001all right good evening everyone hello everyone this is Mr Albert benihan thank you he goes time why is that why why you do this all right good evening everyone my name is my name is member here in Bristol school I'd like to welcome everyone tonight to come to the student um Family committee uh appreciate it so much um likes to start with agenda that's gonna be um approved other minutes for March 23 2023 I need to make motion for that Miss acacia uh Mr benihan are we gonna do attendance or I apologize thank you so much it's okay I have to do everything so fast I know people are gonna be go home first of all um I'd like to first off um thank you for my Community member Mr Kisha here we'll be here
002tonight um other committee members is on the way I had to welcome um Mr planner like always be here miss uh Russia miss Lynn and Dr Baldin and Mr um right now you are going congratulations you know so happy in Lago thank you for RT Department Mr Sam in um recording all the time I'll be here and welcome all the staff on Bridgeport I appreciate that so I'd like to have a motion to make a pro for the minute for April on March 23 2023 motion to approve thank you I'm second any correction anything um in a minute to um change Mr Kisha no no Corrections all right thank you so much um I'm trying to do something different in an ability to send an email for um have um what's her name sir Miss
003Cadence yeah triangle Community Center all right I'm gonna give you the floor to her because I know her scripture is very tight and I really send that email to to my committee um I believe you received that Miss Akisha so I'm gonna try announce she's supposed to be number five on agenda but I'm trying to put in the second so uh we have a motion for that we approve there Mr Keisha yes we definitely approve that thank you so much I appreciate that your floor is yours thank you so much for being here it's so important for me to you be here this is one of the um situation in I can't say something that we have to talk and we need to bring this to the community especially in the schools because I know
004we have a lot of students they are very afraid to talk to where they go who to speak where to speak because there can be uh harassment there can be bullying stuff like that and of course I won't accept that at all um I have family day part of the LGBT may not trust me that's supporting a hundred 150 there are humans and they know they're not perfect I got regular people but I really appreciate that thank you miss Lynn to bring that in you're one of your presentation I really appreciate that and that's what I thought we had to bring it and I hope we keep going and be talking about this this is not going to be the first or the last time we're going to talk about this so sorry to talk
005too much before yours no worries thank you all so much for having me and Lynn thanks you for for making this connection as well um so for folks who don't know me my name is Cadence um and I am the community educator at triangle Community Center we are an lgbtq plus focused non-profit Community Center um we're based physically in Norwalk but we do work all over Fairfield County um and we do lots and lots of things again I'm in charge of our educational work so I really I travel all around and provide opportunities for folks to learn about what it means to be lgbtq plus and how we can create safe and inclusive and affirming spaces we also do you know all sorts of programs and events for young people for families for adults for
006anyone and everyone and then we also do offer counseling services and Case Management Services as well all of those things again are for young people or for adults and they're all free it's incredibly important that folks are aware that we're a resource here in this community so today in particular I wanted to talk about the fact that around the end of 2021 we received a grant an ARP Grant specifically for Bridgeport in order to be able to provide educational opportunities to Bridgeport youth as well as anyone who supports and works with Bridgeport youth that includes School faculty and staff that includes anyone working in any sort of Youth serving organization or agency as well as our families and parents and caregivers the grant that we received literally covers everyone and is meant to be an
007opportunity for folks to be able to come into a space where they can learn what it means to be lgbtq plus and how again we can be creating those safe and inclusive and affirming spaces because as as I think we're all aware right we know that our lgbtq plus young people are dealing with some hard and heavy things there are high rates of you know issues with mental health with substance misuse with suicidality because they're not getting what they need and and having the trainings offered is meant to be a space for folks to really learn about what it means to be supportive and how we can put in the work to to get there in a way that acknowledging the hard work that everyone is already doing as well that's always very much a
008goal of what I am trying to do is I don't want to come in and tell everyone they're doing everything wrong because that's certainly just never the case but I think people absolutely deserve to have more support and all of that and that's really the goal with being able to offer these these trainings thank you thank you I have a question can you please tell for um and let me know everyone what does it mean lgbtq plus training for everybody to ask them some people say why so many work so many letters yeah now they add more so people can understand right it's confusing right and then we see started and oh my gosh you know what's going on um so yeah in general we see lgbtq plus used as the acronym um where it
009truly just fundamentally stands for anyone who experiences you know marginalization or a scene is by Society is not the norm when it comes to their sexuality and or their gender identity um and again we know especially with our young people that's a that's a growing population of more and more people being able to put language to the experiences that they're having as well so yeah to be lgbtq plus means to be any person who again is not seen as the norm by our culture when it comes to their experiences of sexuality and gender so can you let us know what it mean I know L is for lesbian okay yeah I can break it down for sure B is for bisexual T is for transgender and then sometimes we see the queue as well that
010generally stands for queer or questioning and then sometimes we see the plus also and the plus is meant to Encompass anyone who doesn't fall within one of those letters so potentially non-binary folks um pansexual folks right there's a lot a lot of terms especially with the young people right they're using a lot of terms that's another goal as well is to oftentimes I think us as adults we probably feel here and the kids are up here so that's another reason like this is important to talk about as well is they're they're so far ahead of us in so many ways our young people yeah yesterday somebody told me we're gonna put the alphabet we're going to put the a to the Z you never know we have something happened at it you know yeah absolutely
011yeah thank you thank you um I'm gonna go with my committee any question any comments yeah just a quick comment you know I just love the triangle Community Center um I remember years back when they used to do open mics when I was a comedian I used to come in and you know I performed a couple of times at your open mics and you know the one thing that I want to say is you know this organization is inclusive of everybody you know like even if you are not um curious about your sexuality you know they still welcome you and I just love the work that they're doing uh with the young kids I do have a question though um what is the meaning of metrosexual oh boy that's a good one that was one
012we were a lot I find when I was a little bit younger um in like the mid-2000s and early 2000s like that was a a popular one it kind of means someone often it was referring to a man right it would be a man who was kind of just very clean cut you know cared about fashion and style but wasn't necessarily gay or you know gender non-conforming um that one I hear that one less often but it generally was someone a man referred to as a man who was like just felt very clean cut and cared about like fashion and clothes and hygiene it wasn't necessarily gay um but for a while people felt like they had to have a term for that I think and now we're much more accepting of like people don't
013have to you know do or care about that's awesome thank you that's that's uh the only comment that I had Mr Bennigan thanks thank you um you have any comments questions this is Lynn uh the only thing that I'll add is I've had an opportunity need to work with cadence over the last year I've seen her present to staff at basic she presented to our security guards here in Bridgeport and also school counselors and as you can probably tell just from this brief presentation Cadence has a very nice way of sharing material and she really creates an open space for conversation so I you know I really promote her at the schools for parents students and staff thank you Miss Russia no I'll just Echo what Lynn said she did a training for our school
014counselors at the beginning of the school year and the and it was requested by the counseling department to learn more and um the um the responses from the training it was very informative they felt that they learned a lot from her training um and so again I definitely endorse her work in in Bridgeport Public Schools and appreciate her willingness to be always available to us and and support our our staff and students and families beautiful beautiful well I think this is a great topic because we have a large influx of homeless youth that are lgbtqs so we need more of this kind of thing and more people speaking exactly yeah yeah back to building yeah a wonderful work and certainly worked at the district supports across all our stakeholders it's important that we um raise
015the learning and understanding of the adults in our community our employees and so we're working with our leadership team in the next couple of weeks from more of a legal perspective with a hope that um in short order we could move more towards some of this effective domain work and get people to better understand so we're excited for the uh the work that's underway there and how to partner with them further to advance our needs thank you for the record I want to um let them know everyone we are to surrender them is here with us tonight very appreciate it like always and do you have any comments any question you keep calling me Miss Akisha so I I don't know I'm sorry I apologize Miss Perry let's put it as well Miss Perry I
016apologize for that I'm just teasing you Mr banan I'm just teasing you um no I just want to say thank you um for sharing that information um just as Miss I mean Dr Baldwin said earlier you know the work um around this is extremely important as we try to broaden the minds of the staff members who are not necessarily always accustomed to hearing these different things and how do we build a culture around acceptance as a district is extremely important so thank you for sharing thank God we appreciate this is something that I like I said Thank you miss Lynn when you bring it when you do your presentation um last month that I want to Hope I could we could keep doing it with opening of course for the protocol and policy with the
017board members it was pairing so we can keep going open this conversation because we need it really we need it I'm by myself I had some parents for me in the weekend in the middle of the night something's wrong uh uh he's harassment his bullying he don't feel good he want to kill himself it's a lot of things that I have to sometimes I can tell you two weeks ago I jumped on my bed 2 30 in the morning because the parent told me that um the dad throwing away the sun because he found out he's gay so the mom called me I had to get up and stand up and everything trying to find the sun you know I'll find it and everything you know and I do it because I love it I
018enjoy it that's my job now because I'm a board member I have to sit down and work about policy and protocol it's about everything for me everything for me it's for help parents especially situation like that break my heart because I know sometimes parents they don't open his mind they don't understand you know and then after the consequence something bad happened they say why and why why sometimes I see movies I don't know I don't remember the name of the movie right now when the mom didn't accept his son was gay and he jumped from the bridge I forgot his name is a great movie and then after that no more I understand what this mean LGBT you know and it's a very nice movie I forgot his the name right now but it's a
019great message the parents had to open your mind win 2023 we know the old-fashioned you know that you cannot say that word or think about it because you're gonna be the worst thing and you know you'll be the worst thing in your life you know but now in 2023 and we need to keep going that whole without the permission like I said with everyone to try to bring you this information I went to school so all the students we have if you don't have the support with the family outside at least they know resource people have supported we have something where to go who to call I'm telling you my number is going to be 24 7. I don't care who where they come from my language what color they need me I'll be there
020you know that's what I'm hearing for you know that's what I'm a electrician you know because I like to want to be a title no I don't care about the title I care what my parents want and what my students need so I want to open for the all the staff on Bridgeport School do you have any comment any question about the situation this um item by LGBT any staff I didn't say Yes um Mercy Julian blackham do you have any literature that you could send us to the schools to start that way yeah absolutely I have lots of resource materials again resource materials come with every single training but I am absolutely happy to share those things outside of the trainings as well absolutely I can I can share some resources and do you
021offer certain trainings in there or yeah yeah so in general what we start with is the training we call the lgbtq plus 101 um and generally that is really just all of the foundational things you know it's defining terms and language like you know defining lgbtq plus um it's really going into a dive of you know what are we talking about we're talking about gender and gender expression um and all of those different things and so that's the foundational training but we also can do further training um I do training specifically around mental health um specifically around like substance misuse and dealing with addiction um again there are slight differences even in the 101 training right obviously the one that I lead for young people looks a little bit different than the one I lead
022for professionals I actually just today was um at aquaculture and leading a training for the school health nurses so that one included a little bit more medical information so I'm always I never want to come in and throw information at people I always want to come in and provide what is actually helpful and applicable to their work so um the foundational training you know stays a little bit the same but there is always possibility to do deeper Dives and more training after that foundational one as well forward to everyone the link I would appreciate that so that's all your report um Erica from Cesar Battalion School does the literature come in Spanish that is a resource we unfortunately do not have yet we of course we don't have any Spanish-speaking staff at the moment I
023do have additional Spanish language resource links saved so I can share that information um I'm forgetting the name of the website but there's a great website that's intended for Spanish-speaking families that's about supporting lgbtq plus young people so not directly from TCC but I do have Spanish language resources that I can share so with the resources that you have and the training that you provide how do you meet the needs of the Spanish population yeah I mean it's something we're working on um I unfortunately do not speak Spanish because our school most of the we have a very large Spanish population absolutely yeah it's something it's a need that we recognize and we're working on filling unfortunately and it's just not filled just yet okay thank you absolutely yeah that's a great question I was
024ready to say that but she said it uh first and thank you for bringing that question I don't know uh Miss Perrin it's possible if anything they say we can translate something she sent any link um bilingual department they can translate for the population you know for the Spanish people yeah we can translate certain things it depends on what what the extent of the literature will look like but yes we can send it out to translate it wouldn't be done directly in our department but we do have the capability of getting it translated all right that's great so you hear that anything you want to send it to Ms Lynn and men and then for them we can see how to translate you know it's very important that um everyone understands and only in Spanish
025it can be great they can be Chinese they can be Portuguese they're going to bring Brazil the thing is that everyone understand you know what we you know where to go what you know you need help we're here for them so I really appreciate that your time you know that's everything you report good yeah absolutely I I really really appreciate getting the chance to talk to everyone and seeing the enthusiasm warms my heart so thank you all no thank you I really appreciate that that was very important and I hope we can see you all next time and we cannot keep going you know we're gonna bring this information out absolutely thank you all so much I really appreciate it thank you so much all right next we have an uh agenda we're gonna announce
026and number two it's gonna be packed officers we got um I just want to uh see the Harding High School this year where the principal and the pack president so we have it Mr planner not partying I don't think I see her in there audience person's not here no okay let's see if we can bring it to the next one okay we have our Madison School I know we got Miss Cabrera and do you have Miss Rodriguez with you miss Cabrera just in case um Lisa Rodriguez the pack president Hi um I'm not sure but I did meet with my um pack executive board today and they were trying to join some of them had prior commitments um for extracurricular with their children but I did see a few um members join I did see
027Miss Spencer join and I did see um who was our Pac vice president and I believe I saw Miss Chim who's our Pac secretary join I'm not sure if there's other members on no that's great if you hit backwards in the lock always says back pressing cannot count device or the secretary or member large they they you know they part of the package is good to bring information so you got the floor miscarried at first hi good evening everyone um I we decided when we met today that I would kind of talk through our major points and then um the parents would have an opportunity if they'd like to to expound on anything that we discussed but we did agree on all the talking points um I just wanted to talk about um how we
028started in the beginning of the year myself and the pack president um met and we worked collaborating collaboratively to create our action plan and to develop our pack schedule which we do alternating morning and then evening meeting monthly so that we can try to access all of our parents schedules um and then we discussed Pac elections in September we focused on making sure that all of our parents were able to access parent Square which many of them weren't due to a language barrier and so we ended up utilizing our ESL staff to work even one-on-one with the parents while they were in our pack meeting so we got a lot more sign ups because they had individualized support to do that um in November we had an exciting turkey Bingo it was well attended by
029families it was a fun event and we had many items that were donated as prizes decemi December focused on um parents working with their children um during the morning to create various holiday ornaments and and that was um access a successful event with the parents and the students we had a great presentation in January from Lynn Stevens who presented on SEL for the district in school and that was also well attended we had many parents including those who speak other languages like Spanish and Portuguese and the major topics that we discussed or move this world Lynn had resources and flyers that were distributed she also showed a SEL slideshow of SEL day for 2022 so parents got the opportunity to see many of the SEL activities that were taking place around the district um this
030past just in April we had an anti-bullying presentation by um an outside um a provider and the presenter focused on talking about ways to advocate for children if parent if parents feel like their child is being bullied um she discussed efforts of bullying and signs to look for in a child and discuss proper channels to explore if a parent has a concern such as going to the teacher and the administrator we have two more meetings scheduled May 11th we're going to be focusing on hopefully a math Workshop game night and also in May we're going to do a Mother's Day plant sale and pack is going to assist with volunteering to assist with selling an organization of the seal and then in June 8th we're going to present a CPR workshop for the parents and
031that was just confirmed recently um next sorry Miss Korea you say May 11 what is the workshop um it's going to be it's going to be a we're going to do a math night oh math okay great um the connection for next year we're going to work on um making sure our notices go out in multiple formats and with plenty of advanced notice we're going to work together on reliable services for translating for Port our Portuguese our Portuguese Portuguese speaking parents we do have um Spanish covered but we do need to work on Portuguese more um some parents requested a little bit more support for students with special needs for help at home like what parents can do in strategies so I'm going to talk to our special education teachers about that um we're going
032to be inviting um staff to try to attend sometimes in the morning and we always have the goal of including more parents and families we want to offer a better understanding of Community Resources that parents will do have access to and um the parents on the pack would like to volunteer more and become readers in the classroom so we're going to work on those things going into next year great thank you you're welcome so I'd like to give the floor to the pack um for medicine school can you please um um say what you think about what working women's cabareta how's everything going the pack with your pack officers in Madison School can you hear me yes okay so basically this is I've been our first year or my first time I've ever done this
033before are you introduce yourself first can you introduce yourself and my son is Aiden and he's in second grade at Madison and it's my first year where we've joined this um it's been challenging because we didn't have everything like the other pack officers would have had already because of covid so we are all learning this year and excited to implement everything properly and we've tried very much to be an understanding here so hopefully next year we'll have a lot more exciting stuff and like she said maybe we're gonna in advance I think is very important people have busy lives to keep informing them well in advance for different things that we're doing um and I think it's very important to also listen to the parents is what I feel we need to do even more
034to understand what their needs are too so we can have fun meetings and also a lot of learning meetings and vice versa but I think it's very important um for a lot of parents to be involved with their children even if they don't speak the language I think once they're there there's a lot of people around that help for them to understand so to just invite them to please come is very important what is your tie doing in the pack I'm the vice president okay good but um it's true Everything is Awesome to make sure they try to promote it to have more parents be involved because that's the only way a lot of things can get done you need a lot of hand it takes a village you know to really get children going
035and doing things and understanding stuff just from the one meeting where we learned about bullying I wasn't just about bullying I learned so much that one day um a lot of stuff is important Yeah by bullying we're still learning every day is something new something we have to be ready prepare for anything's coming because you never know when you saw the word bullying doesn't mean you you know you have to be ready you know what's coming correct correct yeah but it's good I mean when you said um communication and translating people remember it means covered I know that so we have a bilingual Department no child no parents will be get up on the school with you know we know translate you know it's very important for me you know Miss Cabrera know that I
036don't have the person talk that language what you had to do is call bilingual department and they were helping you know translate or something like that we always we always have uncertified people they they will receive you know the service for the parents but I'm very glad you'll be part of the pan you know I know you and the pack are doing amazing job obvious for women Lisa Rodriguez you know she's a big president she's very positive she always enjoy she's from school for the parents you know she'll be on board and everything but I'm really glad the pack is working very well right now but I have a question for you how are you working with this cover letter how's everything communication with her well I don't really do much of the communication Liza
037does and as far as we are everything that we've been trying to do I mean we've coordinated and we haven't gotten to know from anything so I guess I'm gonna say it's been good you know work together you know um it's very good to have a great communication because I know everything is doing it whatever we're doing is for the kids and for the parents to be sure because we are the sample if we don't show them they have a communication working together team so the parenting student will say well something wrong so they don't communicate how we're gonna communicate with them so it's very important I really appreciate that um I did see on I believe that Miss Chim joined um but I'm not sure if she's still on yes yeah I'm here hi
038can you introduce yourself and what is your title and you give me a little information how are you working when you pack and when your principal yes hi um my name is Ken I'm the secretary for the pack it's been an honor since this is my first time being the secretary um I at first I didn't know what pack was really I didn't know what pack was about but then I was like let me just see how it is I want to get involved with my son in school and to help you know the school out and stuff since there's a lot of um what is it diversity you know in this the school so I was like let me just try to do this and see since you know I like to see how
039the kids are doing getting involved as a parent and see you know how the kids are doing and stuff so I did got involved with the packet Madison and so far I love it I mean seeing all the parents you know as a stay-at-home mom you want to get involved to see how the you know what they're doing how their school is running I never know how the Bridgeport School System runs and stuff like that since I got involved I had many resources I had um different person like talking about anti-bullying stuff that that I didn't know or where to go if there was a child in need of bully and then I met with Benny ham back then and he also had like really good resources of all the kids and stuff so that
040was new um and working with the pack president Liza Angela um the pack officer you know I met new people so it's a good turnout that's good great I'm very happy you enjoyed our point is the first time this is not something that you need um to get nervous or nothing like that you have a thousand questions a thousand questions I will answer you a thousand under 1050 question because that's me that's what we're here for and that's you know that's what we're here for to help you know anything you want to know is Liza Canal uh your principal Miss Cabrera I'm always going to be here you know it's something you know don't be afraid to ask questions and you know we got a policy and you're very glad you'll be part of the
041pack of Madison School that's what we have and you know thank you I really appreciate that and how you feel working with this camera um yeah it's been a good turnout so far um she you know she Liza needed something she Liza would email her and she'll get like answers and stuff I I don't really communicate with the principle Liza does all the talking and stuff so when I realized asked for a meeting we'll go and join communication a lot so whatever she asks I try to respond quickly and um I know that she relays the information and that they I believe the pack officer has even Speed come coming up to each meeting to make sure that they have what they need or if they have any questions prior to the meeting lies is
042always emailing me to make to just confirm things so that's good yeah no it's true I know like that communicate with you but you'll have to understand um the vice president secretary you have any question or any concerns you can email miss cabareta you know not only likes that you know oh just for your pack officer you're very free to ask questions too okay okay Miss gabrina I have a question for you the pack I know the pack they don't have a room it's not possible the pack have a little room or something like that because I know when they meet you know they different go different classrooms something like that because I know something they want to order stuff you know and they like to have a place I believe years back when your
043homeschoolkinator I forgot her name amazing person I believe she's a paraprofessional now she have a little small a small room yeah you know we don't have a separate room because everything's being utilized but anytime that they need a space I always find them in an empty office or a space that they can meet so they they do have room whenever they need it um they're they're more than welcome I'm I facilitate that to find them space to me but they don't have a room that let's see if they're gonna order stuff papers whatever they order they don't have nothing to do they can have and put it oh yeah we can store it we store it for them we we store it in a secure area so that they they can have access to it
044and Liza sometimes takes what she needs from from that but yeah we don't just like all right thank you yes um we did uh we did we clicked we just went into school the other day and we cleared out a whole big um closet cabinet we have to get a walk for it has all of our stuff in there we went into another room and there's a top cabinet now that they give us all the space to put in there so we got here in space yeah we can make we can definitely make something you have to teach your Lounge across from the nurse I believe yep yes yeah yep yep you got it yep yeah that's great thank you do you have any something else to um to say Madison School um no no
045thank you thank you all right thanks so much I appreciate that Miss cabrilla and vice president secretary thank you you know always Mr Bennett has going to be here any questions 24 7. I'm always going to be here to ask a question but before I go I want to open the floor to Mr Kisha you have any question any comments for Madison School uh just one comment I just want to say thank you so much for you know your um your help and uh your volunteerism and just being involved with your children's school um one thing that I wanted to say very quickly is that when I'm working with parents who um have a second language and they're not very like they can't read well in English I'll say to them when you're reading to
046your kids just look at the pictures and talk to your kids about what's happening in the pictures and we all know the the who what where and why questions those are the ones that jog more than a yes or no response so just open-ended questions and you know talking to them about what's happening in the pictures and then asking them questions about what's happening in the pictures um otherwise you know you guys nailed it I love it thank you thank you that's great I don't know if you if it's possible can you try and work with your what your pack and try to do a survey instead send it out to the parents I would like to hear how the parents feel what tag or what Cameron would like to you know um see in
047the school or Workshop it would be nice if you you know if you can do that yeah I'll work with um with Liza and the executive board to draft some questions and send it out sure all right so you're very welcome to stay if you're not you know thank you so much I really appreciate your value timing like Mr Kisha said you know it's very important for me that you take your free volume time when you can be doing something else or you can be with your family and you dedicate for the parents and for the school yeah I really appreciate that thank you so much thank you thank you my next one is the bathroom School what we have here on tonight for black and school thank you for being here hi thank you
048for having us it's um Mercy Julian the principal and I'm also here with um Miss Novotny who is the head of our parent leadership liaison committee um our pack president was unable to join us but we did you know touch base with her and or liaison committee will report out too um can you give me a second can you sorry to enjoy if you give me a second for the record I would like to welcome Mr Traver one of the board members thank you Mr Travis to be here appreciate that thank you my old school how are you doing good good all right the floor is yours okay so similar to um how Madison School operates you know we meet in the beginning of the year we plan the whole year out and we are
049unique we have apparently liaison committee which is representative of myself teachers a bilingual um ESL teacher a parent support an assistant to the bilingual Department as well and we coordinate with the pack group so we we have a bigger um kind of internal pack liaison group so we you know Mr botany is the head of that we are in a kind of a rebuilding year we lost our secretary to um a magnet school so she's she left us about a month ago her daughter is over there now and our vice president has been open um we are holding elections as we speak um we're gonna firm that up on May 17th during our art show so if you're around May 17th we're having a school-wide art show May 17th okay good I believe it starts
050at 5 30 Mr Money I'm oh I could get the information down it is 5 30. 5 30. yes um we usually so we usually piggyback right off the lighthouse so we get the most parents to join us um so with that being said this is um we're very excited our so October I won't go through everything but I'm going to highlight some things October we had a safety March which is our children March our young children March to the school and receive um fire police we have our parents there with us that same week we had our um first annual Halloween Trunk or Treat which we basically called for about five we had 500 families we ran out of candy it was a big success it was great um Mr botany could share we
051had faith we had all different kinds of activities they could do along with trunking treat and you know through um it was very organized it was out in the parking lot um it was Pre-K to four because as you know we have a 1100 students so we had to put a little bit of a cap on it um November we did something really unique Miss Novotny do you want to explain how that worked we had um a food drive along with our family turkey decorating contest yes we had our um we sent home a turkey template to every family and they had to decorate it together and write a little something and it could be in any language of course because we are fortunate at blockham to have um uh teachers that speak uh both
052Spanish and Portuguese so we're able to translate and the winners of the contest would get a turkey we were so fortunate because we had parent volunteers and we had um our Andrea who unfortunately cannot be here she was able to secure uh turkeys and we were able to give out about 42 turkeys uh to families uh I I think what I what I wanted to talk about if that's okay Miss um it as Miss Julian is the read aloud that we had and that was in and I and I do request that all of you go onto our website and the parent section because you'll see pictures of all the activities but also there's links monthly links for parents for resources in many languages if they need them but we had a parent read aloud
053where parents there were parents from each homeroom could come in and read to their children and we also had books in Spanish and English and that was very successful and I kudos to our parents for coming and volunteering and filling all those bags of goodies that were given out during that event go ahead Miss Julian I'm just actually typing in the chat just so you know our link we did put in the chat um and I sure shared it with Arlene I'm not sure if you guys could see it but feel free to see all our activities all our pictures we also and um also the links but it's all right in the chat if you just click on it also um this year in last year what we did start when we were home
054for covid we wanted peer volunteers we started a kahoot night I'm not sure how many are familiar with kahoot but we have uh we break it down for our younger kids for their session it's an hour Kahu is a trivia question and the kids and their parents do it online with us and it's really great and then the three top winners for elementary received prizes and we you know that will be shown there and the three top um winners for uh middle school so that's here down there it's a lot of fun all different types we usually focus on a subject area our last one was math um our kahoot math which was great um we also with Mr Martini's help I'm going to show you we did um uh with pack we did our
055family cookbook a collection of family cookbooks um they're available anyone who donated a recipe received it free um it is on the line so people that did not receive the hard copy you could see that also during the link and it's all different cultures and fun things kids wrote it as well um and Andrea in our pack group worked with our parent liaison committee and we did them right at school cost us nothing actually except the Xerox paper was perfect um so that we did that was a big success we also as Miss Levante said the parent read aloud that was fantastic along with the read aloud we um our parents we we get an influx of donations of books gently used and new so we constantly have a book drive where the kids will
056come get the books and the parents will come also bag them and deliver them to the classrooms and each kid gets a little gift bag at the holidays or something in their new books with sometimes coloring pencils when this year we also did a social emotional learning bag the parents organized and delivered to the kids um so that was a a lot of a lot of success there um like I said pack elections are up on our website we are holding them we hope to you know parents Square it out and have the election some sort of way on March 17th at our art show we pushed it back a little because a few of our members had situations where they couldn't they had coveted and uh you know unfortunately we had to you know
057push things back um but we're very excited to have a new pack going forward for this school year you know the 23-24 all secure and set so we have that in place with Andrea as our pack president um so like I said the art show will be also um we'll have Refreshments the 17th and we'll have activities for the kids to do with their parents after they visit all their students artworks that will be represented through the floors we do have three art teachers that are arranging this working with our parent leadership liaison in our pack group um I think that's kind of it right now I'm a little laryngitis feeling and we also have at the end of the year a kahoot another kahoot game and their classrooms with the parents volunteering um the
058parent group of volunteer but they're going to actually do that during the day so the kids could all participate and then we're going to have a parent night appearance come in the next day and volunteer and give ice cream to the winners so we have that going on we try to you know like Miss I think Miss Cabrera said we try to you know work it so parents that can't get to us are engaged different ways you know I I'm a a parent as well and I always feel guilty I can't volunteer myself at my son's school but I'm definitely engaged here whatever I could do um from this seat I could you know do whatever I could do things at home build things you know make copies whatever I could do so we try
059to introduce that to our own parents because a lot of our parents can't get there and we don't want them to miss out or feel that they're not doing their part because they can't come into the building so we do a lot of enrichment in um you know engagements through the social you know through the platform we use here Mr botany did I miss anything oh also about our parents where if you want to talk about that how we utilize that with the yeah um I'd also like to say that with this year we did also open up a parent room in the parent room we have a section that has different pamphlets about different things that parents might be interested in um there's a computer there's a printer um a small table for our
060president to hold meetings at if she'd like um it's off the library so it's convenient and it's also near the office we have that um I would just like to say that um we have a lot of parent volunteers that have come in we like Marcy had said we have we give out bags and different things for children to take home to um to use with their parents so for SEL day they brought home a puppet and they brought home some books and different things but as you can imagine that requires a lot of work putting those bags together and we have parents that come in regularly to help us stuff those bags pass those things out and um without that it would just be impossible we also have grandparents that come in in the
061morning and help with the um the parking situation anybody that's been at blockham knows what that's like in the morning and um they're out there helping out and I you know I've been at the school 27 years and I could tell you without the parent volunteers I just don't know how we would do it thank you um thank you so much for the record I want to I said that one of the one of the committee members Mr Joe succulus enjoyed with us thank you for being here tonight Mr jump um I have a question everything other reports are you give it to me uh Miss Martin and is it great and I like it but it looked like a I just want to hear more what kind of workshops you are doing that your
062pack right now you don't have nobody from the pack right now from your school with practicing advice and secretary they are online right now like I stated are they they left our school the secretary went to high Horizons magnet school so her daughter left so she stepped down from that secretary position about a month ago and vice president is open right now and Andrea could not be here okay um thank you but um I just want to hear more what kind of workshops are doing for parents because everything you were telling me got here and it's like out for the for the student amazing love it but what kind of workshops are doing for parents you know what your pack are you doing um with the with parents okay so what we've done do you
063want me to answer sure oh okay I'm gonna put myself on you my I'm babysitting the dog so one second um some of the things that have been done um at the beginning of the year we did do the uh how to go online for children so PowerSchool how to use PowerSchool and how to use um parent Square we set up tables and for parents to come in and we have helped them with that we've also set up times during the morning and yeah so from 8 30 to 9 and then from um I believe I think it's 2 30 to 3 where parents could come in and we have volunteers and members that help them uh register go uh to Southwest and help them register there help with anything they might need so it's
064we did a lot with the technology because that's why we were really having a lot of trouble with uh our parents they didn't go on to parent Square they didn't know how to use PowerSchool and so we've been doing that does that answer that sorry exactly what are you the same yeah exactly you're doing that let's say on online they're doing a workshop of parent Square and how to do it and how to go on it because it's very difficult for for our appearance especially if they don't speak the let we have about 400 over 400 ESL students at blockham this year and which is a huge uh number so it has taken us it's been a priority to get our parents um online and knowing how to use the tools that we have at
065blockham so we've really focused on that and then we also since our parents could not come in many times many of the bags and things that go home have resources for the parents so although the children are bringing those bags home those bags are meant for parents and children and also when you go online to our website you'll notice that we'll have the event it'll say the month the event and then there's always a link for every month for parent resources so there's always an educational component for the parents so in other words you don't have too much time to come to this food and you know they don't do workshops in the school for parents well we do we do some workshops but we haven't really done as many as we have in the
066past we will do one every other month as you know but this because of covid and everything else we've had to do a soft opening this year and hopefully once we get a full pack again once we have like a a president a vice president and a secretary that's able to run that as well and that's our hope that we encourage parents to come in and do that next year we can do more of the night pack events that we used to do but Mercy said you have a president right now but she's not here tonight but you have one in blackham right right yes one president correct so right now you're on your position is open for secretary and vice president correct they they send Flyers outside you know for the parent you know
067when they do let's say they still do some workshop for the parent you know Special Elementary School I have more experienced parents come out the high school so they send Flyers out uh for the parents to send Flyers maybe Saints flyer you know let them know the parents let's see how you have a workshop in the school you know that's that's my question of course we send Flyers out absolutely yes yeah and also that goes out through parent square and it's also on the website website all right um we're gonna open the fourth floor for a question Mr kitchen you have any questions comments no questions and or comments just want to say thank you very much you're welcome thank you thank you Mr Joe do you have any questions coming no no no questions
068well comments I got the standard speech I always deliver these things um yeah me Mr bennahan and we go back a while in this um students and families and this checklist so we're looking at all the money make sure the money's spent we do realize that we only have one employee and as the superintendent at school so when you hear the superintendent come come around checking up on all these things that's because we as a board have put emphasis on it and as you know in the past if you've been watching any of the meetings past couple of years back we had some schools that were spending zero we know that's not the case with most of the schools and most of the people but that's why we stay on top of the money because
069if the money's not spent that's a definite indicator that Steph isn't trying to engage parents because any parent many parents will come out just just for them Just For Freedom will come out I just I just came from parent conferences myself excuse my tardiness um but yeah so so it's basically us trying to engage parents because we should see parents as partners with the administrations because as you mentioned I heard you mentioned um they help with the parking situation and all that and that makes your life easier if principles are parents would work together and I see each other in some some schools that may be seen as an adversarial extra set of eyes on the principles but that shouldn't be the case it should be a true partnership where you could utilize your parents
070to ease the burden on staff and doing all these extra stuff and the true partnership is the aim and goal because as we all know that an Engaged parent has a successful student has a Borah successful student so I'll stand to the speech should we go to bathroom yeah thank you Mr Trevor you have any comment question for your but I have an observation which is having been involved with these teachers uh and administrators and the parents at blackham for 23 years um Miss Divani herself as a parent and an educator and bilingual um and has been helping out for decades um keeping everything running smoothly so I really do admire and appreciate the work they do there and I know that it must be a real challenge I was just beginning to grasp today
071looking at the minutes of your previous meeting the challenge that you've been dealing with as you try and resurrect the ongoing pack after the coven um and I just hadn't thought about it until I read today's minutes and listened to miss Cabrera and uh Miss Julian and Miss Novotny talk about that so great job keep it up I know he's not easy but especially you know with something parent that gets scared because of the coffee stuff like that but I feel that um for me and my the way I'm listening to you and the way that I read it it's like I didn't even have more communication get more communication with the parents and come up because I know something online yeah some people want to do a job in the online stuff like that
072but when you're doing personal I feel they parents learn more personal to be online you can say especially when you do it when you're doing follow my second place especially when you're doing um the parent Square when you do online because I really have the screen well the parents they feel a little more difficult they don't know how to go not when you personal they see the computer and you show them how to go you know they learn a little a little more that's my opinion go ahead um perhaps I I wasn't clear um I just want to clarify that that was done in person and it was done three times after school including two times at 5 30 to about 7 30 where we had parent and teacher volunteers help parents come in and
073it was very successful and we also had parent volunteers no you can I'm sure you can appreciate how big blockham school is we had enough parent volunteers to read in pre-k through fourth grade at our school so you can imagine what that looked like we also had enough parent volunteers that came in and filled up bags for our children in our schools pre-k through eighth grade I hope you go through the website and you see the pictures of our parents and how truly wonderful they are because we feel very fortunate knowing especially how difficult it is for many of our parents that it spent of course now like I said our numbers are over 400. um ESL parents Portuguese and Spanish-speaking parents that are working a ridiculous amount of hours to be able to keep
074food on the table and a home and they're coming in to learn how to use that technology and I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of our black um School parents for coming in and volunteering whenever they find time and learning this new technology Beyond learning the language so thank you everybody for listening to us thank you for your report and my apologize I thought you said you're going to do in the apartment Square online so that I I told you I understand that but I'm very glad they come to school and trust me some very probable block I'm school and I very proud for all before school that's over me here because I want parents understand and help them and educate them because they if we don't help them education who's
075going to do it so I don't want my parents to stay in the limbo so I want the parent to understand that bristles who are we give our time free time and I really appreciate that all your your teachers oh sorry your parents go do you know give free time to read on the students that's amazing you know and I'm very glad please let them tell them from me thank you you know but like I say it's good that we're having doing workshop for the parents the same way they come to Rita those two students it was so nice to do any work on a workshop and trust me I'll always be here you know how to find me anything I can help you do anything workshops anything to find a sponsor anything you're needing
076useful just call me out and send me an email you know and I will help you you know that's that's one of the reason I'm here you know but I really appreciate everything you do in the school I'm very proud for that thank you thank you um with a plan if you have any questions miss Lynn no I would just say thank you very much for all of the hard work that you're doing to engage the pack and I I had a chance to look at your website it's beautiful yeah is Russia I know what they're doing you know what is update enough um sounds great I'm all set thank you okay thank you um and please stop by to our art show if you're around that day May 17th yeah trust me they'll be
077there okay good thank you I'll be there and I will let them know though the board members now miss Perry you don't have any questions in the comments for um Blackmon School no I see in before we leave on seeing your parents um budget um used uh left 937 that's the last update right um I haven't you should have the last one yes yeah so no I see you you know you got um your budget is 1089 you guys spend 9250 160 so you left 937. you know some you know next time be sure you're good negative but I mean like at least you're spend almost the money that's the more important thing you know at least you use it that's that's the only thing I I just want to let you know thank you
078okay I appreciate it all right thank you so much I appreciate your time and everything you do of course uh the next one we have are says yeah thank you for being here and I see you with your president um I'm with my pack president miss Baxter and I've also got Miss Labrador who's my uh vice president um hopefully online are you out there Erica I am all right beautiful um what I what I'd like to do is have the two of them kind of go over and just provide an overview of the activities students that participated Etc and then I'll kind of fill in the in the gaps is that okay yes Erica you want to lead us off so my name is Erica Labrador I am the pack by vice president and he's
079the stupid entire School my son is in first grade his name is Aiden and um I want to start off by saying I'll just go right through it so if you have any questions you can stop me in between we have reached out to our parents we meet with our pack we are a staff of 13. um I mean when Miss Baxter we talk every day on the hour in between launch to try to engage our parents and I think from to till current we've had an abundance of support with our parents 300 plus um to the point where our custodial staff our security staff they're like we have a a budget you guys have to cut the the parent involvement because we're at our maximum for capacity so I say with our parents I
080am our school is blessed to have an abundance of support I know Mr planas I've seen him sitting there um he came to our our one of our last events which was our winter formal and I'll get into that a little later but it was a pleasure to see him there um I haven't seen Mr benningham there but I I look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events in November we started off with a Thanksgiving celebration we uh the celebration focused on providing a stress-free family bonding time students and family members shared stories they read books about giving thanks and the celebrating season uh the SL uh SEO was also focused of the event we try to Although our school was our outcome is predominantly Spanish I speak Spanish so I was able to
081meet the needs of the parents answer questions and we were very grateful Cesar Pattaya this year um we were given over a hundred turkeys to provide to our family from the Maryland Goldstone foundation and um we were able to provide a food basket for those families in need we put a flyer out there we had them come to us meet with us and let us know that they were in need for that holiday season and we took care of them to ensure that their holiday season was a blessed and thankful one for December we did a dinner with Santa that was an amazing outpour family celebrated this season everyone knows Caesar bataya is known for providing not only a fun-filled factual event we provide good food so the family celebrated the season with food they
082wrote letters to Cena with their moms dads grandmas grandpas whoever they came out with they were able to take a picture and we provided that environment so that way when they go to the Trumbull Mall or the Milford mall and they see that photo with Santa they got that opportunity for free with their families they received a gift a token of our appreciation at Caesar Battalion school and We've Ended 2022 with families and I can't tell you how impressed and happy they were um in January welcome back 2023 we did a winter formal dance the focus of that event was uh SEL and we met the needs of the students and families before we opened that dance we did an informational session and it was geared for our uh byc students grades five through eight
083and we had like an icebreaker and with that Icebreaker I can't tell you how many questions came from parents from um shelter to their kids wanting to to know more about college to I mean the information was in abundance and I think the moms and dads that came out that night who had questions in regards to like Alliance and Bridge life and we were able to provide that information to them and then an hour into that function we opened it up Mom and uh mom and son dance father daughter dance or whether it was Uncle or grandpa or Auntie however it was they were able to engage the smiles on their faces both Children and Families was enormous and then in um January we did a pack the pack members and students and their families
084we celebrated appreciation for our teachers and staff by providing them a luncheon many students wrote letters of appreciation to their teachers as well as the parents I mean there's a lot of resources especially with our our Resource Center where we engage and we encourage our family to visit if you're in need if you need um uh music and play if you need clothing a uniform Cesar Pattaya families know that with confidence they can come into Dr Alexander's school and get the resources and the help that they need we had for March we had a Dr Seuss March Madness it was a stem night for pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and we geared it on all the Places You'll Go with words Galore it was from 5 30 to 6. that was about 300 children and and
085family members came out to that event and the objective of that was for students of all ages will engage in Fawn Hands-On Minds on learning reading fundamentals we explored through a variety of science technology engineering art and Mathematics from the Horton eggs drop to a tongue twister challenge they didn't miss it the the outpour was enormous and for the end of our school year June 1st which we invite all of the board members Cesar Pattaya school is presenting their Multicultural fair and that is a pre-kindergarten through eighth grade events um it's we're going to bring all the cultures together students and families we're going to provide a display to honor and highlight one's culture but providing and sharing Customs a brief stories fun facts clothing costumes food and just to talk about everyone's Heritage and
086come together and have what we call a Caesar Pattaya Barracuda day it's it's just average at our school excellent job Erica and you and you say you're the vice president I am the vice president I thought you was a principal um Miss Baxter and I are quiet we don't we don't have much to say wow wow wow very proud well you everybody if you don't know um Mr Benji Labrador he was one of security for saminia that's his daughter that's why she's coming from a Mason leader uh Miss um very proud very good amazing very true I mean we I I personally with the permission of Dr Alexander and Ms Baxter I personally like to stick my neck out if anyone knows I've been a part of the Maryland Goldstone foundation for almost 17 years
087where giving back is natural so my son is a part of the school now and giving back is still natural it it there's a lot of families out there that are in need whether it be energy assistance whether it be a housing assistance whether it be the food bank the Connecticut Food Bank and are ashamed to even ask for help now that's Cesar Batalia we've made it welcoming we've made it opening and inviting so that those families especially the inner city the inner city families the non-english speaking families who don't have the resources get the resources they need here at our school very true great great great fortunate to have her on our team so Mr President I just want to hear from you now yes I'm Tamika I've been a president for several years
088I've been doing this I was working with Maria Toro before she left the school her kids got into a different school so I was always here and you know it's been a pleasure working with Dr a as well as Erica you know we we try to meet the needs of the parent and the child here we want them to all come together in unity and and be as one family so that they're all familiar with each other so that they're not out here getting bullied as one person was saying and they're they're basically you know together and we work with the FRC as well as the lighthouse so that everybody is on the same page that's great that's great I see your budget is very guy's friend to watch it very good you left 78
089cents why you why you left 78 cents yeah we were thinking about you coming about you know schools not spending money right I'm sure we are the uh the leaders in expenditure no that's good I'm very proud you know you have a Facebook that we need for our future events also so like our pack room is filled with things that we actually need yeah to move forward that's good I'm very proud trust me that you may you guys I am interject um I need uh you to provide us with resources for our you said you were there to help so I'm going to take you up on that offer I mean I have my own reasons but I'm going to take you up on your offer and we're gonna need some resources for our Multicultural
090event so I'll be sending you a private email of the things I'm going to need and hope that you will help me get this trust me that's why he ain't that what that's that's what I'm meeting for and I will help you 100 thank you so much I appreciate that and you say it's gonna be um what is the day June 1st June 1st June 1st what time to sister okay I'll be there and I will help you send any email anything you need I will help you support you so Dr Alexander I want to hear from you how you work with your parents house of pack work with you too so before you start when you before you start uh I want to hear from the president in the vice president how you feel
091working with uh Dr Alexander I've been working with Dr Alexander even before Cesar batala because he was actually my daughter's principal when he was in a different alternative school so I was already familiar with him and we already had a rapport so we go back nine years right we just being like go back nine years yeah that's great I enjoy working with the staff as a whole I mean I enjoy extremely working with Dr Alexander he's inviting um he engages he engages in my conversation I drive him crazy I'm not gonna lie I drive him absolutely crazy yeah I heard that I heard that I heard that I heard that I can honestly say I haven't gotten to know he knows I'm a stickler and he we go tip for Tat but he's I wouldn't
092I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world he's great thank you thank you Erica that was really nice so you got the floor down that's on the Sunday uh you know I I uh you are only as good a leader is only as good as the people that they get to surround themselves with and um I am really lucky that these two ladies who have families and full-time jobs um can carve out time to prioritize and make things happen for the kids um I I don't know I can't find the right words to to to say how much how appreciative I am um some of these events I mean when Erica said there were 300 kids at the Dr Seuss they're about 375. Mr planus was there I was amazed 375 kids and their
093parents came out for that for that event and those activities you know we're a big school so obviously we have more numbers to serve but hundreds and hundreds of kids in their families have have gotten to participate in uh celebrations that you know they will remember for a lifetime and it's because of of the leadership that these two ladies have provided so um I'm lucky to have them that's good I really see that with Dr Sue and trust me that in not only your school any school I see a lot of kids a lot of parents I go emotional because I'm that's what I want I want parents to understand that I've got Bristol school is now only here to educate your child of course that's priority but they can understand we're here to help
094them to educate them you know anything they need they understand that our policy you know a door is open but I'm really um very proud and thank you Dr Alexander to work with you with your team I really appreciate that I like Miss Labrador say I know she make you go crazy but at least you got at least you got a great leader um they care they want to work with you they want to work with their parents or the students want the staff and everyone um do you have the full pack um um Tamika you have president vice president you have secretary and member large yes yes they're right here yeah we have the secretary yes she's there with you no no no I just I just I only invited the two of them
095I wasn't sure how many how deep you wanted me to go no that's fine that's fine if you have a life I can say almost a full pack that's that's fine I really appreciate that I'm gonna open the floor for my Community member Mr Kisha are you online and this is now racing no okay I'm gonna send it um you have any uh no question in the comments yeah I heard this speech before yeah so he's just standing here yeah thank you for parents for always doing what y'all do we can't do this without y'all you don't sound like you're working in cooperation so great job but please keep it up thank you my word and upward yeah thank you thank you Mr trigger yeah I would just Echo what's been said you y'all are
096doing a great job it says avataya has a great history and tradition and you sounds like you're keeping it up just fine thank you thank you Mr Brown of course you have this yeah that's cool I just I just want to you know tell you how proud I was uh I pretended several of the events that they had this year um the last event had an amazing turnout and and I can't yeah so I took a lot of pictures and uh beautiful it was it was truly incredible to see a whole sense of community coming back into into an amazing school and neighborhood I as you know I'm very close to this neighborhood too because you know my mom lives right around the corner from the school yeah and I live one block away soon
097yeah so so this is uh this is one of my uh my my dearest places in the world and I want to compliment all the parents for keeping the tradition alive um we had a true sense of multiculturalism in the school uh where you have people coming together a lot of teachers in that event and and several of the events kudos to the team no just thank you it's it's very inspiring to hear all the wonderful uh activities going on so thank you Miss Russia yeah thanks guys the young I'm just I run the Family Resource Center so I'm just happy that the pack is working cohesively with the Family Resource Center that's great I mean Resource Center is amazing I really think um workshop with them and it's a phenomenal I'm telling you have
098any problems I know you're not well are you uh for the day so far the workshop they have with the parents or the community and everything I really take twice and it was amazing they worked very very good I'm very proud of that we also have we also have you know Adult Ed here we have the Southwest program I mean the Italian is a model for a comprehensive community support system uh that we should put in place at every Urban school I mean it's a one shop One Stop uh multi-service comprehensive place yeah that's great about the building um thank you for all your good work it really does make a difference in the lives of Children and Families so thank you thanks Dr I just wanted to let you know Dr lasande for the
099record that I know sometimes it was some issues in the school you know before the news or the no or the negative go out from your school that's why you had Mr planner in that report Mr planner any situation happening in your school why because I care I don't want the news go out negative because that's the first thing when it's positive all these new people the people working social media they don't say nothing positive from the school but when it's not negative they blow on the phone if they blow it doesn't get upset you know because I was a board member I represent all the principal school not only me all the members we want positive things I want people know what a great things the school have so before the news go out
100that's what I told Mr planner listen this situation is happening in the school please figure it out find out you know what's going on before the the words go out wrong way you know so much you understand that I care to be sure you your staff your student your parents your leaders your pack be okay before someone saying something negative I will go after that person because I know you guys doing a great job amazing it's not easy you know you have to deal with something you know sometimes good thing with people negative people positive people meeting up down left right but at least you never give up and I really appreciate that thank you so much all right um Miss pairing you have anything to say to onaya so simply thank you to Dr
101Alexander as well as the individuals who presented identify absolutely phenomenal job doing so especially for such a large diverse Community um there's lots of things that are engaging in keeping the community students and parents working towards supporting the school so thank you thank you Mr thank you thank you so much I'm gonna um thank you so much and trust me that will be there June 1st and Miss Labrador I will wait for you the email thank you thank you for sending it yes I will thank you thank you so much thank you so much for everything you do guys very very proud good night thank you all right next we have in the agenda I'm gonna go more fast so we can keep going it's gonna be the P10 form do you have that on
102four video all right so I know I've already sent to you Anonymous parent have that 400 B10 and then I'll spoke to you uh this is very important that starting now don't come the year uh we need to do that we can for uh Miss Perryman because that's the record how much money what do you order what's going on so before we find that downtown where's this order who made this order who made the pro oh sign this who may give the permission when they had that P10 form the school the principal in the pack leader very easy it's very easy to you know talk um um take out that um form and you can know where who ordered who signed it because I have to sign the pack president or btsr president and the
103principal and from there you have the amount you know the record how much money you spending you know because I know that we have some issues that somebody else somebody sent this downtown we ordered this for the pack president of ptso president said well I never signed for that I never give permission for that so to avoid all that situation to go dance fourth I use performance firming and you know and working for the next when we come back on after vacation trying to all these Pack Leaders work okay well it's all probably just work with the P10 uh if we had to do like a round table you know show them how to do the you know P10 I would like to do it you know help you and stuff like that it's more
104easy it's more more fast and nobody go on you know under control you know where and why who and he so anything to say about that Miss pairing blah blah P10 I believe what you're asking for is some type of training for P10 am I correct yes okay thank you I know I really said I love it you say it very short [Laughter] I know music is not in online but um is the driver Mr planner Mr Lynn Mr Russia no but when I'll show you the first slide we did put together some Guardians around the pizza here yeah that's about it all set correctly all right thank you you're gonna be the next now is gonna be uh the pack and PTs update budget percent user foreign thank you press over before you we
105start thank you for everything you guys do without you I will be lost I will be crazy I will go people have Mr Planet crazy you know but thank you thank you I really appreciate that I know in the beginning it was hard and you know I'm not easy but I'm not lying to you but it's because I care it's in my blood I care I want people to understand be here for them you know to support them dive in they understand this is the protocol this is the policy don't do this wrong because I don't want people to talk about bad things about virtual school life that Miss parents said the other day we tell you about people talk about negative about which was for when we have so many things we got good
106things we can do things with better things and that's why when they saw good things nobody say nothing out but it was a negative oh boom you know wow let's go negative but I would appreciate that I really really appreciate your hard work you do thank you to your first choice you all right so the next slide so the first slide we just talked about Mr benahan what you asked regarding the P10 and putting together some guidance around the submission of the P10 online but also maintaining a binder with a hard copy so I think a good idea that maybe Lynn and I can plan is to um one of the first round tables when school opens we can dedicate some time working with those parent leaders maybe even preparing a binder for them so
107that way they can leave there with a binder ready to go and then work through this Guidance with them around the P10 yeah sound good okay all right and then the SGC impact ptso update we can skip two slides thank you so much Sam yep all right so it's obviously very small but in the packet you received um the update for the percentage is used and I'll just give you the highlights of that um we have 22 of our elementary and middle school students that met their Benchmark at 100 or a 99.99 point something with very little left over out of the beginning balance of the middle school elementary middle school students for the District of the 143 549 the only available money that was left was two thousand and forty two dollars so I
108think um compared to oh yes yeah that's a lot of different yes we are at a 90.6 percentage used for elementary and middle school students thank you negative in in John Winthrop you know negative yeah but at least they use everything yeah the Grant's office is I'm going to work with them to make sure that that gets yeah yeah no I know I don't want to one so negative but at least they use the whole money yeah they did we got another one it gets to the very end it's difficult oh yeah everybody yeah right but I'm like we have one wanted to they would you know like look like a central and party because of that Central they they have less right but at least you know from the mountain they have they went
109up definitely like if it's 98 you said they spend it right yes elementary middle and so if you look around the trajectory of every time we've met um so we were in December 33.2 February 52.1 in March we're at 95.5 and now we're at 98.6 for April I don't know why it says April 98th that's it um yeah I got a question on uh on the overages uh so we're going to work with them hopefully we could transfer some Title One money and not have them hit their school budgets for that especially since this title one money left over in the other budgets if we could check when we see going to see if that's sure doable we can reach out to the Grants Department and see what what the plan is for working with
110that and I'm sure with Miss parents I'd hate to see them trying so hard to engage parents and doing the right thing and have have a hit their school budget inadvertently yeah thank you question is Russia when you see like these two schools negative that's my question I didn't know but maybe yes it worked when you see school they don't spend the money they cannot take that that school for money and cover the negative being in from another school's leftover I'm not sure exactly how the Grants Department will um kind of balance that out I'm sure that's a that's a great suggestion um but um the last communication I had with them they said they were going to reach out to those schools individually and determine I don't know Mr conscious I believe when you
111overspend is that what you're saying yeah we overspent and they take it off your next year's budget oh okay the school's money so you know it's it's unfair to take it from yeah yeah okay you know when you come by they will take you from there okay put on yeah yes but on the other side of that all this excess is rolling over but it's not rolling back to the schools it's going into the general Title One General gotta check I gotta check on that yes so if we could not have them start off a little less but not to not to encourage overspending or anything like that it's there's a once one shot one off or whatever okay um so then we look at the high school allocations so for high school um we
112ended with 94.9 used um so out of the beginning budget for high school of the 53 387 were left over with 2747 for high school that's great um and that's really all as far as the the report for the um the budget um as you know you know we worked with each School individually and we plan on we learned a lot this year I think we learned a lot of positives about what worked and so our plan for beginning of the next school year is to share some of those best practices talk about the P10 hopefully set them up with a nice binder and really looking forward to that and the last thing actually is just the our next round table um so the PAC ptso Roundtable on April 26th uh we we received a
113lot of questions and asking for training and information around immigration talking about undocumented students families rights and so we're having a guest presenter it will be here on April 26th from 6 to 7 30 around immigration okay the other thing um are you thinking about the B10 years back and I remember when I sat back president from different schools we used to have a title one book this week like a big binder and from there every month you have a workshop your P10 um your vendors on your own sponsor whoever you haven't done much everything is there so you perform you know for September August September October November and from there people they can then you know learn another Pack Leaders when they come or the same person at least they have a book they
114call it Title One book so the one uh title once okay and uh when we have the Jersey pack the Jersey pack when the business is cool the first thing they say give me your title one book they want to know where you spend the money your P10 everything trust me and I still have title one's book you know then it's good because then from there you can follow you know any question any parents or any staff or anyone that want to know about your Workshop what do you do if you control ego I think one more tool that will show you the Excel file um Lynn and this was another request from parents to help with transparency and being able to see in real time how much money they had if any money was
115pulled from their account um Lynn worked with the Grants Department to put together a tool for families to be able to see in real time what their budget was and if it moves they can see that money was taken out and so that way everyone can be on the same page so uh Lynn if you just want to yeah absolutely so and we'll roll this out in the fall and the Grants Department did a great job of putting this together so it will identify the budget allocation by school there's a drop down menu school can the school can select their specific school and it will show their allocation they can then enter in all of their expenses as they go along there's also a spot I don't know if you can see it but there's
116a spot for the PO number so once they receive that PO number they can enter the PO number and they will then be able to see their expenses in real time as Carly mentioned great so that way if there's any discrepancy from you know from what Fair record keeping or what you know what the Grants Department is is the reports are we can right away take a look at what all the POS were and identify if there's any any difference yeah that's great great I said Shuffle do you have any questions comment no question no yeah okay no question so thank you um okay thank you um Miss pairing left yes yes okay um yo thank you so much I really appreciate that and like always that's for you I'm always going to be here
117to support you and help you you know I'm always going to be here so yeah we had to keep following I want to keep following that absolutely thank you so much um thank you and I hope to see you tomorrow yes all right next in our agenda we got the updated digital Social Work service doctor yeah exactly young and we talked about that that was the president yeah but you can see it first of all for calculation for your title oh thank you John you know it's been a long time yeah now but you know we see that welcome back again the Florida okay I get really excited boy I can talk about social work Services there are eight um different things that I didn't include in this um presentation that are um overarching things
118that the department does but I think the request was what do social workers in the building so I'm going to focus on that so um just an overview of what social workers are supposed to be doing to promote the general well-being of students so that means providing classroom um classroom wide uh presentations about different things that occur in the school so if a certain classroom is having trouble getting along they can do certain things in that classroom itself to help the students get along working with outside agencies to provide support for families a lot of people are under this um idea that school social workers or mental health clinicians we are clinicians but in schools our only job is to work with the students to help them access the curriculum so that's the difference between
119what a practitioner outside of the school does and what a school social worker does they offer monitoring and suggestions for school professionals so we would do collaborations with principals and teachers about how to deal with students with problematic Behavior we develop and provide crisis interventions and strategies to improve Student Success so like if there's a death of a student would work with that team in the building to provide services for that student and we would bring other social workers in to help with that crisis situation and we work to maximize coping skills for students in difficult situations so if they're having situations at home if they're having situations um anywhere we work to ameliorate those things there thank you so the mission of school social work is to decrease any issues that are impacting academic
120performance that's the most important thing the academic performance kids come with a variety of things like um divorces and things like that but if it's not impacting um them academically we usually don't get involved with that we would refer out to another service or if we have that time we refer to a guidance counselor or we would deal with it if we had that time during the day so the process of obtaining Social Work services students that exhibit behavioral issues or mental health concerns um that are interfering with their academic progress they then move to the next step which is the referral to the srbi or mtss program so that's just the um some the multi-tiered supports monitoring program and we would collect data on that student's Behavior if the behavior decreases or increases we
121would then if it increases we would then move to PPT so that we can determine whether that kid needs special education so um there's a bunch of different ethical things that are guiding social workers social workers um have an ethical responsibility so we um our primary responsibilities to students and secondary to stakeholders so our main priority is the students um student autonomy and parent involvement we like to include parents into all decisions made for their students when possible students do have what's next is confidentiality so students do have rights I know that's a weird concept but they do so when in reason we like to bring those parents in and help those kids to talk to their parents um about what they're talking about in sessions so that's um a good thing to help the
122parents understand students um there's a consent for service some and it's that is passive and active with active consent is is that we get a um an active um consent a written consent passive um consent is when you enter the school all students um it's implied that all students that enter the school can get Social Work services at least one time if they have a crisis situation anything ongoing after that we need the active consent and advocacy we advocate for all students and parents our primary goal is to serve in students with behavioral goals on their IEPs then we manage a major major issues of behavior in the school we develop behavioral plans safety plans refer to outside Services if that student needs more than what the school can provide and we collaborate with teachers
123and administrators okay so Bridgeport School social workers we have 51 School social workers in the district when I started there were 30. so I'm so proud of that that we have 51 now the National Standard is one social worker per every 250 students however here the ratio is more like one per every 500 students so we're twice as um past the ratio of the United States each high school has three social workers the Comprehensive High Schools but BMA has one and Fairchild wheeler has two uh social workers receive wait wait um social workers have to hold a master's degree and they hold the state certification in 071 which is the school Social Work certification all of them have that school social workers receive professional development each month I provide them social professional development each month
124and new social workers get twice a month professional development I also provide supervision for them so they can get their licensure so that's um all that time they're doing case reviews so they can get CEUs from the district with no cost to them um we have 11 social workers that we've recently trained in what's called cbitz which is trauma-informed therapy in certain schools so we have 11 schools that participated in that so these social workers are specifically trained in trauma therapy and the average cases between 40 and 50. and in high schools it can be 60 plus because we don't have enough manpower to do that I know it's not I'm here but I'm we just started something new with our homeless population where we feed um the students it's called fill in the blanks
125we send the students home even in high schools with a book bag full of food on the weekends so they could eat during the week um during the weekend parents and the students and we've been doing that since the beginning of the year all schools are participating in this and we've fed over 200 families thus far from the beginning of the school year till now and there's a thank you slide for me there you go because you want to put the doctor thing that's right [Laughter] I want to throw close to Dr Baldwin um I have a question you said we got 51 school closes working right yeah I think we have on what 11 social work right um what do you see so 11 social workers are trained in c-bits that's about they volunteer
126to be a volunteer for 51 school um social work you said 250 students for one software work that's National stamping oh natural okay one for 500. what we have one social work for every 500 students wow and that's because we have to also service Charter Schools we have to service um private parochial we have to service everyone in the catchment area that we that are our students so that spreads them thinner than okay we'll be in better shape if we didn't have to do that yeah yeah I'm in Chicago when you say one toaster why are we now four hundreds wow you have any questions uh let me just look back real quick okay um as far as um behavioral issues it's okay yes student confidence it out when you engage the parents the student
127s right if student is no I don't want my parents to know this the students confidential reality takes precedence yes or no so a student has confidentiality as long as they're not of danger to themselves or um or someone's in danger to them then we have a duty to warn so they do have ultimate Ultimate Reality unless they're being armed in some way or themselves right so students can feel comfortable with sharing that absolutely absolutely but we would encourage so let's say there's something like um a student that's pregnant we just had one um that's pregnant now we would because we don't have the duty to inform because they're not being harmed in any way but we would um counsel them into talking with the right that family about that situation I thought you were
128an outright going to parents yeah and it just depends the situation let's say like you say somebody die or something like that so that you're not a choice to or if it's an older person that impregnated the child or something like that yeah that's harming the child yeah and that would that the way you do it now the way it's done I guess by law is like encourages the student because students who didn't have the service might just not tell anybody just keep it and basically future and stuff like that and overseas in it okay thank you for that um social workers okay now let's address how many of your current social workers are funded under Esser 11 of them 11 of them so when as for funding runs out and those 11 may have
129to be excess how long how how much does that increase your caseload exponentially so um if and we don't just have social workers that primarily work with students so in that store we also have a homeless liaison so those that's the one that's filling in doing all that work with the backpack program and all that we believe that position um we would lose positions for some of the charter schools so I would have to shave off Social Work support in a bunch of schools to cover all of the rest of those schools right wait right okay let's clarify a second I know the answer to this question just for clarification we got to provide a social worker for the charter schools through the Bridgeport Public Schools budget absolutely thank you so not only servicing on
13019 000 students with an inadequate number of social workers an extra 2 000 plus students with the charter schools with our inadequate number of so if we're not funded we're in even more trouble than we are now because we're not currently at a ratio that can service our students but that's like that's like an abused person saying well at least they did hit me as well exactly but the goal is to not get hit right correct thank you Mr Trevor yes yeah um and with Echo again what I was going to ask the same question which is what the number is I know that you mentioned in your initial report that we were up from what we had been and that the second part of that is we will go back there if we can't
131um and I would also say that the social worker at how many social workers at Blackman potato it's two two now full-time and battalia this too that's because of the extra money one is from the extra money the other three are older social workers that have been here okay because that was my recollection was there was only one in black there I thought yeah when you were there yeah and he had to drive to New Haven on a regular basis to meet with a group Social Work group of high school students yeah we still have to do that wow and we used to have Stanford Academy so we have people going all the way to New Haven and if they would play games with him about where he would be able to meet him absolutely
132what space he had available to meet with them to do his job but I'm just saying the outrage that Joe feels that I throw um is uh that I feel is you know that you know did it though it's also true in uh supervision of special education services we have oversight of um the PPT process and uh children who attend and receive services at the charter schools and I always forget about the charter school up in New Haven so we not only losing the time going between the schools and the local we're losing about two hour round trip driving time of professionals who could be in a classroom servicing our child by being spread out there that's a point I picked that I picked that to show you these are schools of 11 or 1200
133students the second and third largest schools in our city and one of these precious resources has to leave the school for basically a half a day every couple of weeks no every week it's every week so that's a tenth of his time is spent driving up to New Haven and back to me with a group of high school students I've always got to give any help would be appreciated yeah no we're all we're all preaching the choir here yeah there's more people on that's the question how are the behavior and the mental you know concerned about the students how are everything working when this is um some Behavior or something they we saw you know us the British possible so anytime there's a behavioral issue and it's um interfering with the academic work then we
134would then refer that's anyone can refer that student to our srbi mtss program and then they would then a social worker would then do progress monitoring with that student to see if it decreases or increases and if it increases with the quality and then see if there's any kind of underlying um classification that could be interfering thank you Mr plan you have any questions no questions no about the body no I did have one other that was just talking about Dr Baldwin about I mean I would be curious to the extent you know as we look towards next Thursday's budget hearing and next Tuesday's budget meeting with the city council committee and we know that confusion seems to be raining in Hartford right now um on the budget um how much of the resources that
135we have are drained like we were just discussing by the obligation to provide services to non-bridgeport public school students and I would include in that because I heard that in your report which that was new to me that we handled the the parochial schools too I knew we did bus service for parochial schools I didn't realize we provided social work do we provide anything else to the parochials we provide the support for PPT one right evaluation but just the evaluation well that's what I meant by that so we have a dedicated social worker to work on that team this is a part of those teams to that point about the teams is it just it's more than apt evaluations with the charter schools oh no that's yeah charitable service so they have special Educators but
136we have to oversee the whole Mana case management we help support the case management at the charter schools our supervisors do that don't we have teachers that have to drive to Charter Schools too to provide specialized services not that I'm aware of oh we certainly do with the specialist I just I'm not sure whether it was the General special ed teachers too not that I'm aware of but well we definitely do for the Specialists they have to drive to the Charter Schools they don't have the necessary Specialists for a given School but I I wasn't sure about the I but they also needed some of the special ed teachers were required to commute we used to pay them uh pay the school to um to um for that special teacher I don't know how that
137model changed because I don't know especially anymore but I I would be curious in looking to quantify Our obligation to those non Bridgeport because that's what the the mess up in Hartford is how much money do they need and do they really need the current bill being debated would provide three times more money for the charter schools than the public schools well then they can take and it's like hello and that goes for occupational therapy that gets to be languageless psychology yeah wow but also the social workers yes definitely you say PPC one doesn't mean can you explain what is me BBT one so when a child's being referred for evaluation that would be the first set of the planning and placement team coming together and bringing social work all members of the comprehensive meeting
138for evaluation so social work possibly speech and language depending on the child's needs uh psychology special educator Bachelor teacher something else question all right Mr Dr Young Thief thank you so much I really appreciate that um audio report like always very professional you know to the you know any question and you know I will email you thank you very much we appreciate your time thank you thank you I cannot say it in the name from here oh the principle right oh okay you know different Adventure that's why I was on the beach that day it has that Great Gatsby look to it um the nursing agenda it's going to be the last one the report and suspensions Fortune District case and cases and by gender yes so uh that information was shared with you in
139your portal and it's uh outlined as requested by school and by uh gender and you can see that um overall district-wide when we look at this data about two-thirds of suspensions district-wide are distinct offenses one-third are suspensions that are repeat so it varies that's district-wide data two-thirds are one time distinct and one-third are repeat in various school to school as you can see overall you know issues related to student conduct and student behavior and how we want to treat one another when we're together in a school setting those have been very challenging for us as we've re-entered from the pandemic right and so the the biggest piece for us as adults in a community is really working to help every member of the community have a shared understanding of how do we want to feel
140when we're together and so when we are together in a classroom when we are together in a library when we are together on a school bus when we are together in the cafeteria at lunch we want to feel safe we want to feel respected we want to feel heard and understood and what has happened is that really requires those social emotional learning skills so that requires self-management self-regulation social awareness it requires that I understand when I run and take your seat at lunch and then push you off the seat you didn't like it when I did it to you yes you didn't like when I did it to you on Tuesday and so now today in the cap when I run in and take your seat you push me and you push me to the
141ground and you stand over me and you you yell at me and call me names because I keep taking your seat and so those types of offenses and challenges to how we want to treat one another in the community they they persist and so um we have we have to do a better job of building a safe and inclusive School climate and culture across all of our schools um suspension suspension is not an intervention and so uh we need to work on tiered interventions in our classroom helping to support our teachers the work that we're doing with Rios app and Mrs Stevens helps to lead this work with our social emotional learning and restorative practices training our staff members to be uh restorative all helps but we need this at a far greater scale we
142need more um people contributing to the sense of belonging to the sense of um relationship building to a commitment there so that that work will help us have kids come to school and stay in school so we'll help our chronic absenteeism and it will also help to address um student discipline you know overall taking this in context um I don't know if you're aware but right before uh Easter so April 5th the commissioner of Education gave a report to the State Board of Ed on the 21-22 State student discipline and so uh some statistics there from 2018-19 pre-pandemic to last year 2122 first year back post pandemic suspensions the total number of in-school suspensions decreased by 20 percent while out of school suspensions increased by almost six percent pre-pandemic to now post pandemic one of
143the things we need to do in the district is recommit to this work around interventions in the classroom how do how do we respond how do we respond and teach and build skills in children so that they have the social emotional skills to manage in a classroom to manage their frustration sometimes it's about managing frustration sometimes it's about conflict um and we need to develop a framework for in-school suspension because you can see in the report that there are some schools that we could call bright spots around their work within school suspension and so we need to learn more about what their framework is for in-school suspension and then we need to develop and build that framework across the district so that we have a commitment to the most recent legislation that would say our
144response should be an in-school suspension the default position should be that children who are unable to comply with our school rules and I have a serious offense related to to violence or language or seriously disruptive and dangerous behavior that our default response should be in school suspension should be far rarer and so we need to turn these numbers a low much lower and upside down so that the in school is more dominant and low been out of school and so also not surprisingly when we look at the state report that the commissioner gave she says the statistics that one out of every 15 students Statewide received a suspension one out of every 15 students Statewide received a suspension and then when you look at that there's disparities based on race and ethnicity and it's pretty
145Stark and so while one out of 25 white students received at least one suspension one out of eight black or African-American students and one out of 12. Hispanic or Latino students and so our data which we also share by uh you know you've asked for it by gender but we also have it by race and ethnicity our data completely supports what the Statewide data says and so for us it is really about a commitment to tier one which we when we say tier one that's the classroom it's a commitment to classroom best practice standards-based instruction with a deep focus on relationships and building those social emotional competencies in kids how do how do I manage myself when I'm feeling upset self-management is a competency social awareness is a competence healthy decision making is a competency
146developing interpersonal relationships with adults as well as with my peers is a competency and so how do we create the conditions for that we have to have safe operations in our school we have to have policies and rules and consistently Implement them but first and foremost we need to build that sense of belonging so that kids want to come to school have multiple trusted adults that they can go to if they have a problem and that we have in our classroom a framework of how we will respond when children don't meet our behavioral expectation and so you know our goal is for these numbers to really change dramatically and there are bright spots in these numbers um Harding suspension numbers at the high school level comparatively speaking are low they've done some very impressive work
147with creating what's called a reframing room so kids go as as they're running into conflict they're they're in observed seeing conflict they're realizing that they're not regulated that they can't manage themselves rather than engage in an explosive behavior they're learning to take enough of a moment to get themselves together and seek support in the reframing room where they can talk to an adult process a problem potentially even gain access to the other children or children who are part of their problem and have a a meeting with them and maybe even engage in a mediation so there is a lot of work simultaneously going on while we look at these data it's it's data point uh and it's significant and troubling but at the same time underneath this data there's a lot of good process-based data
148that is occurring in terms of mediation um restorative practices children actually repairing harm teachers running circles in their classrooms supporting kids in their development of their social emotional learning skills it is how it's just not at the scale we have need for so um I'm looking forward to being able to share data with you over time where we can have real discussions about that the steps that we're taking that reduce it and that we can tell you with confidence it's not just we know why we're doing better and um We Know What It Takes we're just not there you have any questions I think you might anticipated someone answered them right right not the bad about the about the state data uh the one out of 15 is that um is that a total of
149distinct is that Does it include in school and out of school suspensions it concludes it does include in school and out of school and it also would include an expulsion an explosion as well yep all right because we got because we're pretty cool we're pretty close to the same percentage as the state Statewide and then look we got 1326 distinct over 90 000 that's about 407 the other one's like 0.66 something is set so it's really really not too far off it's a bit higher right not not okay let me do it let me do it again yeah and 1326 divided by 19300 or so 300. we call 0.687 the difference of 0.2 like I said it's minimal slightly tiny bit higher well I think I think just to make sure we're you know taking
150the proper numerator and denominator what we would want to look at is the total number of students who the total number of suspensions which is 1983 and then we look at our 19 000 students what we would need to look at is how many students were suspended right right that's what the state was reporting how many students have been suspended we don't have that here so Mr sokolovic was looking at distinct ones because those are just the numbers one time one time occurrence um but in the 19 if you look at just strictly the 1983 that's approximately 10 percent and you said if I recall it was um a double digit percentage for the Hispanic population and a single digit for the African-American right one in eight and one and eight twelve and one and
151twelve right so approximately 10 percent so we're if we looked at the 1983 we're about at 10 percent but assuming the repeats the real number is going to be number of actual students who are suspended correct is going to be somewhere between 1320 and 1900. right but um also did you not say that overall it was 1-15 you're just looking at minority students but we do also have Caucasian students who are in this mix so comparing Apples to Apples and even when we begin to compare our second Brown suspensions we gotta also keep in mind we got to compare Apples to Apples because in that one in 15 is comprised of probably I'm just gonna throw a number out there 80 Caucasian students Statewide or whatever rate is now versus us with the 80 75
152black and brown population of course our black and brown percentages will be higher towards the population because black and Russians are higher so we got to take all that all those mitigating factors into account when we're comparing the states because uh if you compare you say what percent of granted students Paula was suspended you will see one percent of all Greenwich students suspended or African-American then compare it to Bridgeport you get 10 but that's not really saying anything at all I know I know I know it as a mathematical way to make it proper just throw out all the ilies but we have to be sure we do that but that brings me to another point I was going to make as far as the equity basis I don't know if this is an accurate
153recollection of mine but it does seem to that the females are being suspended a bit more than usual you know in my experience um having been here since August and working with all of the high schools uh We've experienced a very difficult transition from eight to nine with our female students and also from nine to ten and so I looked at some data with my high school principals early in the fall around like November December and the ninth grade suspensions um were high and yes there were more females because of conflict uh fighting um than males and so that it that remains even now is the spring and um you know everybody's just thinking about the summer and wanting to move on and sometimes more conflict emerges and so we are having some difficulties with
154um trying to create the environment where young women are supported and making healthier choices and better decisions rather than solving problems via physical aggression which is what is happening yeah because I because I remember thinking in years past I'm going back the free pandemic seeing it seemed a lot more rare for female students to be in some schools equal two or greater than male student suspensions and it always it always I would always point out that it seems upside down that since there's less males and there's more male suspensions but it seems like the coke closing the Gap but is it I think it's um you know I think I think I think hovid and social isolation and kids you know with the device because it was the only means we had to connect with
155children that a covid really leveled the playing field and helps us to understand that all children male or female um really need social context it's teaching um meet them where they are opportunities to practice uh engagement and skill building in making a friend and keeping a friend we've really lost ground and um and we see that in these interactions that lead to violence and we also lost transition periods like going from Junior High School from middle school to high school some students started High School in the 10th grade in person and they didn't have that transition with being the youngest in the school and being pulled in by all the same schools it's like started in a different place than normal Transitions and it's like it's like it's rough I feel for our kids and
156I know we can work through this I also feel our kids have resilience proper guidance they can and pass this but like you said that we definitely need to keep our children in school as much as possible and about them and then I just counted quickly it looks like under 20 explosions um we're doing you know better than in the past I think I think we're at about um uh 27 47. but I I did track that from last September to a year ago March from September to March a year ago there were over 50 from September to March this year we were at 16. we've had some unfortunate okay thank you about compared to like the last three pandemic yeah 2018-19 I haven't looked at that I don't have that but I could get
157that yeah First Complete year in person no second I think the second I think last year was a full opening yeah and that's an outlier Justin said he's probably be better off program this year for that year right speak with someone okay thank you any common questions yeah um what I want to make sure I understood the expulsions it's a scholarly just asked you about there's not 27 in here oh no this is as of then what uh this was through I think it's through March I could check with so in the last month we've had a uptick of expulsions yeah and um the data that we were talking about that consistent with the state report can we do the analysis that way too to have a more accurate picture pairing ourselves with the state's
158reporting I could I don't know we don't have um we we have boys and girls you know male and female here um don't have um I can't race oh we do we we can do that yes no we don't have it here but we can do that you know we're doing our little head math um trying to figure out how we compare with the state but the state was also preparing the racial inequities of discipline and how that looks and it would be interesting to see us yeah um the other thing I want to ask is um what's the king what's the situation at Central I mean it sticks out like a sore thumb there's a few others that are high that one's Beyond High it's just not that big it can't say it's four
159or five times bigger than any other school um Central has nearly 1700 students compared to basic with not quite a thousand starting with a little more than 1100 right right so it's not doubled the size of those schools and yet its data is way more than double right of Harding and about Dublin passing right I was just curious so I bet because I was going to ask about best too why Massacre and then Central also the number of Accenture is high yeah that's what I'm saying the numbers are Central well then I'm looking at Pattaya look yeah I mean I gotta compare them Italian a black one but I was looking at 152. black comes at 68 and so you know those are comparably sized schools and then comparing the high schools I understand the
160high school Dynamic is going to be different than the Pre-K to eight Mega schools the black and Battalion right um you know I was just curious if there was any circumstance that we should be made aware of I don't think there's any uh specific circumstance you know I would lean into the explanation of when you look at their um sort of unique identifiers right there uh yeah the distinct total uh it is hi and so you know perhaps in their response to behavior they're they're it's a higher percentage of repeats yes yes and so it could be that the response to behavior is um you know this discipline and that there's less of an intervention framework in place I don't know Miss Stevens in terms of the restorative practice facilitators is there a um a
161presence at Central there is okay yeah we have one restorative facilitator okay at Central but we got you know we are noticing that discipline increase that's something that we're aware of and putting some focus on I think again it goes back to what Dr Baldwin was saying earlier where we see pockets and we really see the need to expand our sort of practices so that it's a way of being it's not just looked at as one person doing the work but in this case we have this huge unique experience that we've been through with the pandemic which I don't begin to pretend to have any unique insights into what that means other than it's just hugely new to us but otherwise we've been doing the restorative practice you know a lot of the schools feeding
162Central been doing it for 10 years five five to ten you say because it's like it's not quite 10 I don't think but it's been you know what before I left we were doing it for years before that yeah well and I think and I know that vary from school to school and I don't mean to suggest everybody was but we as a district we're trying to get everybody to do it correct and I think that vigorously the the phrase you know doing it yes is the um operative phrase like you know what does that really mean and um you know you could go from classroom to classroom and you could hear a teacher may say oh I do restorative practices and we could go in and see very little evidence of what our shared
163understanding of that is and so I think you're right the district has made a commitment to being restorative in our approach and in our practices and and when it's still not a coherent um and committed approach across the system and that's that's really where we need to yeah if we had been progressing and there had been no hugely unique pandemic Interruption we could look more critically at oh there's a problem over here we can see there's a problem over here but it's hard to do with the disruption of the pandemic to look at the continuity of the what we've done right along with the increase in behavioral issues yes that's what I'm saying though the what's been created by this unique circumstance is hard to factor into any sort of projection as to how we're
164doing correct yeah and so well stated foreign what are the um what is the process of what the school is doing so trying to find out these numbers go low I see Mr planuswani okay I'm sorry it's all right okay so by the situation we've lost a few teachers especially in the Middle School grades and so retraining those teachers take time and also in transition you have substitutes that are in place and so that plays a major role in the behavior of students at that time yeah so so not only do we need training you know as that transition happens but also you know obviously it's it's different having a full-fledged teacher than a substitute at that place so um I could tell you for example uh we were missing two sixth grade teachers out
165of five um in in the eighth grade we were missing a few teachers also um in in the school so that that plays a major role in the Middle School Ambiance of the the school it's not to say that 40 suspensions is acceptable but it's a it's a possible explanation for that Spike um last year versus this year I think in terms of the work at the high school and I meet with the principals we anchor our conversation in the in the ABCs right attendance behavior and course completion our kids on track our kids on track coming to school are they on track in their interactions are they on track in learning so that they can achieve their credits we talk about um the need to build the social emotional learning skills and the sense
166of belonging and so we're really trying to think about how do we create a culture at the high schools and all schools that really emphasize the student experience that's really what needs to be emphasized is the student experience and how how kids come in and how they are welcomed and how they are made to feel supported and safe and welcome throughout the course of the day and so um one of the things that has been really hard is the level of physical aggression and fighting and broadly violence I'm you know those are the essence of the conversations that I'm having with principals when they're dealing with you know a challenging incident that is resulting in multiple suspensions for students it's almost always violence and so the challenge for us is how do we create a
167school culture that is resistant to violence that that does not allow that focuses on that sense of belonging that's that sense of uh Safety and Security for kids emotional security like we were talking about before um and so that that takes an entire system it's not just like that's not a technical fix if it was we would purchase it implement it and address it is adaptive it's it is a hard um systemic fix it involves teaching and learning it involves hiring it involves professional learning supporting people it involves communication and feedback the parent engagement we need parents trusting us and believing in us and working with us and helping to advise us that you know hey look you got this wrong have you thought about this so um that's what we're trying to do at
168the high school so that the student experience is better it's not okay for kids to be out of school so the student experience we we have to find a way to work with children with families and with our teachers and staff leaders so that we have the ability for children to be successful and stay in school foreign I see that I I already see that I mean I'll talk to you about that a few times about that that principle had to be you know you suspend the student be sure be sure it was necessary is it is or it's not necessary to spend so many days you know and I know some school they say no you're not gonna have no homeworks you know I know on works I said no I don't think so
169right I I want if you're going to suspend that many two or three four days whatever or if is 10 because some something back he needs to do some work absolutely I just want you to let you know about that yeah please subscribe you had your hands up yeah I I was curious um I know we have guidelines I haven't looked at them recently but there were guidelines where there was a mandatory suspension where there was the option of suspension depending on the nature of the offense and do we still look at it that way for the most part um the terms like mandatory and permissive right we think about that when we think about an expellable offense um and so certainly mandatory suspension a mandatory suspension is anything that is related to a weapon
170or firearm seller distribution of drugs that was but but my point was going to be do we know among these what percentage are mandated yes by our guidelines and what percentage are some of these judgments yes group I have a report that would tell me you know what the reason how many percent was for fighting that's permissive fighting would be uh permissive well I would think it depends on whether there's blood or not well it depends right but almost every situation is yes I agree you know I'm permissive right and and that is why our expulsions are down because when principals call and we talk about what the incidence is we talk about what are some ways to respond to this and that yes it was serious are mandated absolutely our guidelines and by States
171right which of these how many are mandated versus permissive we know that data I don't it's not listed here but we have another that's not that's not a choice matter that we're not it's not our system isn't kicking in and doing its job it's because that's the the rules and so that's going to be a suspension you know of some Merit you know significance but the other stuff is permissive and that's going to tell us okay here's where we're not or efforts for restorative justice are not right right that is correct why Dr building when let's see I have an argument with the Joe and the seawei argument we fight or whatever but he don't want to start and of course I have a friend myself I'm not gonna stay like this I'm not he's
172hitting me hurting me I'm not going to stay like that of course somebody got you know I had this friend if they knowing they see that they got witnessed it's in the camera why both students have to be why both have to be suspended when he started but I defend myself yeah I always ask that question why you know that that it is hard right and it's hard for young people yeah to understand as well when they when that happens to them Mr sokolovic's been bothering you for six days straight he's been you know keeping your line and longer much longer saying things about you respond back to him and then he didn't like it when he responded back to him so he hits you yeah and and then so you don't like that so
173you hit him back and then a couple more close exchange yeah that's really when we have the problem so you are you are correct it's difficult in my experience this takes place Mr sokolovic hits you you hit him back the whole thing stops that your response back you're defending yourself for the very first time and Mr kolovic realizes oh wow this guy's had enough yeah and he stops or or he doesn't stop but if if it stops he would get the consequence and you would not that's typically how it works defend yourself and you did hit him but by standing up to him it stopped it and so in my experience he gets the consequence and and you don't you know we'll talk to you and say look that's not the appropriate response you know
174as you get older in life you're going to find that there are greater consequences for you in the legal system if that's how you choose to respond and so we we don't endorse that here but we recognize you stood up to him in this circumstance and it ended it we don't we don't teach that we don't you know positively reinforce it but we're not going to suspend when it results in he started it you hit him he hits you again the two of you are in a brawl you're now on the floor you got other kids around you um yes right and now we have staff trying to separate you at that juncture you had defended yourself you didn't start it but we've now have adults who have to intervene because of your decision to
175stand up and defend yourself uh adults who have to manage the rest of the environments because of the decision yeah and ultimately because of the disruption that it caused in that moment there's going to be a consequence for you and so we're going to look at the cameras we're going to verify what you tell me right because I I'm a principal I want to hear what you have to say and you're going to tell me Mr kolovic's been bothering you for the past six days he's been calling you XYZ you finally called him something back and he popped you and I'm going to look at the camera and then I'm going to see you know this seems pretty accurate then I'm going to talk to Mr sokolovic too ask him what he has to say
176for himself and then Levy a consequence your consequence may not be as significant it really depends on what transpired and so you know I'm a big advocate of um taking the time to give kids the informal due process like tell me about what happened have you told anybody else because that's the other thing as a principal I want to know yeah how many of your teachers have known that Mr sokolovic's been bothering me for six days that's important because that's all sort of what happened right and the teachers had to do something of reporter listen the situation the two kids this is not the first time to go too far can you please you know try to have talk to them before something happened right but if the teacher don't say nothing and then he
177get bothering me it's going to be consequent so just because he started now being me and him we're fighting the floor so I'm gonna get suspend anyway you're gonna get suspended too because it's not fair that I had to defend myself because he's bothering me I had to tell him to stop or whatever bullying nothing like that and then I get to spend it because because him I don't make up for me they don't make sense that that's the way I see it you know so we try and encourage you not to respond retaliate I mean that's the desired goal is is that you don't retaliate you deal with it in a less destructive manner I understand you see it as and one that we all all us men see it as a man you
178know man but the fact is that's not the response we want to encourage in the kids we want to encourage them to say please stop that's bothering me yeah and if he doesn't stop then you deal with find somebody to help you with this problem whether it's your classroom teacher or somebody else deal with that problem so that he stops bothering you um that's our desirable goal not for you you know but we I had many a child tell me my parent instructed me to smack him back and that's the way they were raised I get it you know I get what you're asking that's what kids say that's what my my dad told me to hit him and you know I have to have this discussion about yeah so it's not ever easy but
179the goal is desirable goal and within Society in general we don't want you to hit them back we want you to report him to a prop to a proper adult who can help dress the problem yeah get him to stop bothering you is it turns your hand because the high school especially the high schools I can't say 95 percent of the students they don't want to report it because the pride and the other five percent maybe they report it to the teachers and let them know so trying to stop for the 95 they say oh no I'm gonna get you oh I'm not you know deprived you know I'm uh he's gonna get you know and this is that now sometimes the consequence and when I see some Friday supposed to separate now the first
180thing they do is recording and everything and then they come to security the principal teachers and everything a big investigation you know stuff like that and again and I gotta say one of the odd things I'm going to tell you this and then just give me long enough to finish as teacher we tell them not to get involved you and Joe are down on the floor but I'm fine leave them alone because if you get in there and someone gets hurt you're the one that's going to get trouble that's the legal advice from the union now I got it was I never saw a fight that I didn't help break up as a teacher I know what the union position is but as a teacher I couldn't stand there and look I got involved but
181we do say because there is all the collateral ramifications for the teacher um if they get involved in the child Insurance yeah and I understand something teachers get hurt well if teachers get hurt oh yes I'm trying to say that we also tell them because there's another I mean there is the aspect of them getting hurt but there's also the aspect of them being accused of and losing their license yes losing their certification yeah because they've been accused of causing bodily harm to a child I know but as you said some teachers they don't like to involve separate because you know they don't want to involved like you you said you know there's some teachers say I can't you know to separate and sometimes get hurt I'm not teachers principals custodians principle uh security I
182know they had to get her I had to go to hospital and day out that two or three months right you know and I know but I don't know what to tell you this teenage you know 2023 is it's very stressful for us but I always say this and they keep saying education starts see hard to show okay you know you know this is what happened reporter I always tell my kid you told right away to the teacher that's the first thing you do without the teacher because when I go to school teacher didn't did the job we got a closer now the teachers have problems right because the teachers are supposed to you know start that right away you know if they stop and they keep doing it just let me know so I
183can go to you know better sometime my kids have situation where it was an elementary they don't have no choice to call nobody and everything and then they'll keep jumping you know like a pride little boy I have a boy oh he hit me I'm gonna hit it back you know so all right what I can do you know they're trying the best right that's right okay any questions any comments nothing Mr everything okay I just want to point out Mr Scott be nice with Mr Bennett High School PTA is all having a big event tomorrow um in the cafeteria between five to um eight o'clock we're gonna have a lot of vendors food um free raffle or a lot of information we got our live music we got um uh uh yeah we're gonna
184have so many things he's doing something this is the eight years at Batson High School is doing this so everyone all staff teachers primary seniors doll cat whatever everyone is very welcome to come so uh um make a motion to make a journey meeting both motion to return sorry thank you everyone thank you Mr John thank you everyone to be here tonight God bless you all and be safe