th request one out for the responses
034to be rated in order to bring the final firm before the board for approval we are waiting the responses of two PPS staff members in order to move forward I jus this twice with the superintendent over the last two weeks second time being March 19th and it was assured it would be done today is March 24th and to date I do not see responses from the two staff members the audit is imperative in gaining Community Trust and finding efficiencies even if we only find 1% efficiencies that repace the $3 million in Cuts we don't have to make next year it is imperative that we move as soon as possible the next Finance meeting will be on Thursday March 3rd where I hope we can have the superintendent and staff presents some additional suggestions cuts for
035the committee to refer to the full board to consider discuss modify or approve thank you when's your next committee meeting Thursday March 3D April 3D a oh thank you I'm sorry April 3D thank you for the corruption you try all right um I there is confusion because we thought your committee meetings were the third Thursday of the month not the first on another Well point the point of information we are facing an additional $28 million in Cuts as I stated in the beginning when I first chair was given the chair of the committee it will be multiple meetings every month until we address this budget we cannot do only one meeting a month we'll go from there the next in we're gonna pass over Mr tror can we'll come back to him policy and Personnel
036thank you mad chair as our last meeting uh we have four items that are going to be up for today including a possible um proposed that we uh suspend bylaw 9310 uh we have already posted uh title 99 um and I next meeting will be April 9th that is the second Wednesday of the month as planned and I'll take any referrals any referrals for policy Personnel I just want to make clear that I do have one on the table already if I miss him minutes that I'm working on that will be on uh April 9th meeting for sure Chris thank you madam chair thank you um he's not back yet facilities committee um has not met since their last um board meeting uh we will tentatively meet next Wednesday um April 2nd at a time
037to be determined um any referrals I know we're going to be talking about uh Raptor at that meeting so um any further referrals all right um we'll come back to Mr traber um C rep Mr sakic do you have anything for the C report I think it was mostly covered with the we had the day on the hill we all we all went up there we advocated for Bill 1511 mostly we discussed uh special education concerns we met with several legislators we're kind enough to come and me to spend a significant amount of time with them and hopefully we could all um get their do some more advocacy because um in total we had about 20 21 people from Bridgeport advocating for more funding and unfortunately by the time you guys come in front of
038us to Advocate the money is just not there we need the money to be there I mean we could always restore positions if we get the funding but if we don't get the funding we're obligated by law to close that $ 228 million so like uh Mr tror said contact your legislators Advocates and try to bring his back thank you um we'll go on to the superintendent report thank you madam chair uh I'm gonna start my superintendent report uh just giving a little update about the technical assistance team uh that's a four member State team that's in our district that will that actually going to be uh in our district for quite a while I think they're going to be here till like December uh of of the end of this school year Well middle
039of the school year in December uh they are uh currently coming two to three days out of the week in the district they're looking at internal workings of what we what we do within our district uh in addition to having conversations with uh different aspects or different members of the team uh looking and asking questions about the innerworkings of special education Finance uh are just the da the daily operations in addition to that technical assistance team has just started meeting with um the board executive uh Team uh really trying to get the understanding of the um uh the board and how they interact with the with the district and really asking questions about that so those meetings just started last week uh and they will be continuing those meeting this week and next uh uh
040just wanted to make sure I put out their student registration for the 25 and 26 school year has begun it's open as we speak we encourage all prek 3 and prek4 students both in District and external prek programs to register early registration is crucial to Children's development and help ensure proper state allocations of the funding we're holding inperson Early Childhood registration events to to get uh uh the students registers as as well we're also hosting a kick off the kindergarten summer program uh that's going to be June 30th to uh through July 25th uh this program is designed to prepare incoming kindergarten students with academic social emotional and School Readiness skills to ensure they're ready for kindergarten uh in addition to that the magnet Lottery is um uh for the 25 26 year has closed
041uh and results will be announced on Wednesday uh date on uh applic data on applicants by school grade in town will will be uh provided um again uh with the state testimony we have done a lot of advocacy for br public schools and the funding and also uh advocating regarding special education funding and processes through the state of Connecticut uh last week I was also one of the members of of this this board and commun and community that that uh did testimony on City Bill 1511 this is a really really crucial Bill uh that will again like uh Mr trael talked about earlier provide additional um uh funding for this District to rightsize what we do and how we do it moving forward so I think that's really important even even though the testimony has
042closed I think it's important to still go advocate for 1511 again we also participated in in the cave day on the hill uh my executive cabinet and I went to Hartford uh to really make sure that bridg point I think I think it's important that as we advocate for those fundings and that they see the faces of bridgeboard uh in uh interacting with all the other legislative advocacy across the state of Connecticut that we have our voice heard uh and it's been very important to to to my team and to this board that we advocate for the dollarss that our our our our our district and our students and our families deserve that's very very important I am also uh working on an opportunity to bring representative leaper and some additional uh state representatives to
043connect to Bridgeport to have a deeper conversation and so I hope hope to have those those dates solidified over the next couple of weeks to bring them into the district in order to have that inpersonal conversation with them regard regarding the needs of this District um in addition to Human Resources update uh we are uh we held uh open teacher interviews and and has identified at least five candidates who who we are looking to hire uh for this upcoming school year as well some of the upcoming events that are coming uh in the next couple of weeks uh April 14th uh at PT Barnum housing uh from 6:00 to 8:00 pm I will do with open public forum uh to try to make sure that we get some of the the parents in uh in
044the PT uh boram housing to come out to have a conversation with the superintendent uh again that's going to be 6:00 pm to 8 and then May the 9th at beerley Terrace housing from 6: to to 8:00 pm we're gonna have those those parents to have an opportunity to kind of voice some of the things and concerns that they may have again what we wanted to do with these monthly meetings is to get out into uh the community to to to really kind of Meet the Parents where as to where they live so they have a better feel for coming to to have a conversation with school um leadership in addition to that we have three um facility master plan committee meetings going out to the community as well uh on March the 31st at
045Harding High School we've changed the time for that meeting to 5:30 to 8 uh and that's at Harding High School uh on April the 2nd at Central High School uh we're going to be out uh from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and then on uh April the 3 at bassic High School uh 6: to 800m and that's really to kind of give an a little bit open communication con conversation with the community about the facility master master plan uh again I want to make sure that we we we highlight there there's a lot of District we sent out a Weekly Newsletter please make sure that you uh Embrace that newsletter there's a lot of great things happening in the district and we want to make sure that we keep that up front and center and
046I'll take any questions Mr sakovic thank you madam s um you me you mentioned the State team um I'd like to know if the state consulted with you in making this meeting um tonight from 6:00 to 8:30 to get community input on what bridge Bo needs they have not one of one of the things that has happened is that I did reach out to them today on behalf of another board member uh it was those Community meetings were uh and dates were Pro and and locations were provided by individual Community uh you know organizations and that's how they they they ended up making those times and dates with those Community organizations uh but I I have given um Mr trayor an opportunity to reach out to uh that uh that rep uh and she's going
047to talk with him a little bit more about what we can do in the future as well yeah because I find it really really concerning that this meeting is taking place right now about what bridgeo needs and the location smack Deb in the Eastern quadrant which is suffering the most with school closures and they would be better off right here because these people right here are telling us what they need uh this meeting is going on until 8:30 it's at 4 6:30 to 8:30 and it's taking place at 441 Bishop Avenue these are the people who are these are the people who are deciding what we do with our money how we spend our money these are the people that are forcing us to make these cuts the people at the state level so if
048anybody wants to go over there and tell them what we need we need money to save jobs this a 441 Bishop Avenue and it's and even though the community might have reached out with some dates we've had our board meetings on the schedule in Hartford since December or November they could have looked they could have reached out and asked I find it highly disrespectful that they not only come in here and dictate what we do with the little money that they don't give us but to have the audacity to come into the community most impacted by the underfunding of the state of Connecticut's race basis funding schemes funded by property taxes so if anybody could get over there and speak to what we need in Bridgeport 441 Bishop Avenue tell them we need money money
049solves a lot of the problems like Mr tror said before not one of us up here wants to make a cut we're obligated by law after today there's going to be 20 approximately 28 more million dollar in cuts that's what we're facing thank you Miss Casmir hi uh thank you can you hear me yes okay um we're uh regarding uh the superintendent report um just two important things to me Dr Avery regarding um your report um actually three but I'll make the third one quick um the the transition from preschool to kindergarten what does that look like for Bridgeport Public Schools district when we know that we have um you know uh preschool fourth uh four-year-old preschools that are transitioning the well not necessarily transitioning that year but the next year the transition from preschool
050to kindergarten can you um just give me a quick synopsis of what that looks like I'm gonna have lindsy David come comes up to the mic and she can give you a quick overview of that okay thank you PR the one more time can you hear me yeah okay hi I'm Lindsay Davis I'm the director of early childhood and just for clarification you're asking about what the transition looks like from prek4 in our public school programs to kindergarten in our public school programs correct okay so um one of the things that we have done as a department is try and make sure that we have preschool programs in the majority of our Public Schools so that that really helps build the foundation from a young age um we do have several schools that have prek
0513 as well so students have the ability to potentially be in a preschool that is in their neighborhood school from the age of three years old um so that's something that we've really strived to do and we continue to have conversations about building our programs um within the public school so that they have the ability to build those relationships and start their um Educational Foundation from a very young age um just so you know we have 37 preschool classrooms um that are Grant funded throughout the public schools currently um and those are over 23 locations so that's one of the ways we really try and build that transition okay so I'm G to get a little bit more specific with my question so uh we have uh a child who is in preschool that is
052uh going to be going to kindergarten um you know the next school year um is there some type of program or some type of process where the kindergarten teacher um is you know kind of uh having conversations with not each and every parent but just with those parents um are they sending out kindergarten expectations about you know um reading how important reading is uh you know just whatever the expectations are are we sending that out to you know those children's families that are going to be coming into kindergarten that's just one example so that's what I was asking yeah I think every school is a little bit different um but that's one of the great things about being able to offer preschool programs within our Public Schools is that parents can start to build those
053relationships with all of the staff so they have the ability to connect with the kindergarten teachers um you know some schools do a transition to kindergarten where they'll have experiences with those teachers before they begin um kindergarten the next year um and our curriculum currently for preschool especially in Pre prek4 we have a component at the end of the year that is solely based on transition to kindergarten um you know we are focused on developing the whole child but we do Focus um on academics and really try and work with the preschool staff to to um really gain an understanding and they know because they're teaching in a public school system some of them have taught kindergarten before and they know what it looks like so they do their best to really prepare those children
054um because they really they they've had these children the little babies in their room you know for a year sometimes two years and um they want what's best for them and want them to be prepared so they promote the independence knowing that the ratio changes drastically from preschool to kindergarten um and really make sure they have the foundational skills before they do get to kindergarten okay so there's a high percentage of kids that are in any given school that are transitioning to kindergarten so they'll be going to that same school for kindergarten that they're in or will some of those kids be going to a different school for kindergarten some do go to a different school but the majority of our children that are in our public school programs continue in the school that they're
055at it is their neighborhood school um that being said parents do have a choice so they may not be in preschool where they'll be in kindergarten um just for convenience it might be because it's closer to where they work or closer to where Child Care is located um but in most cases um for example I know that there's a family right now that has their child in prek-3 not in the neighborhood school but in preparation for this coming school year they have secured a spot in their neighborhood school so that they'll be able to attend prek4 in the neighborhood school um to be better prepared for kindergarten okay you answer that perfectly thank you one more question for Dr Avery and then I'll thank you thank you um before I ask you this next question
056which is related a little bit um I just wanted to just to take the time out to thank you Dr Avery for the hard work that you have been doing so far um thank you for being so poised and and professional with all the things that have been um you know that have fallen in your lap um thank you for you know just being a real professional throughout this and um and being patient um and being poised so I just wanted to just to let you know I know that other board members appreciate you but me personally I just want to take the time out to say thank you for being so um accessible and for really you know uh proving that that you're for the kids and I appreciate that um so the the
057last thank you thank you for that you're welcome you're welcome um so the last thing I want to ask you is that I want to ask you for the opposite transition um uh we talked about this before you not you specifically but when the former superintendent was here and I don't want it um to be lost but you know the low functioning students um you know the students that uh are are the ones that um you know will will pretty much never uh be able to go out and get a job or go to college or any other transition I'm talking about the low functioning students um the transition uh with with asking for like when they leave the school system I know that there's an important process that needs to be done uh in
058order for these parents to Advocate to continue to advocate for these kids they need to go to probate court you know and um apply for uh Guardianship and there half Guardianship and there's something that's called plenary guardianship which is you know um responsible for entire lives education housing Etc um are the parents whose kids are aging out and I know that they can stay in the system until I believe their 22nd birthday at least that was the last law or or what have you but let's just say we got uh students um that are here until their 22nd birthday they you know aged out um you know is the school system you know helping the parents make that transition to Probate Court where they would need to file those papers yes I'm gonna have uh
059Michelle McKinley step up to the mic as well I think it's important that as we develop our you know transform our special education programs in the district we are looking at trying to get more input from parents and that is why we have uh created a parental task force to really kind of seek you know parents you know that are having difficulties with you know um with any aspect of of their child's educational career within our school to really pinpoint some of those things to try to feel some of those voids of those parents and so and try to make sure that the transition that's a very difficult thing for any parent to be able to do is have to transition their kids out of high school into you know a a day program another
060facility program uh you know State program so we have to be able to equip them to better understand that because there's a lot of integral pieces that goes into play with that uh and so I'm going to have Miss McKinley kind of give you just a little brief perspective of how we're doing that in the district and how we're going to improve upon that as well okay thank you actually Dr Avery answered it but uh we start um the year before the 18th birthday so by age 17 we start discussing transition of of Rights transfer of Rights and regardless of a child's ability or disability those rights are transferred unless parents have that guardianship or power of attorney in place and we do provide Ser um information to parents as to how they can seek
061that for those students that do continue with us until there are uh 22 we do have a variety of transition programs within the district we have uh programs actually with at three of our high schools uh we have a transition Academy and and then we also have Partnerships with other transition programs uh within the state or within our Fairville County boundaries uh before students are exited out uh we do work with parents to ensure that they are aware of the services that available to them in the community available through the state and we provide that information to them to be able to access those services and we provide support during those years of 18 to 22 uh to ensure that they are accessing those Services honestly we triy to provide information to parents to connect
062with disability um resources early on when they are initially identified because sometimes the waiting list can be 14 to 20 years long so we actually start that process far earlier than the age of 17 so it's 18 exactly yeah okay yes thank you I appreciate it you're welcome Mr tror yes I I just wanted to say that I believe you can still submit testimony yeah for 1511 so even if you missed the hearing you can still submit testimony late and it certainly doesn't hurt to write to your state reps and Senators under any circumstance um and submit whatever you have to say to the committee chairs thank Madam chair to add to uh what Mr travor said we have sample um uh testimony that we can provide so if anyone that is wanting to uh
063make testimony to uh to to to upload to the site please reach out to myself or to Communications Department and we can help you guys do that the more people from Bridgeport that will Advocate guys the the better chance that we're going to be able to have our voices heard so and what I'm going to do as well executive directors we can send a message out to principles tomorrow to say we need you we need your testimony and we'll let them know how to go and do it and how to submit it we can send that link to them as well because I think that's important for us to be able to do together collectively yeah and I I I don't think there's any magic formula I you really need to speak from the heart
064about what you care about um you all know what we've been through um so whatever it is that you're angry about whatever it is you care about uh what I heard tonight is what they need to hear you don't want to see anything cut we can't we can't cut anything else um and we really want to see our children get the same opportunities as the children everywhere else and that's what we want Mr SZ I have um two points or questions um the first question is about I realize we have to balance out the budget by June 30th of this year right um is there an opportunity we have great minds in the room um people who are in all these buildings that the be helps pay for it can we do a survey of
065hey can you identify your top 10 areas where we can cut potentially I feel like it's much easier to cut expenditures at the schools when the principles are involved in it it's it's still going to hurt but it might hurt less the second item I was going to suggest is so we have these great samples that you just chatted about um supporting Bill 1511 can we issue out a press release or something on parents Square having parents also Advocate not just the principles I think that would be great but also the parents we do that awesome thank you thank you all right Mr trabber do you have anything on the um instruction Support Services committee go ahead thank you put your mic thank you back to Dr Avery you mentioned that you were planning to
066uh invite some of a representative to come over and have a a sit down is that going to be with the community also are you going to do something open or is that only going to meet with your executive no it's going to be with with the board the delegate I mean I want awesome it's gonna be a community perspective because we want to kind of advocate for some leaper is part of the special education uh committee advocating for the change within special ed and the excess cost additions to for so it's going to be I'm GNA I want you guys to be part of that conversation along with um delegates whoever else we we need to invite to to the table to have that conversation as well so that's coming so that's kind of
067what I'm working on right now so um actually leapers co-chair the education committee so she's like really important um so uh it would be good to have her here um and Tim that would be all of our delegation here in Bridge Port for the parents to contact and speak to um the um ISS the um instruction and support services committee will be meeting on Wednesday will be continuing our discussion about um um some field trips and we have uh u a discussion the ongoing discussion about in school and out of out of school suspensions uh which we had a very constructive uh meeting last week about that and so we want to continue that discussion and right now I'm drawing the blank about the rest of the agenda but the agenda the meeting is Wednesday
068at 5:30 in room 305 thank you any referrals Mr benan no I'm sorry oh I'm sorry any referrals I remember the other thing which was the uh discussion about the p uh pack and ptso expenditures before the year expires for them so that we make sure that everybody uses the money that they've been allocated um so we're going to have a discussion about that too thank you any referrals Mr benan um this is from Mr um Dr thank you madam chair um I know do you do you I know you meet with the principles and everything and I want to say thank you for that because that's one the principles and assistant principle one listen to you they can understand what's going on um sometime I know understand they um they don't feel that trust
069they don't feel that you know they SC because what happened in the Pass and Pass and Pass and Pass they always have the same thing I want you understand you know do they listen to you and then you listen to them like I tell them you guys very open you know he will listen to you guys all the principal they are listen you know um via Brit you know and here and the Pres you know they understand he's not perfect he's not perfect we are not perfect you guys not perfect I know he tried the best he can and the good things like I always said with a good communication is a great successful you know things G you know little by little he's doing the step baby step trying to organize and fix a
070lot of things you know it's a mess and I don't feel the mess from last year I feel that he's facing mess from years back that Bard members they know what happened so he trying to best but I want to say thank you for that that are you trying to open your your mind and listen to all the board me um sorry principles and I know the principle they will come to you because that's what I tell them go to them listen to him explain what's going on because of good communication I know things get get getting you know better I want to say thank you for that thank you for that I think one of the important pieces I want to make sure that the community my staff Administration teachers uh I've been I've
071try to strategically map out how to address certain things and uh it's been three months I've tried to lay it out there and do things in a in a in a in a manner that's going to be conducive to everybody and I can tell you it's been it's been it's been tough and so I've tried to maximize my my time you know my efforts my concentration on certain things uh you know with the state coming in and trying to juggle those those meetings and figure out how that works uh you know but I I feel like I A A Better grip on things so moving forward I'm trying to make sure that I can have convers ation with teachers I I I I own the opportunity of not embracing administrators well enough uh you know
072you talked about communication uh and not giving them Communication in a timely manner was is is something that I I I I take ownership of uh and I will fix that administrators I think that's important uh and uh in a big scheme of things uh things are are becoming a lot clearer uh we're trying to lay out things the way it needs to happen and I think you have to embrace the understanding of of and I have to do a better job of communicating that so moving forward that's going to be a priority of mine uh and I think hopefully all different aspects of uh this school Community will have a better understanding of what we need to do together moving forward so I appreciate that thank you manair we're gonna move on to new
073business U Mr Ben here you wanted a point of privilege yeah okay I um thank you Madame shair um I forgot to tell you in the beginning but this is a point privilege um two big leaders here from bridport that I know they really support our students parents and staff special scholarship and everything I would like to get a a minute of silence for one of the big leaders his name is Frankin Kong he just passed away they really call him in WEA and the one was um Mr Valentino is another guy a gentleman that he support a lot of students in support a lot of things in bris public school I was witness every time I need him for something in the schools or for family something like that these two gentlemen help him
074a lot so first one is fr FR Kong uh he was a former president of the Paran par and Mr Valentino um Sheriff of bridport and it's amazing person I would like to get a minute silence please but also I believe we reive the email I want to want to let you know that I'm Miss I believe her name is Rita Corelli they she um they see um very sad news so all these three people can get a a minute of Silent please I have a moment of silence thank you everyone thank you m chair you all right we're gonna own new business the first is discussion and possible approval of the extension to the CC agreement for the 2425 Advanced alternate root to certification and sped agreement I believe Mr broen's going to speak
075on that okay and Mr Costello no okay hi good evening um just here to raise the r ra the correct agreement that we had last school year uh to cross endorse our current School teachers into special education uh we sent out one interest survey and we had over 20 responses of currently certified Elementary and secondary teachers who were taking the opportunity to serve our community in a new way uh by cross endorsing into special education the program consists of a one-year non-credit bearing C cross endorsement uh all all of these teachers would be eligible under the durational shortage area permit to begin the 2526 school year as a special education teacher so their service hours count um and the positions are filled with a certified special education teacher uh the cost of the program is
076$99,950 per candidate and we've requested that as a part of theou and the promisory note that any individual would sign who participates in the program The Bridge plot will cover the cost of the tuition extend the Gratitude of a two-step pump to the individual and that that individual would remain in a special education role for four years beginning in the 2526 school year we've had some tremendous success with the program over the past several years um all of the candidates who were enrolled in it have completed it and are currently serving in a special education role with the exception of one individ idual who went to another District um and as was lined out by the promiser note repaid the the money that was owed back to the city um I'll take questions or from
077the board members Mr Mr Medina thank you I know during our meeting we had a few discussions uh concerning the cost and how we're going to be doing things but one of the amendment that we would have we were looking towards was getting clarify on thatou um Clarity on that um that when will that uh agreement of the three years but we were looking at to see if we can extend it to a total of four years after completion of the program that way kind of like what our CFO said you know we can get a better bang for our our money thinking ahead where are we with that just mou and the status of moving it to a 4year agreement after completion of the course so thank you so the current mou is three
078years after the certification so it's a total of four years they work one year as a daap and then the next three years as um under theou to adjust theou we'd have to negotiate that with the Union which we have not been able to do yet um because it's a it's an agreement with the Union we'd have to negotiate that we can absolutely do that and see how the union union feels about it I don't think it's that much of a heavy lift uh because the union understands the dire situation facing the district with special ed but we couldn't give you an answer on that tonight as we'd have to negotiate that with the Union Mr oh yeah how how many POS how many new positions are we talking about 10 or 20 because there
079was uh some well well the positions exist so they are currently staffed by Kelly substitutes so the positions are there these are just well I think what's been proposed is up to 20 of our teachers moving into those positions as certified teachers through the program and is is that including the ones that are already in the pipeline for last year no so it's 20 new positions at a cost of 10,000 per so 200 ,000 in tuition plus whatever correct thank the only reason I'm asking this great program great investment but we're starving and I'm also seeing the other end of this where we're going to have to find a light cut on the other side of this equation to make up for the expenditure that's why question Mr tror yeah I have nothing I think
080it's a great idea I it just you're not what's the projected cost of the two steps I think that's a Mr niquo Question good evening good evening everyone I think the best thing is I kind of did an analysis of the cost analysis of uh Fross training u a regular teacher into a sped teacher they can put it up on the board I did hand it out to all the board members if you don't have a copy I could give it a copy but I'll go through the whole analysis so everybody will understand um the whole scenario being played there you got to do is tell me the number if you want to look at the board that's fine if you have the U spreadsheet that's fine if you don't have the spreadsheet I do
081have another setup spreadsheet so pretty much um what it is intent is to recruit regular teachers and cross train them to be special ed teachers and everyone knows how difficult or how hard or how scarse it is to recruit or hire special education teachers in The District in brido not just brido District it's a regional problem so uh Bridford has taken a very proactive approach by really giving an incentive to our regular teachers uh which is to move a teacher from their current step and give them a two-step BX for them to go into the sped program special education program which is um accredited by the state of Connecticut correct me if I'm wrong I believe it's 18 month prog program is it 18 14 month program right I stand corrected 14 months program they
082will become certified board of education teachers what it means is that the district does not have to make up any hours for that particular student that they're teaching for those 14 months of teaching especially teachers while they're in training so the credit hours they're providing to the students all counted towards special education teaching no makeup hours before they even graduate um my question was not that complicated I know I'm just a simple question if they're going to move up two steps and Michael said identified 20 teachers let's look at a board and we know what the two steps are we can project the two steps let look at the at least approximate okay let's look at let's look at the board I'm not gonna hold you to it going it's up on the board up
083also on your spreadsheet go into two steps for a bachelor's degree teacher $3,700 per teacher for 10 teachers it's 37,000 a year make sense thank you $700 a teacher $700 3700 a year that's including the Medicare the cost of Masters at 6,138 Masters is seven 3 6,138 and so of the 20 teachers Michael who have exhibited an interest how many are Bachelors how many are Masters again let me if we can go through this spreadsheet I think but again you cannot pick and choose master's degree that's why I gave the scenario of bachelor's degree master's degree we can assume that five are going to be Masters five are going to be undergraduate you can blend it anywhere you want out of the difference average the difference of the two categories you can't tell who is
084going to be what degree I'm not arguing I'm for the program I'm only trying to put a dollar figure on the cost a realistic dollar figure and Michael stood up and said we have over 20 teachers who have indicated an interest in the program in his initial presentation which would suggest that we know approximately how many have bachelors and how many have Masters so we should be able to we have that for you sir approximate cost I I don't have uh as sophisticated a chart as as Nester but I can tell you out of the people that have applied the total cost and salary difference is $167,600 okay so we have 200,000 plus 167,000 so approximately $367,000 approximately I'm not trying to pin anybody down it's a great it's a great investment we need specialed
085teachers got it it's a worthwhile expenditure of money no point going through it any any further questions nope there motion put your microphone please I move to approve the extension of the crack agreement for the 2425 Advanced alternative route to certification in this sped agreement second by Mr benan is there any further debate seeing none you take a vote all in favor say I I I any opposed opposed any extensions I'm going to abstain only because of the addition to the budget not down the bottom yet but I think it's a great program and unlead is pass passes um thank you Mr broen um hand hand COV research presentation is the next item on the agenda I think we have representative from Handover uh online who we have there he is online can you all
086hear me yes yes great so good evening everybody thanks for having us um my name is Dr Matt regon I'm with Handover research so tonight my colleague uh Julie shannonfin I would like to give you a brief summary of how Bridgeport has collaborated with Handover this year uh to try and make progress towards several important priorities the priorities listed here can you guys see my screen yes yes okay great thanks so uh the priorities listed here that you're seeing um are clearly not your only priorities but uh these are some uh that we've been able to provide some research-based guidance for uh as you guys work towards um uh some very important uh goals uh this presentation will summarize what we did this year and reference the reports that we've delivered to Bridgeport uh and
087all that uh all of which have have been shared with the board uh all the research projects and reports have been shared with the board uh before I get into the research I'd like to give Julia our uh who is your relationship director an opportunity to tell you a little bit about uh Handover research in general and the services we provide yeah thank you Matt and thank you everyone for the time tonight um just to give you a little bit of an overview about Handover and how we've been working with the district in terms of our services so we are a custom research firm um and the district had two research cues with us um and what that means is that throughout the course of the year we were able to have two research projects
088going on at any point um and behind Matt we have a team of over 200 researchers on our team specialized in different areas so we can support districts through mixed methodology approach including uh secondary reports like best practices benchmarking reports we can do survey design um do it from the ground up we can analyze surveys that the district has done we also have a qualitative team that can do in-depth interviews as well as a quantitative team that can do data analysis for the district um so we work with the district to see what areas they want supported and then Matt works with the team in terms of what are the research questions we need answered what are the best ways to go about that so giving a lot of flexibility in terms of the topics
089that we can cover but also the ways that we support and get the information for the district um within the membership Bridgeport also had access to that last wheel on there which is our Handover digital portal um so this includes over 1500 syndicated reports so while we're working with the district on specific initiatives this gives the administrative and leadership team a chance to benefit off of the research work that we're doing for our other members as well it also includes interactive dashboards um webinars are in there and as well as some toolkits and then another service I want to highlight um that we spoken with the District of Al haven't done in Partnership or collaboration with the district yet is our educator Learning Center which is our asynchronous professional development platform so it really allows
090districts to maximize what type of professional development they want different teachers to receive um and how they're going to do it so we have over 13 Suites right now um everything from Multicultural teaching to supporting specialized student populations to sence of reading um and we also have an implementation of visor that can help support the district's usage of that so that's just kind of a quick overview which will tie into what Matt's going to cover in terms of the specific projects we did to support the initiatives of the district thanks Julie so uh what I want to uh be able to share with you tonight is uh to show you how Handover has uh uh collaborated with Bridgeport we've delivered eight formal projects uh to the district uh but this is only Julie mentioned all
091of those wheels that you saw it's only a little bit part of uh the collaboration uh that we've had with the executive team um beyond the time and resources that go into creating the research and delivering the reports we've also met monthly with various members um including Dr ay Dr Saki and a few other members of his executive team to consult with um uh their priorities and flesh out how the research can support uh their their daily work um and and in general um with the objective of of moving students along uh that Continuum and really supporting students in everything that they do social emotional mental health special education uh Etc so uh We've also presented to this board several times I think this is our third time uh and uh in in several committees
092and we stand ready to attend future meetings and answer any questions uh or present any additional information that you guys want uh we also contributed uh our expertise expertise to support the district's special education grant submission last fall uh which was really uh a heavy lift for the district and we we were glad to support uh submission of that um that application last fall which took a lot of time uh on on uh your team's part um so we were happy to do that the priorities you see here again not necessarily your all your priorities but it's where we saw the need uh where research could make progress towards some goals here so um and and only with research can the district be assured that you're getting the resource alloc uh or sort of allocating
093your resources to meet these priorities and you're uh being uh uh responsible and and using the the resources that you have effectively um to make these make these um steps towards uh improving student achievement and student uh uh student outcomes for example benchmarking teacher uh compensation in Connecticut I'll go through a little bit of uh a little bit of an example of how we did that that's just one example how uh research can help you make really critical decisions to to um uh examine your resource allocation uh to be a maybe a little bit more efficient um maximizing special education has been a huge priority for the district uh there was a uh Arizona State University study a while back that uh proposed some recommendations for Bridgeport specifically they studied uh Bridgeport and made recommendations
094as a result of that Handover has been working towards um uh working to to get researchers uh research to address uh those recommendations and bring those recommendations to fruition I'll talk a little bit about that um we've also worked to to support theal team uh as they analyze the current state of each school's climate and culture uh this work has included uh some pretty significant research-based practices for maximizing uh your core um uh of counselors and and other support folks and finally research is always available to to the district uh as Julie mentioned we have a research library with thousands and thousands of reports but calling through all those thousands of Articles your your uh District leaders don't have time to do that so we serve as sort of librarians of that um of that
095research library and are able to provide uh District leaders uh with various uh actionable research reports that uh that give you research-based guidance on on any uh research front that or any priority that that you have so what I'd like to do is go through each of these big priorities and just give you a little bit of an example of of how we worked with Bridgeport uh to support work and progress towards them so this is just a quick uh snippet example this is not the whole research report uh but it's an example from the research report that we did on teacher compensation in Connecticut we did this in several stages we did this uh with um peer districts uh and you can see on the screen here all the districts that we studied and
096looked at their the salary um uh salary distribution uh of each district and compare that to the average so on this screen you can see the average uh in Connecticut you can see the average of of some of the bigger districts that are on the right side um just gives you a a a little bit of a an example of of the information that we're able to provide the executive team as they prepare to make really critical decisions so uh the full report includes a similar analysis for district level leaders uh such as directors and assistant superintendant um so uh it's just one example of the things that we can provide to to give the uh executive team some some information so they're not making decisions sort of in the blind uh research typically uh
097any researcher will tell you kind of begets more research so good research reveals additional new questions that we didn't know were there or didn't have the knowledge yet to ask so in each of our uh reports that we um that we deliver and in a very comprehensive document that we provide called the membership action plan we're always thinking about what are the next steps so for example uh in terms of resource allocation and we recommend Bridgeport continue to explore how it allocates resources through formal program evaluation research so this is just uh a list of uh possible ways that we can continue to collaborate uh with Bridgeport so you're maximizing um your uh fiduciary responsibilities and really making uh a Critical examination of any money that you're spending on programs perhaps that aren't uh giving
098you a return on investment uh we can provide vendor scans so so you know that you're uh that the money that you need uh to spend on programs is not going to be wasted uh and at the end here you see that every project sequence we we like to develop a final report or a captor report that summarizes all the research that we've done uh to the point uh to that um uh in that project sequence so the objective here really is to give Bridgeport uh enough information uh to uh go through all of its programs and and Hanover does this for you goes through all your programs cuts the programs that you're not that you're not using or they're not giving you uh return on investment and in the long run saving you money
099um by by really taking a critical look at at each program special education I've heard it tonight we've heard it before Dr Avery Dr saki has have spoke passionately about uh the need to support special education with us uh and so we engaged in a lot of research on special education and delivered that uh to to your executive team and you have a lot of these reports uh at your disposal as well so as I as as I mentioned Arizona State University conducted a study of of Bridgeport special education program they developed a lot of recommendations Bridgeport partnered with Handover as a way to carry out some additional research based on those recommendations so for example misidentifying students as special education when there are a lot of other factors for that could be created or
100uh the cause for their low performance or or behavior in classrooms is a common National problem this is not just a Bridgeport problem Educators around the country tend to label students as special education when there might be other things going on to explain what's happening with them so this mis misidentification uh takes resources away from those special education students that really need it uh and doesn't address the root causes for those misidentified students which in turn takes whole different set of resources to address so if you get special education identification correct in the long run it saves your Special Education team money it saves them resources and it allows them to concentrate all of their uh skills uh sets to the special education students that absolutely need it um it streamlines resources and improves student
101outcomes across the board so in a series of research projects uh Handover shared a uh recently conducted an uh uh an anal Anis of of the uh best practices around uh tools that that teachers and special education um Specialists can use um and we could we created a toolkit that the district and school-based leaders can use to train staff and how to get to the root causes of of the challenges facing students um we also conducted a comprehensive study of secondary research on the challenges of special education identification uh and uh improve improving that process can improve Special Education Service uh uh uh Service delivery in general so the recommendations in these PRI in these reports include things like uh conducting A needs assessment so you know where the staff are in their understanding of
102things like cultural inclusiveness implicit bias trauma sensitive practices uh recommendations also include monitoring progress towards goals to reduce disproportionalities by collecting a lot of student outcome data and by disproportionalities we mean along with that misidentification becomes that students of color uh students of low socioeconomic conditions are disproportionately label this special ed uh because the because of the sort of flawed process so this toolkit and some of the research that we've provided uh should help to eliminate the uh or or kind of fix the process uh and maybe getting additional support from external organizations or Community Partners to provide the district with some additional resources uh in guidance in special ed Service delivery uh is is something that we can do to address uh these disproportionalities and um improve Special Education Service delivery so one of
103the things I I I mentioned this previously uh we supported Bridgeport with a special education grant application through our access to research and our own expertise in this area uh we're able to contribute a lot of information and explain how research can monitor progress towards the stated goals that we set out in in the application uh and describe a rationale for uh how assessments can support um uh the Special Education Service delivery so if approved the grant would um expect research uh in several areas including the projects that you see there uh suggested at the bottom um to track progress towards some goals so uh all of which Hanover is positioned to carry out for you it's not something that you all have to have to do on your own so just like the resource
104allocation we always always are looking for ways to uh continue the research in special education some of these recommendations include uh data analysis we want to understand special education student outcomes their behavior academic social emotional outcomes uh as compared to other students and track these outcomes over time uh so you can understand the impact uh these uh the actions that you're taking to improve special education delivery are having on on students a lot of uh uh kind of cash strapped districts can't hire research teams they can't do this data analysis on their own uh so uh Handover can step in and uh conduct that research at a fraction of the cost so uh conducting in-depth interviews is is another example where uh we can talk to special education staff families so we can get a
105kind of Fuller richer P picture um uh of how everyone is feeling about the services and resources that they're getting we really want to kind of um understand uh more in depth at a qualitative level uh how people are are feeling about the services and resources we want to be able to conduct annual surveys uh of everyone involved in special education so you can track these perceptions over time you want to be able to see where the resources that you're applying to special education Improvement are having impact and the services uh the surveys the uh in-depth interviews and uh data analysis can do that for you uh and then we want to continue to look at peer and examplar districts there's always really good ideas coming up uh all the time with districts as they
106experiment and try different things uh in Special Special Education Service delivery uh and you don't want to miss out on that you want to know what and learn from other District's mistakes and and successes and and be able to harness that uh and be on The Cutting Edge of of special education so climate culture is another uh big priority that we that we helped out with we conducted an examination of uh different counseling models uh to support the district's need to understand all the options available to it to make it uh to make better uh choices or better use of counseling resources um so rather than a big 30-page report in this instance what we did was um uh we created an infographic uh which is one of the different types of reports we can
107do we can always do big you know 30 page reports but sometimes you need quick information you need to be able to communicate that information quickly uh so that's what we did in this case uh so you can turn around the information uh uh very quickly to those uh who need it quickly uh quickly and who need it most like full reports the infographic has still rooted in research um but this one summarized the research on the impacts of effective School counseling programs uh and the need to invest in it uh and effective research-based strategies in uh K12 school counseling so the other thing that we did with uh social emotional um learning and uh and climate I think that this is the first thing we did with uh um uh with Bridgeport at the
108beginning of of our relationship uh we worked with the uh Team uh and the cultural and climate team and helped them uh kind of get a picture of each school's climate and culture so this is a pretty intensive data collection that your team uh and my team collaborated on uh and we conducted the analysis of the data that they helped collect uh so we found that the district as a whole demonstrates a really strong commitment to fostering positive School climates at many schools there are examples of P PBIS restorative justice seal they were all UND playay in schools uh and school climate initiatives were also um in evidence through staff support um and clearly staff were motivated to make positive climate uh a priority in each School some schools were exemplars in displaying or having
109um Visual Evidence in their schools regarding parent engagement and community outreach uh so this report shared a lot of exemplars and uh made some recommendations for other schools to kind of implement to model uh what some of the schools were doing and uh kind of uh uh creating a uh a dialogue across schools so your seal and climate culture teams have some of these good ideas uh in their bank and they can uh promote these good ideas across the district it's ALS it was also noted that uh while schools are clearly committed to fostering positive School climate uh the there was a noted lack of districtwide consistency across the effort so across uh seal and climate so in other words schools were doing different things uh and there's not not one coordinated thing rolled out
110now I know last year was uh we did this at the beginning of last year and a lot of things have changed and a lot of new efforts were on their way to kind of actually do that at a districtwide level so we think it's important to kind of Follow Up This research uh with with an update uh uh to examine the new changes of the the changes that might have happened with new initiatives so one of the other things we did was um and this is just another another example of a quick thing that we can do this doesn't take long uh to create uh an annotated bibliography it just provides your staff with a lot of research um in a quick uh report that you can access and learn from uh on a
111lot of different topics so this is what I was talking about when we can be the curator of a of a large library of resources for you uh so this is just one example of a quick project that we did uh to give your team uh a lot of information on um on um School counseling so again follow-up research for climate culture uh we recommend that um uh this is uh climate culture andal is something that you need to monitor continually because it changes very quickly uh and it's very reactive to uh initiatives so if you're going to have uh like a check and connect program or if you're going to um Institute a districtwide SEO program you want to monitor the progress and the impact that that's H that that has um on uh
112on student engagement family engagement uh so we recommend uh surveying uh families and students and staff uh we recommend annually uh we recommend in-depth interviews to give you a deeper and richer um data set uh on why people are sort of answering the questions they're answering in surveys you want to kind of know why things are happening not just what's happening uh you uh District likely want to know um uh more about how uh student Outreach um can be done uh in a uh in a much more economically and efficient way so we recommend best practices reports on that there's lots of good information out there that we can help you get so that pretty much covers what we've been doing with um with the research one of the other big priorities is kind of
113like this catchall that we've uh created a resource guide uh for your team so they can they can um apply research to these other research priorities that we've heard the district team talk about um so again those big four buckets are are just the big buckets that we've been able to contribute uh research to but there's lots of other things out there uh that research can help the district uh accomplish uh cultural culturally responsive teaching teacher capacity you know professional learning tier one instruction things like that and things that you see on this slide are everything that uh are a lot of things that districts um find uh research very helpful and directing and uh creating um uh some action plans for so this is a summary of research recommendations referenced in in uh the
114report um all in one place so in this presentation so this is just sort of a summary of everything that I've talked about and how we might um continue uh doing research for you uh none of this happens automatically or in a vacuum any research plan uh should include ongoing collaboration with the district so we're giving you reports that you can actually use uh and the research plan should be Adept and flexible Nimble enough to Pivot as the district's needs change and as things kind of come up as priorities or or or priority shift so this partnership is really reflected in what I had referenced before this big membership action plan it's a living document we update it continually as we talk to the district leaders uh and uh through that plan the district sees
115a really full Continuum of work and how the research supports uh all of your priorities so this is just a uh a summary of uh how we might um conduct an instructional audit uh uh support Human Resources uh and monitor family engagement different methodologies that we would employ to do that so that is my pre presentation I'm happy to answer any questions that you might [Music] have Mr Ben simple question how come um this never was in our portal in our thing I know it's coming from the committee but I feel the other members don't have it so they can go review and check it's in our portal it's in our portal yeah for this meeting it is in our portal yes few times email and I was in a today you have to put
116your mic on but it's in our portal I'm sorry I did I did had looked into it I've been asking and I've been checking with other board members see if it was in our portal I've never saw it in our portal this this one for today's meeting under today's date uh but respectfully I I'll yield that and just say you know goes beond but that being said uh I do have a question and I would just I thought today um we were going to get to know some of the projects that you guys already have completed and we were going to have a presentation on that um so I'm kind of like surprised today but I thought that's what was was I was looking forward to hearing um on the work and where we can
117save what programs are working or not working uh that stuff the projects that you guys worked with the district uh but I'm just wondering are we getting that man chair that wasn't my understanding my understanding was that we were going to give it you know from the committee we talked about some of the projects that was done making sure that we we we he went through the whole scheme spectrum of the of the projects that was presented throughout the year we provided to every single board member a copy of all of those some board members wanted hard copies of them we provided hard copies of of the project for them our team has been utilizing these project projects since the inceptions of working with Handover a year ago uh we use it to you know
118substantiate the projects and the the areas of focus that we needed to to do when you look at the climate the climate perspective the counseling piece the special ed toolkit piece these are the things and practices that we use to better the district and so that's kind of what we've been doing but what they've what they do what they've done with this presid presentation is to give the board an overview of all those things and then an an opportunity for you to look into those and read through some of those documents because it's all based on Bridgeport you know so it's just again it's a comprehensive they're very research is very comprehensive and very you know tedious to to pull together but it gives you a focal point gives my team a focal point of
119how we do the business a little different based on the Norms around the country and around our the the the Connecticut other other Connecticut school districts that also uses Handover for their research projects and then we can tap into their database of research projects that they've done with other districts uh one of the things that they're working with me on the side is is how do we compare funding wise with others schools in faf County in Connecticut uh when it comes to salaries of Administrators I'm getting ready to bring some of that research back to the board as we renegotiate what we're going to do with our current administrative staff that are without uh contracts as we speak so those are the things that I can't just get from random school districts some of that
120information is public but the detailed pieces of what they've done with other districts they work when they have the data sources with them they can provide those those data sources so again it it was just more of giving you the comprehensive overview of all the things and all the projects they've done this year and that's part of the contract as well just making sure that you guys were aware great um so I'll tell you what I'm going to be doing uh towards Handover and and for you Mr Avery I'm going to be going back to those minutes and I'm going to build bring some questions that I had concerning uh what my recollection is from that prior meeting that they were going to possibly bring in some of the things that they think that took
121some nice notes um fortunately I didn't make it back home to collect them but I thought that's what we were getting so I would have had those questions because I had my notes saying this is what we're going to get today but um but I'll research myself and then I'll give you sure an Outlook thank you Mr tror that Miss bapst for us Mr tror um my recollection of what we said at the last meeting was that we were going to get a report of the special ed packet at this meeting um and at that meeting looking at the material that we were presented most of what we have been given by Handover was produced in the last few months um there was not a lot of material produced um until the last few months
122so so we've been we've been we've had a relationship with you all for a whole year we've been doing projects all year long sir yes sir but the material it hasn't been just in the last couple mon presented to us was only most the the bulk of the material that was presented to us was material that was D delivered in the last few months they were gathering the research I'm assuming and so I I guess it would be important to me to see what was delivered to the district when we're gonna go Miss bapti forz I just wanted to clarify to the point Mr benam brought up the these pack were not provided on our portal until about 5:00 p.m. this evening so there wasn't sufficient time to go through all the materials they were
123in the committee packet from March 5th so we've had the materials and they were uploaded today four hours before the meeting they were uploaded and it's timestamped by Olivia 49 minutes yeah uh I'm I'm part of the regular board so I want to check it in the regular board portal I shouldn't be having the fish for documents thank you well deal any further questions about the presentation Mr sakic oh yes um when does Han's contract expire M Dr the contract I'm thinking it's hey Matt could you can you clarify that for me I think it's I yeah I can I can join in the contract ran from March 1st last year till the end of February um so we are just reporting on the work that we have done and we've been talking with Dr
124Avery in terms of what that partnership could look like moving forward um with the flexibility of our our membership thank you any further questions thank you guys for presenting thanks for having us next item thank you all is it for Dr Avery yeah Avery Dr a I don't have I don't have the contact in front of me but uh I was going to bring it up in your committee for consideration uh for um for next school year again for consideration the next item on the agenda is discuss an impost action to suspend the bylaw 9310 for the purpose of immediate implementation of the following updated revised policies the health medical records policy p 51251 and the non-discrimination policy and noce p0521 a mov moved by Mr calovic second by Mr benan all in favor say
125I I any opposed any extensions okay uh Mr Medina abstained um the next item on agenda is discussion and possible approval of the following updated revised policies the health medical reest policy p 51251 and the non-discrimination policy and notice p0521 there gonna be a presentation on that Dr saki is gonna present good evening Dr saki is presenting what's that ahead Zaki you have the floor okay good evening um hope um everyone as well um thank you for the opportunity to share um on these policies um similar to what was just um shared by our board chair um we got two policies that I'll be sharing today um that were shared at the P um the policy and Personnel um committee meeting last week uh the first one I'll be discussing will be the health medical
126records policy our current policy is number 5151 um we are going to be keeping this policy but under the section that states health records we'll be adding the K policy students Health Medical Records policy number 5125 this will be included under the health record section of our current policy we've also removed the name Lizette early um and input it instead school health supervisor this was a recommendation made by one of our committee members so that has been um updated in the current document that should be uploaded um the change in the document itself includes specific language around the health insurance portability and accountability Act of 1996 that's Hippa it also includes language around the family educational rights Privacy Act fura included will also be a sample um hippoc compliant authorization for release of Health Information
127Form so they gave us some samples as well that we didn't have in our old policies that um are um HPP compliant in terms of releasing information so um those documents are um part of your packet any questions about the health record form so again just to make Madam chair Mr Medina thank you through the chair um just want to make sure that the every board member in the public we the only thing that was changed or let say Revis is exactly what Mr s say but I want to make sure that it's clear that instead of having the person that's on the rooll for the for that it was a name before so instead what we decided to do is to change it to be uh stated as the position so it's a nursing
128supervisor that way year after year we don't if that role that person is in the district no longer it it's just that person that took that position over and I think that is common to both that's the only thing that was revised and I want to make sure because I made some inquiries about that that's the only thing and also for the board to know and Madam chair is that what have requested through communication is that whenever there is a revision like this that we will have kind of like a black underline what was added and red line on what was redacted let's say that will we all have it clear what was changed or not changed and instead of just having a document like we have today so I made that recommendation through other
129things and they were very you know thumbs up about making sure and yeah just to add to um what Mr Medina was saying our actual policy um we're not changing our actual policy we're adding to our policy because there's other things in our policy that was not in the C policy that's why I said we're not we're keeping our policy but under the health record section specifically we're adding the cave um policy to that thank you any further questions Mr tror okay I'll repeat what I asked a moment ago what is the difference between items C and D see we're suspending the bylaw so we um are not going to do the first read oh it's just the suspend okay thank you automatically implement this after we're voting on so the exact same thing that
130we're doing we're suspending to do this and we're suspending the bylaws to do D yes and D is what we have on these Pages here which is what they've just been discussing thank you I'm a little slow tonight I appreciate your tolerance any questions about the policy else is there a motion motion to approve second updating the revised policies health and medical records policy p512 5.11 for immediate implementation second that was SEC moved by Mr sakic second by uh Mr Medina um any further debate all in favor say I I hi hi opposed any extensions P Miss Baptist Perez stains I obain as well and Miss cmir stains okay it passes um e to oh go ahead sorry okay um our next policy will be on nondiscrimination um policy our current policy is number 5162
131we will be replacing this policy with K policy 0521 this new policy expands the explanation of discrimination and harassment it also adds the contact person at the district level and their contact information so similar to what Mr medino was saying that we did with the health we took out an individual's specific name and put the title which is our chief human res resource officer and a contact email for that person um there is also a contact information for the United States Department of EDS office of civil rights in Washington DC um this policy will also um be one of the ones we are looking to implement um after immediate approval from the board tonight any questions questions from the board there's no questions Mr call motion to approve the non-discrimination policy and notice p0521 a
132for immediate implementation and posst any further oh is there a second second second by Mr Medina any further debate not debate just a point of information clarify request that we immediately post this to the website don't make the same mistake I made in the past and holding off until we get a group approved before we post it because then things get lost is there any further debate we'll take a vote all in favor say I I I any opposed any extensions abstain I abstain Miss Miss cir Miss B per of stain thank you that one passes moving on we're looking at the first read and discussion of the following updated revised policies one is the use of exclusionary timeout settings policy 51 44.2 um thank you madam chair well um the next three are going
133to be a little bit more complicated and a more involved um conversation um but we discussed bringing the remaining for um the first read by the board um so this is K policy 5114 we do not currently have an exclusive timeout policy um we'll be adding this policy to our district policies this give specific information regarding the definitions of exclusionary timeout seclusion physical restraint it also discusses the setting in Space the proper use of timeout settings there's also a sample data collection form for when a child is in a designated timeout setting each building has a crisis intervention team that mobilizes when there is an issue on that team there is at least one staff member um who is um CPI trained uh for buildings that have specialized programs um such as our aim sore
134programs there'll be more than one staff member trained in those buildings um are going to ensure that um what is best practice in regards to special education is also part of this policy so shared during the committee meeting um special education has been using um seclusion and and restraint you know upon reviewing our seclusion and restraint in terms of special education and this policy they are aligned um also I know that Mr sovic had made the recommendation um even though it's in here he wanted uh us to um add certain language to the policy that specifically specifies scen or seclusion can be used I think it's it's embedded in the in the document but I think he wanted it spelled out more um and again this would be the first read for feedback um that
135would then go back to the uh policy and Personnel committee thank you do we have any um discussions questions feedback um yeah Mr oh uh we'll go Mr TR then miss Casmir this entire section is new yes that's correct no other question Miss cmir um I know this this kind of thing you know this kind of policy can be tricky so I guess I'm just going to ask like a real live question like if there is a let's say a middle school age student that is in a class and poses like I'm just just an example like physical harm to another student um does this me like when we talk about restraint and again I know there's a lot here to unpack but is um you know the teacher the you know the um the
136aid whoever the adults are in the class they're you know in the example that I just gave are they allowed to like step in and intervene from that child like you know doing more damage to another child or to a teacher like I guess that's what I'm trying to because I know that these laws change you know they've changed several times or and and different districts interpret them different ways but does this like basically mean I guess what I'm trying to say is does this basically mean like no the adults in the room are not able to restrain a student even if they're causing like physical harm to somebody I guess that's what I'm asking you understand what I'm saying um I yes I I think I I understand the question so you know um
137I'll say just a you know a standing um you know train of thought would be that you know the only point in time that will ever physically intervene is if a child is a safety concern to themsel or others right besides that at no point in time should we be physically um um intervening um in the example that you gave I think there are other things that can be done with that example besides a restraint um you know that can be literally like moving the the students from the classroom the child is having a difficult time to allow that that the child to um deescalate so I think very often it's it's based on one that's child's IEP um very often seclusion and restraints are part of a behavior plan or are part of an
138IEP and when they can be used so um I I I think it it'll depend on the on the situation but based on the situation you give you gave you I think there are other things that we could do within that um example that might not get to the point of restraining um of restraining the student yes that's perfect I understand thank you thank you can I um with that kind of adding on to miss kasser's question um understanding that there's other options prior like the deescalation part recognizing that there's going to be an outburst like noticing the signs beforehand is important but are I know that there's certain teachers trained in um ch prevention if it's happening in a mainstream classroom though and a teacher is not trained in that is there a way
139that we can I know CPI costs money um but is there a way where we are training staff to recognize those behaviors prior to getting to a situation like Miss cmir said um who may that staff who may not have the experience in the deescalation or or noticing and and I know throughout the year and if you're un expanded I know that there's training throughout the year in terms of CPI training um we're fortunate enough to have IND District um um trainer um who regularly holds you know um train training session for staff teachers pars administrators um so you know that that you know like I was saying you know the goal is not to physically harm the kids I mean sorry restrain the kids we're always looking to deescalate a situation that's our number
140one go is how do we bring the situation down how do we calm things down or how do we you know either get the rest of the students you know out of out of Harm's Way you know to your point you know I think um we we most likely have to train more staff the other piece is that you know like I was saying each each building um um does have a crisis intervention team the situation situation rises in the classroom you know teacher can always call for assistance from that team and U most likely members of that team would have the CPI you know training um you know like in special education restraints and seclusions have been occurring um I think the main difference is that you know brisha doesn't have a policy specific
141to it um those are being um those were occurring based on a child's IEP and what was written within the IEP I think what this is doing is it's actually making um a district policy that covers all students um who um are either restrained or secluded and then I just want to you could um because I'm I'm not advocating for the restraint part I'm advocating more for the the crisis preventive part the non nonviolent interventions so the the lead up to that right when we recognize the behaviors I'm advoc I'm I'm asking if we're gonna if we can look into training stuff that part because you can get C CPI certified without using restraints you can and and we can re we can train certain staff members on that but if we could get the
142first part of it done the the the important part recognizing Behavior um knowing what to do in in if you're if there's anxiety um in a kid right or if they're becoming defensive you recognize those behaviors first and and you can prevent the the blowup right by doing that and so if we could if we can look into somehow training staff on that and and I'm not just saying specialized staff I'm saying like all staff um because and and I know that that's a big ask and and um but but it's an important ask because it it prevents noticing those behaviors prevents the Outburst like like uh the scenario Miss casimer says yeah M I think that's gonna be one one of the things we have discussed because we're seeing those types of behaviors at
143a younger age it's going to be you know very important that we start as as a continuous you know Continuum of of a py opportuni for teachers and administrators you know AIDS par professionals we have to do that from day one and we have to continue to do it on a monthly weekly basis and everything that we do we have to be able to bring that because we have to because we we do we normally do a one-time training during at the beginning of the school year and we don't do anything for the rest of the school year we have to constantly bring this back and give staff training especially when you start looking at you know keeping or or doing waywe restored practices pieces one of the things that we have to do is
144constantly bring training of how to deescalate how to deal with the different types of behaviors that we're seeing in our buildings more frequently uh and so I think that's going to be important that we do that so we actually have seven certified uh trainer or trainers within the district and we do host monthly CPI training for we do initial training which is two days and then we do Refreshers which is a one- day training perfect each month thank you for just to add to to to what you're were saying you know part of what we've been discussing with the executive directors is what you know the end of the school year is going to look like and what the start of the scre has going to look like in terms of all of the professional
145development that has to be offered and how to your point we can get some of the critical PDS done early in the year and to Dr every Point how do we continue it throughout the course of the year like Refreshers Mr cvic I apologize if I saw this form before because I should have thought of it in U committee but I'd like to prop a revision of the sample timeout setting data collection form to add some demographic information as far as the race gender age of the student as well this way we could track because as we noce some sometimes the proportional disproportionality of punishments when it comes to certain demographics and it would be great to have that information at fingertips rather than have to research it thank you I'll add that yeah there
146was a recent article that said um there's a 4% increase and most of the a majority of those restraints were in um black and brown students um so that in in 4% in the state not in Bridgeport but in the state so that's a that's a good thing to add St know what I add I added I requested to be added demographic information race age gender but that's if there's a consensus is still on our first read so it's not actionable just put your microphone on you can put your microphone on so them yeah I make I make you know that way we can bring it up in committee for the adding of the race age and gender so okay was there a question on this side um Mr TR yeah I just I have
147a concern about overly bureaucratizing a classroom um so at what point do I have to fill out a form if I'm a teacher I have a student who's lost it a little bit I tell him go stand in the doorway and in five minutes I go talk to him in the doorway while the class gets to some work about what we were talking about and I go help him calm down um so he took a f minute timeout in the doorway and you know maybe we do some breaths we do some deep breaths and we talk about why his behavior was inappropriate and then he returns to his desk and resumes learning I'm going to fill out a form for that so so um you know I'm I can he answer your question well I
148just want to finish making my point it's it it's like sort of there there that's I was sort of be trying to get through the form and then when I when Joe mentioned this I'm thinking hm okay so yeah that's sort of what I'm wondering about is how many forms do I have to fill out is this going to be on the computer and now I got to sit down at the computer and fill out a forum for having the discussion with Johnny Go Dr saki yeah and I think that um wait yeah he passed over yes yeah I and I think this is why we're in the first reading that way we can analyze and and change whatever we need to change because if you read it there's different sections on the reasons when
149and where so it's up to us to put that in in our policy to describe it because they can't make that decision right now because it's not a policy right now oh I get I guess that it's my first chance to have a look at it and so I'm just looking at it and ingesting it and thinking about it we joked at my last committee meeting about you know that point in the day where you send Johnny next to the teachers class across the hall and say take this work with you and we all have we all extend that courtesy to each other and student spends a half hour across the hall that's a an extended time out because I've had enough with Johnny today and that would qualify under this policy as a time
150out and thank you for the question Mr TR think you know go going back to you know what U Mr Medina was saying as well I think um we do have the flexibility to make some some adjustments to this so but I want to respond to like seclusion and restraints and I have Michelle talk a bit about timeout you know whenever a child is restrained um or secluded you know then this form you know has to be completed now in terms of timeout as the like talk a little bit about the timeout piece I mean it's pretty so basically when they are actually removed to another setting and it it could be in another teacher's classroom um that student has to be able to freely be able to to leave it is for deescalation purposes
151and you know after 15 minutes you reassess if the student to continue to to stay um if if they haven't de escalated after you know an hour that time out could lead to seclusion it could also lead to restraint so it really depends on the situation and the extreme of that situation as to whether you start with a restraint you go to timeout and then you go to seclusion we would hope that the deescalation techniques would prevent that but as far as restraint the minute I restrain a student I have to complete that form for time out involved for exclusionary timeout within that 15 minutes I have to complete the form but what I the example I gave there's no restraint involved the example you gave is inclusionary not exclusionary because it's still in the
152classroom you said f another part of the classroom no I I there are times the first example I gave Johnny never left the classroom the second example I gave I said Johnny I've had enough we're you're going let's go across the hall you're going to sit in in Mrs Jones class and so I take Johnny across the hall and say Miss Jones can Johnny stay in your class for a while and he goes to a a desk in Mrs Jones class and does some work that I give him in the back of Mr Jones class and sometimes that can be for 15 minutes sometimes that can be for an hour and lunch he sits back there and he's never been restrained he's never been let's let her answer it I'm finishing the example all we
153we got it and I think a case similar to that we we are going to have to explore a little bit more as to whether or not that will meet the definition of exclusionary timeout the example that you gave where you're talking to Johnny right there in the doorway that's not an exclusionary timeout the gray area is the scenario in which you are describing where we send the student to another teacher's classroom because when I look at the definition it could meet that definition and and you know and and and and just to add um the the timeouts are part of a student's IEPs right so part of the plan in terms of helping this particular child deescalate would be utilizing something like um giv that the child uh uh a timeout and a time
154outs setting to help them deescalate um your reference to this being part of a student's IEP this is not is this only oriented to students with IEPs no so yes for students who who do do have an IEP this would be written into their plan when that for J student um no they not be a part of his IP okay Mr Woodson yes Dr saki is this policy uh recommended by c um yes sir yeah this is the uh sample K policy for um exclusionary timeout it's the exact way that is that it's written from C did we change anything to the writing from C um no this is this is the exact policy from Cape thank you thank you thank you m thank you yeah and um go to m Mr tra's example as
155far as exclusionary timeouts at the state definition how much we don't have much leeway to change it if it does meet the definition of an exclusionary timeout correct I I mean as far as sending a to the other classroom because at at First Blood I think the maybe the intent of the legislation and the policy is to account for time learning lost out of the classroom so that student that would go to the other classroom if that student falls under the definition we can't touch that part of the policy correct I don't know if I understand um the question um how much Flex how much flexibility how much of this policy is written into State Statute I would have to do some research and get back to you I don't I don't I don't know
156the answer to that okay yeah because because we don't want to change anything that would be contrary to our reporting requirements under the law so there something we definitely got to look at because I I I would think at first blush an exclusion every timeout is when a student is excluded from the learning environment and is not receiving their instruction so I would think that would trigger but I don't think that's something we could change at least first but thank you and maybe we look look at that before we bring it back to committee so there is um State Statute that is um attached to this but I'll just have to review that state statute so I can give you a um complete response to that um and we can discuss this Mr Medina at
157our committee meeting Mr Medina that's exactly what I want to make a point to elaborate on what Joel said and also what Mr Woodson said because my my understanding and everything that I read through this and I haven't read the state statute to match it is that these are uh mandated policies so these are like he said at the end when you look there are State statutes uh linked specifically to it in the legal uh references so this is why it was presented to me and I asked for Mr Avery and his team to give me I actually challenge him he said he can give me four and I said okay if you can give me four give me five that we need to consider ASAP that way we're covered you know this is to
158cover us from any uh you know liabilities or anything like that so this is why it was presented first uh because I asked them what are you know in the 28 or Plus or 20 plus I me just say that the 20 plus that gave made recommendations for us to look at I wanted to get at least the top five to try to start working and getting things uh in order to make sure that we add what we need to add and we can read it together as a board so that's why went State mandated was what why we were touching these is any else for the first read do we want [Music] to we have a the second item is um alcohol use drugs and tobacco policy uh P 5131 okay yeah this one
159is also a bit um bit complicated this is going to require some level of of of uh discussion um our curent our current policy numbers um 5136 and 5137 um we'll be replacing these policies with K policy 5131 this new policy expands the definition of drugs Controlled Substances um under the influence electronic nicotine liquid nicotine vapor products it also discusses students privacy rights explanation of illegal activities um discussion on performance enhancing drugs medical marijuana and use of CBD products uh it talks um as well about disciplinary actions for the various infractions when it has to do with any of these products the policy requires a drug- free awareness program which is currently Incorporated into some of our curriculum it also gives additional information on drugs and alcohol inhalent ecigarettes and performance enhancing drugs um and
160I think you know the the medical marijuana and the use of CBD product is a section that you know we need to pay close attention to discussing on this one Mr yeah I'm sorry maybe when I stepped out maybe you mentioned I apologize if you did did we um look into the question of illegal on this state in connetic yes and and um Mrs Skov I know we had this conversation um about um changing or clarifying some of the language around um marijuana and you know the it being illegal I know we had discussed that you know obviously in a school setting anyone under 21 for them it's illegal but to your point the way that it was written it just simply said illegal so I'll say up to the board in terms of how
161you wanted that to be rewarded to make that clearer um again like the last policy I mentioned if it's not in contrary to State Statute to add that language I think it would be preferable to be accurate that it's illegal for children under 21 rather than illegal in state of Connecticut because it's just not true but only if it's in not in contrary to State Statute and yes there there there are several references here guarden State statue so um that is something um I would review as well um prior to our next meeting and and um the good thing about these policies is that student cented policies and it can't take effect until the next school year anyway unless we make a special motion to put them in place immediately which is really never a
162good idea because you don't want to change the rules on a kid's Midstream mam Dr I want to make sure that the board is aware that the the five policies that are presented to you for consideration the board bridport public board Ed or out of compliance because we have no updated policies with these five policies since 2015 and because we are out of compliance uh Cave felt that we needed to put these in front of the board with considerations for approval in order to get us within policy giving us giving a little bit more time to kind of work through details of what we want to make sure for clarity for the board um you know but if we keep delaying it we're still if anything happens in the area of health and medical records
163non-discriminatory policy and and you know uh use of EX exclusionary time out alcohol and drugs we could be aable because we have no policy government ing the actions of what happens within the school district so it's so important that when we draft the policies that we at least are able to kind of consider them and then giving time to go back in detail to fine-tune them to align to what the board is wanting us to do we can we can do that but I think it's important that uh that we we at least get these five policy which we which we're doing we not we we we wave two of them to get them out there pretty good but the LA the two that I had uh Dr saki pull back because they're very intrical
164uh specific things that I think it's important to a lot of his statue because what happened over the last couple of years especially with um the alcohol and drug policy if we would have kept up with the policy over the last four or five years my minor tweaks would have had to happen because you've already had but since we haven't done it in you know several years there's a lot of policies that changed maybe three years ago four years ago that were so far out ofli so what C did for me was pull everything in statute given a sample policies to follow and what I had um Dr Saki and staff do is to streamline them to fit the district as best we possibly could and then bringing them to uh you know Mr bina's
165committee to kind of flush out a little bit and we've done that we've started to do that process uh but these are the critical ones that I wanted to make sure and uh been working with Mr Bina it's and this has been a slow process but uh it's important that we get something uh in policy and S of so that we can have a little guidance so that's kind of where we are tror yeah my understanding of what Mr scovic said which we've had that discussion last year is this it changing student policies like when we were enacting the code of conduct they shouldn't take effect you can't change policy in the middle of the year because you're changing the rules on the kids in the middle of the year that was the point Mr
166col just made was changing these rules mid year it it it just doesn't make sense but your student code of conduct should follow board policy and so when they created the the student code of conduct that we approved last year should not have taken effect until the following year period and so if it was changed that was incorrect and and so I'm I'm just that's the point that it when you do that it should have waited until the following year so that you when you start the you say to the kids here's the policies not in April or whenever it was done we say oh now we've got a new policy and so to me that's logical you don't have start the year with one set of rules and in the middle of the Year
167say okay we've changed the rules now um and so I I I see the logic of that I hear what you're saying but I do recall very clearly being told by the C people when they started working with us that about 70 or 80% of the districts in the state are not in compliance and so we're actually better than most is what I believe he said to us on more on several occasions when he started working with us so I I understand the is the desire to get ourselves in a better position and we're certainly working with them to do that but I you know I I'm I'm you know it's it I guess cuz it's 9:00 at night and I'm not feeling particularly well I'm in a sort of grumpy mood anyway but I'm
168not feeling really sort of in a compliant mood um and this just goes against what I understand makes sense as a teacher goes against what I understand makes sense as a you know maker rules um and it just seems to me that we should do it the right way and the right way is that we work on it we go through the two readings and we Implement a new policy and by the time we do that we're already in April May June we got a month and a half left in the school year we don't change the rules we wait until the end of the school year and we folded into our policy and so when the kids come back the next year we've got a new policy that we explain to them and the
169staff it just doesn't make sense to do it otherwise for me this is the first read still on this I know so first read and then we go back to committee come back again so we have we're not implementing this this tomorrow Mr Woodson all right yes um I I hear Dr Avery you know expressing the importance of having these articles these five articles or you know whatever they're called you know just having them on the books just to say that we have them and we could um you know have you know just go and and long as we have them we could go from there and and and and and plan forward but to have all all the time every time somebody proposes a policy or something to to make a big deal about
170it especially when when you hear Dr a expressing how important it is to have these policies in place whether they're old or they're out of out of date or they don't match with the district has a has a line you know is is is irrelevant you know he said it's important let's get it done and then we could make changes from from you know where where where we stand but we cannot just keep not listening to Dr Avery he's the he's the you know the the you know our guidance and when it comes to things like this that's his job you know this is you know and to have policies not in place so that so the man can act and you know just have have have some type of laws to stand on is
171is is just irresponsible thank you all right um Miss casimer Madam shair I agree with what Mr Woodson just said I mirror it 100% you know when I listen to Dr Avery say Hey listen we've had nothing or hardly anything on the books when it comes to something as important as this like I I agree um I've read through this policy I'm not speaking as somebody who hasn't read it and and and there's nothing there that I would say oh wow you know that's going to get us in a bind if we try to go back to this at a later time and readjust it like this is necessary and you know that's all I wanted to say I just want to mirror what um Mr Woodson said Mr Medina yeah I agree I agree
172with both of you and I just want to make sure that it's in in line with what we're doing we're just following right now with our policy so this is the first read so I want to ground this and just let's try to land this uh airplane real quick because this is our first read this is what we're here for to discuss it to make changes or suggest changes to make sure that we comply with whatever it is and like I said these are all backed up by state mandate so this is some things that are mandatory but by our bylaws we wanted to make sure these two are are read a little bit more about you guys I send it to you guys to the whole board back when we did our first training
173uh with c and and and again I mirror the the notion and the recollection of our minds me and tror that uh yes they said that we're one of the you know we're in good standing compared to some other people other uh District as far as compliance and all that stuff but to Mr uh Sak Point um we can't we can't put this forward in the sense of out there until uh we vet it and then we put it out there for the whole District to know parents students uh even staff you know can we put it on our website right away yes you know that they know this is what's coming up this is what we're in uh uh we're moving forward as a policy as a board so yes we can put it
174on our website already it doesn't mean that they're held to those standards but we can have and they can have that as a guideline and I think that's what Mr Avery wants is to put it Forward right away that way the district knows this is the policy in our district moving forward because the the board voted because it's state mandate and again I I'm interested in getting contact with K to find out about whether this can start now or it's supposed to start next school year because of the way it is it's done I got I'm interested to find that out too get some clarity with that mam chair will you please allow us to do that that's our job to be able to do that we will we'll contact C we'll make sure if
175if this policy is passed will it affect the current student code of conduct if it does we can go back and bring a re revised student code of conduct back to the board in the necessary time frame to be able to make sure that there's no real conflicting things for uh and campuses to have to adhere to so we can we can make that work we can make that work I would also like to add that there is a sense of urgency with this policy because drug use in the schools is very common it's it not only in high schools middle schoolers are doing it elementary school they're bring there there's a there's heavy use within the schools I just want to say there is a sense of urgency for this Mr sakovic yes um
176look conf because I don't know it kind of sounds like the narrative is that we don't have a policy are we saying that if our kids are caught with a liquor bottle in school if they're caught with marijuana if they caught with drugs absolutely nothing happens to them we no we have we have policy but the policies this this particular policy is not up to uh state standard as being uh that govern schools as we speak this you know the the I think at one time marijuana was was was legal now it's not in certain circumstances even like with staff there's policy about drug use with staff that have to be adhered to in this policy there's a number of different things yeah I understand it's just a sense of urgency that's being placed on
177this like if we put a new piece of paper up like everybody's going to start to start complain oh wait it says this now let's stop using drugs and all this and that so it's not it's not the sense of urgency that I see and also um as far as the policy of taking effect next year that's one of the board policies as well we would have to wave that it's put in place because the children would be affected by one rule mid year and not even know if we if we have a rule that goes in effect tomorrow and your consequence is two day suspension and then tomorrow it's in effect and it's a 10day suspension that's not fair because you didn't know that your consequences your actions would have stronger consequences and and
178that's why that policy in place that policy can in fact be waved but like I said I would really really seriously consider not waving that policy except in the most extreme circumstances to add what you're saying you know I think you correct me if wrong but you mentioned just because we put a policy doesn't mean they they're going to stop doing what they're doing no that's not the case but we can put a policy in place that also provides support for these students you know and that's what I mentioned the committee that you know it's not just they have this item on them automatic suspension what are the services we can offer and that's something that it was brought up a committee that we can continue talking about as well um if there's resources that
179we can provide to the as well whether it's an outside referral somewhere would you mind turn your mic off um outside referral somewhere or um or whatnot those are the types of things we could add within the policy so it's not just uh a policy in which it's a consequ a negative consequence for their behavior we can also add some um some other con like more positive consequence like okay let's put you in a program or help you with services and just like just like you four or five years ago Vape pins were was not they were not a thing now they are and so this policy updates the things that we can and can't do with the VAP pin uh into the policy and so again it's just you know just a few things
180that you know we still have policy in place that will govern really most of the things that's going to be but there's just a few things that need to be tweaked with that I what I would suggest probably be a good compromise between all these situations we pass it we put it up on put it up on the website effective June 30th at the end of the school year and then there'll be awar is there there'll be aw is is revisions and we'll have a new updated policy up on the website in order to I mean we got end in on that timeline anyway it's march by the time it gets back out of committee and first and second read we're there anyway and and I think we'll have an answer from K you know
181probably tomorrow uh and as we bring it back to committee Mr uh Medina we will be able to provide you guys a little bit of clarity it's to the urgency of when it needs to be done uh and go from there so as again when I present when when K presented to my cabinet regarding these policies the urgency was we got to get these things you know through we can we can bypass you know reading if we do what we did at you know with with item c and d uh like we did the other ones just to get them move through first second and third reading we can do one reading to get them po posted and then we can modify from there so that's that's really the the urgency where I said urgency
182that's what I meant by that so uh it's and you you clarified that as well Mr B so yes are there any any board members who haven't asked questions yet and then we go to Mr tror okay Mr tror yeah and I I wasn't speaking to the drug policy I was speaking to the employee policy where you can't take a group of teachers who have been doing exclusionary activities for however long they have and say oh you can't do that anymore we have have a whole new way of doing it with two months left in the school year you're implementing a new policy and you're going to need to do training and everything else and I'm assuming you've got other things planned for the rest of the year in training so I just think that
183gets a little complicated and you're better off training them at the beginning of the next year on new policies like this but you tell me you had nothing planned okay but it seems to me you probably had other things planned anybody else on the policy 5131 those will go back to committee for further um discussions the next item is the discussion of possible approval of the elimination of uh 2 to1 uh going a per funded through delta T so who's presenting yes sir okay uh good evening everyone the whole idea here is to elimination of uh two to one uh par for that they Delta Employees that not they're not city of for employees so there's no unemployment to be paid um again El a 221 Paris were funded though we in the school system
184and it was eliminated when the district hit hardship then it it got reinstated with EXA money and when the budget this current year budget was being drafted it was included to be eliminated as part of the budget closing measures but again that certain things that we're included as part of the Gap closing measures this year we are not followed up so this is one of them um basically prop basically proposing for its elimination next fiscal year not this fiscal year meaning that the employees will be there'll be coverage of 2 to1 par till the end of this school year come next school year it will not be in existence which is next fiscal year fiscal year 26 is part of the Gap Gap closing measures um that's been factored in into closing the Gap next
185year it was adopted by the finance committee thank you any questions for Mr Nicole Mr sovic you can you put your microphone and put that I moved the elimination of the kindergart 2 to1 kindergarten pars funded through delta T was reinstated with Sesser funds I'll second it's been moved in second seconded by Mr cvic moved by Mr travor is there any further debate on that no I have nothing further Mr and Miss yes this is one of the most unkindest Cuts we're gonna have to make last go around I think it was 2016 just prior to my board service when we eliminated the par professionals this room was packed this is how used to the abuse the City of Bridgeport has got in um we have nobody last year there was kid and garden teachers
186I just want to raise up with all the positions the next next item on the agenda they came out and spoke for themselves so we know what they the assistant princial came out to spoke for themselves speak for themselves now I'm gonna Vote for This cut but let's realize what we're cutting we're cutting from kindergarten classrooms a second adult second adult in that classroom there to help our teachers manage a classroom of 24 25 plus five or six years five or six year old students many who who have never been away from home for the first time they can't tie their shoes a lot of them can't use the restroom A lot of them need help a lot of them crying for mommy while these teachers have to assist these children they're not teaching ABCs
187so right away our children are missing out from kindergarten to the first grade and this is the position we're in for the second time in 10 years removing all our kindergarten par professionals they don't do this in Greenwich they don't do this in Westport they don't do this in Fairfield they all got par professionals why can't bridport have par professionals why does B have to cut $28 million why do our children have to continue to suffer why do we have to hear from the governor that we shouldn't have spent money on these positions that was irresponsible to hire him these positions that were hired that are now being excluded they got our children some of our children services to give them a leg up so this will show this will show progress for our students
188throughout their whole tenure but unfortunately this students coming up in kindergarten next year will not have them because we're going always have to make this cut thank youz then Mr Woodson then Mr tror um so earlier today I suggested that Dr Avery surveys the principles for potential Cuts so I think it would be prudent to at least wait to hear what the principles have to say um and if they can come up with some cost-saving measures before we actually vote on this and I feel pretty strongly about that on items FG andh let's see what the principles come back they know the schools better than us I mean worse comes to worse if they come back and they don't have significant changes we still have to make these decisions no matter what these decisions are
189for 2025 to 2026 so we wouldn't get any savings for this school year anyways M Mr Woodson yes I I agree with Miss Jimenez you know I think that we should you know at least get the opinions of the of of the principles because you know they're they're the ones who I think are going to be the most affected by this they're they're the ones who when those people aren't in place that are that that that aren't going to be the the principles going to have another job to do which I know the you know principles are already swamped so you know once you get rid of a vital vital part of U of of of of our you know our debt what we used to do on a daily basis the principles are going
190to that's that that responsibility is going to fall on the principles and you know like I said they I think if you ask them you're you're you're GNA get some surprising responses and I I I would just think that they would not recommend to make these Cuts so I I I think we I agree with Miss himz we should at least get a get an opinion from the from the principles before we before we make a decision so we could be at least uh as most as informed as we could be thanks Mr tror um I think it's a great idea to ask the principles um because we need another 15 to20 million wor the cuts um and so we're going to need more ideas than this um I I was uh I was deeply
191involved with the cuts in when Mr sovic was talking um uh the cuts that drove um superintendent Ramos and the board to say that they couldn't in good conscience pass a budget that they thought would actually educate the children of Bridgeport um and they threw up their hands and broke the law because the law of Connecticut says the board has to pass a budget it's their fiduciary responsibility uh that brought in Paul Valas um and we went through the turmoil of that uh subsequent to that Mr sovic mentioned in the budget that got us to eliminate all kindergarten Paras there was a day when we had a parah in every first grade classroom and second grade classroom too not just kindergarten and this is eliminating uh we restored with the eser money a kindergarten par
192in every other classroom not every classroom we used to have in every classroom so with the Ester money we said okay we'll share a pair between two classrooms um if we were to get the kind of money to looking at with 1511 well maybe we could restore Paras to every classroom and put the money and maybe even start putting Paras back into the first grades who knows because that's what you really need I remember arguing with Senator mccy last year about that as he was challenging me to what kind of other stuff are you going to do with the money if we gave you the money and I said well you're old enough and I'm old enough to remember when we had them because I had an arbitration in his district in Hartford when we
193were they were eliminating first grade Paris so you know these are the kinds of things we should be having to free up the teacher to work with the kids that need the extra help to for all the reasons that you all are articulating and I I'm all for all that but we still have 15 to20 million worth the cuts to to go and I I you know if the principles can come up with ways to save that money God bless them um and but I think tonight we need to start taking the actions and and trust me it's to me it's because people aren't taking us seriously half the people are in this room tonight I've known for years they need to take us seriously that this is the the reality that we're looking at
194so they'll go back and you know let's take your suggestion let's let's give them let's ask them to come up with better ideas by all means um and take those ideas and say this is what we're going to have to do because none of them are good none of them are going to be good we're all operating in Bare Bones in this District so I I couldn't agree with you more let's ask them if they have a better idea because we can always resend the proposal but I think we've got to start making Cuts now and we got to make it clear to people this is what we're looking at we can't keep talking nobody understands when we say oh we got to make $25 million worth of cuts you know I nobody makes that
195kind of money they don't understand how bad that is so we need to to make it real and then people will begin to understand so I think we can do both and if somebody comes up with better ideas we can take this one back Miss cmir hi um I absolutely agree with uh Miss Jimenez not not only on this item but on the other items that she also referenced um I will say yes I agree uh the principles definitely need to we need to have a conversation with the people who are on the front line inside the buildings not only the principls but if there's a vice principal in there like for instance uh recently I I uh visited did a tour at Reed hooker BLC SK Tisdale and Roosevelt um you know the the
196uh principal at Roosevelt told me that and this is another thing that I'm segueing into I I I feel very strongly about each and every board member going into the schools and getting a tour of the school from the principles the the people who are running the building um Roosevelt School told me that I was the second board member that took a tour her school in 10 years the second board member in 10 years so when we're sitting at this table and we're having these discussions I think it's also important to get in the school buildings if you haven't already and all of them and talk to the principles but but the vice principal over at Hooker I know for a fact had a lot of suggestions on cuts that can be made I think
197that he was just cut from there if I'm not mistaken but if we want to just you know kind of like go back to him if anybody's interested he had um some ideas that he wanted to share with the superintendent so um yeah you know it's easy to sit around the table and talk about things that should be done um when you haven't even Ste foot inside of the building as well that's all I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad I'm not trying to insult anybody but as somebody who has gone and visited all these schools except for three I have left out of all the schools in the district um it it's something that that should be considered that's all thank you Mr benan the Miss Baptist Perez thank you madam chair um
198very simple I know today teachers and principes and a lot of people came um tonight it was very clear the information the information they give it to us and I know par is so important very so important for kindergarten I see par they take care of the the student very well I see parents they trust they trust 100% the par they trust more that their family they say I prefer the part you stay with my son or my daughter because I I I cannot deal with my family that's the trust you know that's the the most important I know we need to save money I know we have to cut but like I say we don't want to save money and cut hurting our students and the parent I'm very clear that I'm against that
199just want to do that for the record thank you m here miss Baptist perz ID like to make a motion to table the elimination of 2 to1 kindergarten Paras funded by funded through delta T until uh results from a principal based survey I second is that is it already motion on the floor it's Mo it's table the current motion until not everybody even had a chance to speak to it yet there's there's been a motion um to move the item and it's been seconded already we'll just have to take a vote on that but Mr Medina so wait you're not I'm going to call the question I'm going to make a motion to call the question on the current motion that's on the floor roll call okay the current motion would be the the first
200motion or your tabled motion it was the first motion um it's roll call for the calling the question on the um on Mr s's motion can you just clarify what what's the vote for the motion the original motion was to approve the elimination of two to one kindergarten Paras you're um you're calling the question so the the a yes would be to um end debate end the debate a no would be to continue Mr benan Christine Baptist Paris yes Misha Casmir yes Miss Mara jenez yes is the will Medina no Miss Jennifer Paris pass Mr Joseph k no Mr Robert tror yes Mr Woodson yes myself I say yes Jennifer Paris yes so we could go ahead and vote on the original motion um discussion and possible approval of elimination of 2 to1 kindergarten Paris
201funded through delta T roll call vote roll call vote M Christine Baptist Paris no is no Miss Mar Jimenez no Mr will Medina yes we an explanation and I W to talk put your mic on put your mic on point of order Madam chair only the knows have the right to give an explanation before I already established that two or three times I could email it to you again yeah Mr Medina go ahead thank you very much Madam chair um I want to talk with the board not the board that way you guys know um this is moving forward for a vote and you guys are not considering what we have to present before the community before uh the state and everybody to know these are the changes that we got to do because of
202the cuts that are necessary you know I have a CFO over here that has been speaking to us and you guys have been uh some some of the board members have been always in agreement to say listen let the let those people that are uh in the deis that know the facts and know how to move these things over we when we discussed this in facilities we were speaking about this is one of the things that needs to be done to make sure that we can address everybody and get them to come in our side we just spoke before uh SB uh 1511 and there was a group of us maybe maybe seven to 10 the the most Mr saki was there Avery was Dr Avery and some of the board members where was the
203rest of the board one where was the rest of the community and we want to motivate them to say listen we need everybody's cooperation the state is looking at we need to pass a balanced budget guys you guys are my you know uh my uh colleagues and we need to know that we need to show them that listen these are the decision that we have to do if we don't get more funding how can we show the public how can we show the state how can we show everybody we're not making these decision to make sure they understand the importance of this so I vote that's why I'm voting the way I'm voting because we need to show this is a this is 44 Paras uh from the Delta the delta T that is at
2041327 um and in our committee we were saying this is the first thing we want to bring back so when we get 1511 in this is the first thing that is going to be like okay we're going to withdraw this because we don't need to anymore because we have the money you know likewise so we have to make we have to think about it and that perspective I think and again talk to you our CFO and know that we have to come up with 30 something million dollar to make sure we get to the number we need to get to of cuts to make sure we can balance a budget I don't know if any of you have that kind of money in your Banks to be responsible for but we have to present a
205balanced budget so respectfully I just want to talk with the board not at you guys to just to think this is we want to put the pressure on the state and everybody to see condition that we're really at and the only way I think listen I'm not going to call it fire department if I don't see fire we need to show them that they need to come and act because they have been excuse the terminology you know treated us like garbage when it comes to funding the ECS formula has never changed in 13 years but inflation has been what and we have not called them out so I talk with you guys not at you guys thank you Mr B go ahead Jennifer Paris um no Mr J Sate yes I'm going to vote Yes
206with an explanation as per our written bylaws um our CFO has suggested making these Cuts we have suggested making these cuts when we first hired them through Esser funding it was understood that these positions would end I want everybody to understand right now in committee we went from 23 to $26 million in deficit now we're currently sitting at 28 m675 th000 and we're going to add $1.9 million to that so that's $31 million that we're going to have to cut or the state is going to have to cut for us somebody's going to decide on these Cuts I would rather it be us than them and another reason why we should have made these Cuts right now is because they are highly reversible delta T is pay per use right now we would be voting
207to not use them if we find the money very easy thing to do is to reverse okay hire people from the delta T contract but right now just to be clear Dr Avery you have been tasked with getting the principles to give us $30 million in cuts Mr R TR I vote Yes for the same similar reasons um we need to start making Cuts we've got 26 28 and the number is fluctuating 30 million we're up to 30 million and the principles are not going to come up with $30 million worth of cuts um and if they do God bless them we'll we'll give back the we can just change this I I just don't know when we're going to start uh we're meeting with the city this week correct to present our budget well
208we're we're we're meeting with the city this week to present our budget and uh we're going to present them a budget with $30 million shortfall um and you know I'm going to keep fighting with the state uh but I think we need to show that we're uh we're serious about what we want and I don't hear us doing that so I pray that we get what we were supposed to get but I haven't seen anyone else fighting for that thank you I Mr benan Mr Andre Woodson no and myself I said no and the reason I say no I'm tired to hurt see a lot of cut I'm tired to hurt the students in all respect when you do this you make noise let's make noise let's make no to the state I by let's
209go all the board members they invite everybody and let's go to the state let's talk let's talk talk talk because I know they hear us say the email text message the video Let's Go face to face I know we did it last for few of them but I don't feel was enough we need to keep going we need to go talk to them and let's make noise let's invite staff let's invite everyone the reason why we need to get I'm tired to see C and I want to see um hurting our kids so Madam is right that one does not pass Mr n just for clarity just for clarity to the board when the board adopted current year fy2 budget you adopted a gap closing measure in that Gap closing measure the board adopted the
210elimination of 2 to1 par for all practical purposes you really don't have to adopt it because you already adopted it very Frank with everyone it's part of the budget package that the board adopted for this current year it's in the plan the board adopted the budget with the plan in it of elimination of two to one parent yes yes thank you m we're just repeating ourselves of we adopting what you already adopted or rejecting what you already adopted let me put it that way the next item is the discussion of possible approval elimination of 11 restorative practice positions that were funded through Esser motion to eliminate you you have to put your microphone on if you're gonna make a motion can you hear me we have somebody on we don't have a a court recorder
211here they're online they cannot hear you uh most to approve the elimination of 11 restorative practice positions that were funded with Sesser funds second motion was made by Mr trer seconded by Mrs covic any debate on that item call the question motion call the question all right there's a motion actually call the question um roll call vote to call the question we can't debate we have to call the question debate Mr benan can you the vote quick point on speak to the call in the question part we should at least give the superintendent and CFO a chance to present on the question because we've had several people say listen to the superintendent let's hear from the professionals let's he from the professional you want to take back your call a question or do you want
212to continue calling it oh wait no you did he made the motion remove my second Mr sovic is removing his second so Mr paper's motion on the floor without a second so Dr a would you like to explain this one I'll let N explain this one I can clarify if he doesn't get it the way we need to be Madam chair basically what the board is doing or what the superintendent is proposing here we have um we're basically swapping two classification of positions because by from the state perspective we have to have in school suspension so that's what we're basically doing we're basically UNF funding the restorative practice positions using the money to hire in school suspension to be in compliance with the state guidelines so it's really not a reduction or it's not a
213savings it's not we're basically retaining trying to retain the service of in school suspension which is in accordance to the state guideline and law and meeting the grant requirements that's what we're doing the restorative practice practitioners they don't fit the criteria that the state requires Dr every you canate yeah for further clarifications what what happened a couple years ago the district used to have inch school suspension officers uh previous administration came in and eliminated in school suspension officers and implemented restorative practices facilitators last year the state of Connecticut you know you know in their compliance division came back to the district and said that the district is out of compliance because the state requires in school suspension officers in schools in order to fulfill the option for other than suspending kids out of school suspension
214and so what we did last year with leftover covid dollars was to reinstate in school suspension officers with with the help of the Union that that position is um how do you call it it's sub out to Kelly it's it's their it's their position as a union uh in school suspension officers so what we did last year and this year we used Delta Subs to fill that void for this year next year we have to have a funding source because we have no no more exra dollars and so in school suspension dollars that were wor allocated through operational funding is going to be replacing the funding for in school suspension restorative practices dollars is going to be replacing uh those dollars that we're going to need to be in compliance with the in school suspension
215officers so there's not going to be a savings this has to happen regarding or we're going to have to find another million dollars to keep you know to keep restorative and keep in school suspension to be in compliance so that's where we are with this for clarity Dr ay does that guarantee the 11 restorative practice positions have they have a job next year or do they have to apply for these jobs exactly they would have to go ahead and make sure that reive this position so yes because the restorative practices individuals are not members of a baring unit and the ISS position is a nage position we would have to post it these people can't apply but we'd have to post it and fill it according to uh collective bargaining would be guaranteed their job
216they would not be guaranteed because we'd have to these are layoffs correct correct and they can apply and you know as long as it fulfills the nage bargaining agreement rules for job postings and acceptance into job then we can hire okay what's the timeline for these positions in order to not have to continue is it the end of March it's it's passed we we're currently working with the with the Union on um a couple negotiations so I don't want to go too deep into it in public um but we're working on negotiations with the job description for the ISS position so that it can involve some our our of our restorative practices um roles and how many ISS positions do we currently have right now we have zero we have zero so we would have
21711 we're thinking right now that we can probably cover the district with nine in school suspension officers and they would be going through multiple sites throughout the district Mr cic yes um and speaking with some of the people today I learned that um nine out of the 11 used to be um ISS that's correct does the does the nage contract have recall rights because they do have recall rights if these people were laid off from that position they would have first dips correct can we not um negotiate with n that these people have first dibs at the job since they've been in the district well that would be that would be the recall rights so if these positions come back then they would have the first right of it as long as it's been less
218than two years which I believe it has been it has been so they would have right a first call back for the people who were laid off from that position so if there were other members who weren't laid off but necessarily took another position that wouldn't apply to them they took this position as we started so they doesn't apply to these people what's that it doesn't apply to these people they weren't laid off from ISS they took a new position as we started practice no but that they could have been laid off from ISS because what my understanding was what happened is the ISS position was eliminated yes and these people were laid off then restorative practices positions came along and they took those now if they were laid off from an ISS position they
219would have the right of first uh first comeback Mr Medina Mr tror so Omar is restorative practice Omar Resto is a restored practice person yes yes so he would go back to being in ISS position well we shouldn't have used names of people well if if he was laid off from that position yes he would be able to come back the the other piece to Madam chair is that you have to understand that there may not be the same salary in these positions as well so someone may not want to go to a lower salary if they were making a higher salary because this in school suspension officers we're going to set that salary I understand that but I'm I I would be like floored if you're telling me that we eliminated ISS positions and
220created a position that pays more we did we did absolutely you did because I wasn't here Mr Medina and then miss Baptist Mr Medina get back to the Hy Sir with all the respect there was a lot of things being thrown about information and I thought it was clear but it wasn't but I need you to give me Clarity if with that there's 11 restorative practitioners working right now and it was said that the ISS people were taken out back in 2023 2024 22 23 you you're telling me I need to know from you are the nine out of the 11 like somebody said yes but I need to hear from you are nine out of the 11 were part the ISS team that was laid off yes or no oh I don't know that
221off the top of my head okay let's get that information for us please because I mean this is I hear the art cry I also hear the outcry of outcry of the community of the staff saying what these people are done I heard students talk about that so to hold them in those positions and then have them be it you know kind of like smarter in the sense of they're doing that job to have them my ass set back and I think uh the union is listening um you know we need to figure out to fight for their their position because these are brisport people that been working and doing a job and if they were laid off we need to know that if they were laid off there should be a recall list that
222would exist for this ISS position and we would go through that recall list because technically even if they're not restorative practices but they were laid off and they had the most seniority and they're not a restored practice technically we have to offer it to that person before any of the Resto that's why I have that question because I think today you guys should have had that information for us respectfully I gota you know I gotta hold everybody account of what but respectfully we should have had that information tonight doesn't change anything well it does change because again we know the truth okay you can't say it doesn't change because we're saying that this 900 sorry it's 93648 uh funds we're using according to what we did in committee it's we're using that money now so
223it's not a true saving so that's why I call that false data my paperwork is we're using it now to hire back that way we could be compliant with the state the ISS so it does have a merit because if those people automatically would have bumping rights or not bumping rights to we call rights so we're only talking about really cutting two of those because we got to eliminate the position those other ones have to go back because we know that they were things so that does come into a a fact I don't know if my my my colleagues are understanding me but it comes to play so we should have that data because then it covers us because we know that they're going to be coming back and they wouldn't have to be out
224here in that big outcry because they have rights to come back to their precisions and I understand there contract stuff you can't talk about everything but yes it does make a b difference because they'll know where they stand and they don't know where they're staying right now according to them they're being laid off but they have rights according to what I'm being understood because they were part of that team that was laid off you know my guess is if they were laid off they know they have these recall rights because they know they know why don't you know why can't you guys tell me that answer respectfully you should be able to answer that question that do they and you say you don't know that and that's where I have a problem all right Miss
225Baptist Perez what's the time you cut off practice on you cut off Miss can you ask the question more time what's the salary difference started are we going to realize through Madame chair the the restorative practice practitioners are making each one of them their base salary is $ 47,7 54 that's their base salary but when you include when you include their fringes when you include their Fring benefit the mer murf which is pension and health insurance it comes up to I think about 880,000 average of 80 ,000 or 83,000 per employee so the number you see there the $936,000 is inclusive of all Benes all the health health insurance and Mer all inclusive but their base their base salary is um 47,7 54 the rest of the money increase or is um health insurance and
226and pension cost M yep 85,000 47,000 is B salary the rest is fringes four practi how much was ISF I think she asked the is is 43,000 from what dominic is saying so again 43 depends if it's 43,000 two years ago with cost of living increase it's probably about 46 which is almost parallel to the in school to the restor practitioner understand if it's 43 two years ago you add about at least 6% tourist 6% on the 43 so you're close to the same about the same salary so it's probably going to be an even wash maybe one less person to hire y any anything else M BZ nope Mr Medina no thank you right there's been a motion is there a second to that motion I have oh you have a question yeah I
227I just in the who should should should it is a safe bet they don't all know they have recall rights so it is appropriate for you to advise them when you when you do that Mr thank you Madame chair here we go again the same thing I talk about the par Paris but these people right now you guys have to know how to busy how to go with them talk to them visit them how they what they do with the students I'm witness I know as I say we need to save money we understand that but are we hurting our kids I know them I know them for so many years you you board members you receive emails from from teachers from Principal student stent you know what they do they don't only do only
228the position they have they do more they extra extra million miles they do for our students of brisbo public school they trust them they call them I'm telling you I'm a big witness and I challenge any person to tell me it's not true because board members here they know how they work they're amazing and I will keep fighting for them as I say let's make noise so hard for they can understand we need money it sorry that's only thing why I want to say let's make noise the hard for understand what we need money I know it's a little difficult we understand I respect everybody's opinion and decision and vote but we you have to understand we hurting our kids and trust me a lot of kids they don't have that trust Faith love home
229they have it in schools thank you Madame chair it Dr Avery is um the ISS position going to do what the restorative practice does so ISS are they going to sit in a classroom or gym or something and just watch kids do a packet versus restorative practice who were actually supporting social emotion learning supporting Behavior interventions supporting ppts what's the what's the difference and the in school suspension you know person is an in school it's a classroom where kids go in you know they will do lessons they will they can also do lessons on restorative they can do some of those same similar things with with some additional training but it's really kids are coming in they're doing the works teachers are are rotating through the classroom with support and that's the basics of the
230in school suspension uh perspective uh so it's a it's really different U but again that is the requirement of the state to have the in school suspension classroom so yeah just to add to what um Dr ay was sharing the um insu um suspension well new incu suspension office and I think that's part of what um that um was getting at um will need to have some level of restorative training um so that would um so they'll be able to serve as the in scho suspension officer as well as provide um restorative um assistance and measures to students so I don't think it's one or or the other in this instance I think it's the person being able to do both thank you Miss Baptist Perez call the question mam chair I have a question
231you call the question get oh there's no motion on the floor there was no second to that motion um you cut you cut off how many how many um how many seconded your motion because you never called your motion pardon me she seconded your motion she made a second to your motion a call the question you you you made a motion earlier nobody second in it she's second in your motion you you made the motion you did you made a motion to eliminate 11 restored practice positions F second in it the limitate he he took back his second you never took back your motion so there was an opportunity to make a second she made the second okay so I still have a question and then she called the question so the call the question
232needs to be seconded but right so she didn't second so Mr tror has the floor I have a question which is the in school suspension you said these uh nine individuals are going to cover the entire District the restorative practice they cover how many schools 11 schools for the 11 people currently yes okay so it's a it's a whole different kettle of fish that is correct right okay so I'm just to be clear you know I want we we've been sort of dancing around the edge of that question then I want you know they are doing quality work in one school essentially right um the role will be a completely different role right from what they're currently doing just want to be clear about the change that we're making um we are accommodating the state's
233requirement that we have an in school suspension program and we're going to do that by rotating in school suspension officers around the district so that each school will have an in school suspension or two depending on the size of the school when a student can be sent down to a given classroom for in school suspension uh or a given room for in school suspension um versus what's happening with this position which is a high quality uh restorative practice room where that individual is doing some quality work with the students in that facility um so it is apples and oranges that we're talking about here not the same thing okay thank you second the motion call the question now we called the question so now there's no more uh now we have to uh vote on
234calling the question so how about that so the question has been called all in favor to call the question we roll calling the call the question for this item a Yes means we end debate a no means we continue Mr benan CHR MFD Paris pass Mr yes no will Medina on what we're voting again debate we're ending debate oh is Jennifer Paris no Joseph s yes tror yes yes Andrew Woodson no no go back Christine by pleas Paris yes and Mr William Medina yes myself I vote yes that's passed no more debate um we'll take a vote on the original motion which is to eliminate 11 restored practice positions that were funded with eser funds roll call vote it's been rall by Mrs cic so Mr benan Paris sorry Christine b Paris pass Mr G
235here Iain Miss marz no Mr Willam Medina yes M Jennifer Paris abstain Mr Jess Sak yes Mr Robert tror yes Mr Andrew Woodson no no I vote no and Miss Christine bapti Paris is Christine b Paris what's v two exion yes I'm gonna vote my explanation I believe there to save M missis we canot understand up can you repeat yeah well my explanation is have a whole bunch of old facilities closed and not waste our human capital but we need to do something for budget so I'm going to vote in favor of yes and give the majority to lay off these positions got four three was passes pass yeah the next item is discussion and possible approval of reduction of public facilities over time Mr nwell Madame chair basically since the board voted to the
236El for the elimination of 11 restorative practitioners just to Big Clarity if you vote I'm sorry point point of information we did not vote we voted to approve a budget request with the understanding that the budget Gap closing measures would become okay would come later so okay be on the right page with that I apologize for my wrong my trust of words um basically the replenishment or reinstatement of the uh in school suspension is going to be is going to be catered or funded with the monies from the restorative practice positions that's been provided with your first vote that you just did so that money is going to you just voted to you just voted to unfund R restorative practice position that money is going to be used to fund the in school suspension positions
237which is what the state wants so net net it does not give you any savings or cost you voted to save money you voting to spend that same money again in a PR in a nutshell it's a flip make sense there's no Financial impact of bearing we're on the next item oh this one facilities over they didn't take it as two okay the last sorry I'm sorry the last item on the agenda is basically um reducing public facility public facilities overtime spending level from current year the idea behind that is that they did a lot of overtime with SAA money when they had s projects the district cannot continue to afford that trend of overtime going forward so we're reducing the overtime next year by $350,000 come next year I have to provide them with
238a seasonal overtime Trend basically map their overtime on a monthly basis based on seasonality because overtime overtime Trend goes by seasonality you cannot do a straight line projection you have to go based on seasonality and needs of the season so I'm going to provide public facil I use the word public facilties operations Department the trend historical trend of overtime based on seasonality they have to follow it and they have to report to the they have to report to the CFO and the superintendent on the monthly basis make sure we're in line so that's what this is basically containing overtime spending or streamlining everybody's spending it's not just them everybody in the district we have to tighten our belt pretty much mam shair I move that we approve the reduction of facilities over time move by
239Mr second by miss bapti forz any further debate yes Mr Cal absolutely since we seem to be on a spending spree and we made our deficit from $28 million to $31 million and we're moving a wrong direction anyway I vote I I suggest we vote no on this because our facilities are in ill repair facilities was the only Department that take a hit in the last year's budget when everybody when we went on a hiring speed for administration um and our facilities are in such deplorable conditions we did the facilities master plan which was supposed to save money is somewhere in my budget there's a line item to save money this year and that I still have no idea why it's there um because when I closing schools for the next four years so facilities
240is going to need that money and then would love to propose to amend it to give them another couple hundred, to upkeep the schools that are going to remain open for the next four years while we build new schools because right now our kids are in horrendous conditions nobody could argue that we haven't voted to build new schools I we we voted on the the facilities master plan is proposing to move forward Dr Avery came out in the newspaper and said we're not doing anything until the new schools are built that's a four-year timeline that the children are still in these schools that are in ill repair and we're going to cut the facilities budget that's supposed to help them repair those schools to have our children living in better conditions in their schools no
241that's unconscionable so I'm going to vote no on that thank you Miss esta Jimenez so um I will be voting yes for the cut to O um the reduction of OT for facilities because I do feel we do need to make a cut um however feel like we facilities that's taken the brunt of it in terms of overtime we should be looking across the entire department for over overtime reductions not just facilities CU I feel like that's not fair additionally I did want to elaborate on my comment about the principal's um survey I'm not asking them to look for $30 million worth of savings it is not practical to do that what I'm asking them to find is some sort of savings so that excuse me so that we can save the special um the
242Paris so that's what I'm that's what I'm looking for any little bit helps every single penny at this point counts thank you thank you Mr trer yeah uh what is the uh impact of this proposal impact is that they just have to monitor they have to monitor employees over time carefully I mean if you're not monitoring people and Mr Garcia 350,000 I think Mr Garcia this is um you know once again we we understand the C situation and we we've started the process of getting ahead of this we've met with every head custodian in the district last week we started discussing the first round of cuts we discussed last year's Cuts we've discussed the cuts in the previous years and now this additional cut um when we talk about overtime overtime encompasses a lot of
243different things it's just not uh it's just not eser projects it's coverage for staff it's after school activities I mean the list goes on and on at the end of the day we're in a very difficult situation as a school district so we're going to do whatever we have to do in order to help that situation but with that is going to come some pain because obviously we all know at this point we don't have enough staff to cover every shift we also understand that we don't have staff in a day outside of one custodian I mean you know we're we're asking a lot from the folks what we will be doing this summer we'll be working with each individual he custodia every single campus redefining all of the schedules and once again we're going
244to be asking our staff to do more but the fact is that we understand that there's a deficit that we've got to overcome um but you know we've got to start looking at this in the near future because this is unsustainable for the school district hi hi hi George thank you George I 350,000 was the dollar amount that I was looking for I just hadn't picked it up in the document okay but thank you any further debate on this discussion on this I thought I giv the document all right there's been a motion Miss B pz do you have a question no I to see a motion made yeah there was motion made okay Mr made the motion yes and second I think you seconded it um is there any further debate we we'll take
245a vote can it be a roll yes we can do roll call M Christine Baptist Paris pass missir no no Mar Jimenez yeah sorry let submit side conversations for now you just to what we are voting on on the overtime um the reduction of public facilities yes okay sorry yes yes is Willam Medina yes with a small explanation especially to uh Mr George Garcia he understands where we are and again I'm voting yes because I want to make sure that the district and everyone knows the community the state everyone knows this is happening because we are missing funds that we haven't been getting so that's why I want yes this is the only Department that has been underfunded dramatically and we expect more and more and they're their only Department that is bringing funds into
246the district and then sharing it across the district instead of keeping it off for themselves so I applaud George and his staff and everybody and I apologize for this vote but we have to do it because I want to show that where we can get the money and we can get that other staff that we had to let go thank you Jennifer Paris yes did joose say s v no with an explanation um put your mic on oh sorry of all know with an explanation fac as I said facilities has been hit hard in the last few years our kids are going to be in deplorable condition for the next four years and Mr Garcia is an employee who may be reluctant to fck what his boss may want is Robert trer yes Mr Andre
247Woodson no going back to Christine MD Paris yes with explanation that this is a that's it 6 to three mad chair pass that one passes um I just want to also add before we um let go for night um board members if you have not submitted yours a board evaluation please send that a app um there's three still missing and um one of the reasons we had the uh issue from the state today was because they saw we weren't doing our trainings so we can talk more about that but make sure you're handing in your self- evaluation or board evaluation I should say um at this point any is there a motion to adjourn Mr tror Madam chair if I may I just need to update the board where we stand on the spreadsheet you
248can do that because the board because item number one item number one on page eight was not approved by the board that $1.3 million potential savings is not there anymore so I have to add it to the $28.6 million remaining deficit now the remaining deficit as we leave this meeting remaining deficit to cover for next year is $30 million thank you madam chair point a personal privilege yes please remove me as chair of the finance committee because this board is moving in the wrong direction and it's an inevitable stake it's inevitable that the state is going to come in and take us over and do our job for us and I don't want to invest too much of my time and efforts into this anymore is there a moot there's been a motion to adjourn
249is there a second the motion made by Mr TR second by Mr benan all in favor say I I I any opposed meeting adjourns at 10:27