Personnel & Contracts Committee 3.28.23 Tuesday, March 28

001foreign all right so good evening everyone this is a call to order for the personnel and contracts Committee of the Bridgeport Board of Education today is Tuesday March 28 2023 and the time is 6 30. um I so I do notice that our meet and minutes are not added to the agenda so we're not going to be able to approve them because they're not added Mr Lombard but I wanted to say thank you to us our board members that are attending tonight um in our committee members Mr Joseph Lombard um into all the staff that are participating tonight um so we'll get started um and we'll just have to prove me in minutes next meeting um the first item is presentation um by Board of Education Department directors and supervisors on the functions with on

002their functions within the district this item was brought to my attention by Miss cashmere um and I believe Miss Perrin and her staff worked out a few different departments that will present today a little bit on the detail side of what they do um we didn't do the entire roster but we did a few so for those that are here I'm not gonna call your names out um I'll just you know whatever department wants to go you guys can go ahead and go um so I'll turn it over to the department heads how you guys doing this evening good evening so uh George Garcia director of building operations and Facilities uh I'm gonna give you an overview of uh what it is that we do a little bit of how we do it and uh

003some of the things that we've uh were encountering some challenges some wins so uh quick bio of the department and what it is that we manage uh we manage 41 properties a little bit shy of 4 million square feet give or take 300 acres of property for here for the Board of Education we do that with a staff of 190 or right around 150 custodians eight admin uh 19 trades seven Logistics our functions are broken up into a few different groups one is our administrative staff our administrative staff right now is focusing on energy conservation uh making sure that we're expeditiously and um expending our Esser dollars in a way where you know we're getting a good return on our investment and really getting the district to where it needs to be in terms of

004Maintenance and replacement of items throughout the throughout the buildings whether it's HVAC removal of asbestos um Renovations of all sorts right now we're about halfway expended through our Esser funding uh we're going to request some time on our facility next facilities committee meeting to discuss some major items that we'd like to discuss in terms of how we move forward with Sr expenditures there's some large projects that we'd like to discuss and then you know some of the maintenance programs that we would like to discuss also at that time during facilities um next is our Logistics staff the logistics team is made up of about eight members when they're all full staff we've got a couple folks on compensation but um our Logistics team does all the mail district-wide moves from school to school um they

005handle landscaping and and any uh exterior work of the buildings uh they also handle deliveries of supplies um the team is um is a value team for facilities as they've got a diverse amount of work that they do on a daily basis um that group is led by Paul Washington long time employee of the City of Bridgeport started in the books Department um great leader and a great team and Then followed by our trade staff our trade staff is led by Mike zurple and um the supervisors currently Jose padon uh we did a reorganization of the department at one point Mike used to be the sole person that was running the trades Department we made a shift because we saw that we wanted to get ahead of rate increases with utilities and uh you know

006Mike is a savant when it comes to energy conservation so we brought in Jose to supervise the day-to-day activities the work orders the work um delegated to to the trade staff review of that work uh communication with principles um at the school level and uh you know Mike oversees that at a high level but he is completely invested on the HVAC side of things we've taken that over uh together as a unified front because it's a very large world with a lot of moving pieces but um Mike's main role now is uh really focusing in on energy conservation and making sure that we're we're leaving no stone unturned uh we've had a lighting upgrade program that we've worked out through mou with UI our goal is to get 30 schools done uh by the end

007of next year uh we're well on our way I think we're up to like 16 17 schools completed um you know uh the Brilliance of LED is the schools are brighter um it helps with the learning environment uh subsequent to LED programs we're looking at solar and schools where we're replacing rooftops uh we're currently working with Uconn and our Grants Department for a large Department of energy Grant um it could be up to 15 million dollars for the district we've got a good approach in uh UConn has uh and UI have invested twenty thousand dollars to help with uh some audits none at both Marin and Johnson and we're looking at the smart school model so you know we may take a grouping of schools and turn those into smart schools where we're actually able

008to see every aspect of their environment whether it's lighting HVAC indoor air quality energy uh what have you so we're working on that now with UConn we should have our documents and and all of our um required paperwork into the doe uh mid-april so we're well on our way we've met twice two times this week and um you know we've we've got several Partners on that um but we're also looking at battery storage when it comes to energy conservation because you know that's the wave of the future we try to stay on the bleeding edge we're not going over the bleeding edge but you know we realize that we've got to stay two steps ahead in order to sort of pad the fall of that fiscal cliff in terms of our custodial staff um you

009know dedicated folks that are working in the field as as every school district is struggling with Staffing so are we um you know we need 170 custodians to really cover every shift and every schedule throughout the district our Total Staffing right now is 157 but the good thing is that you know through dedication investment and training we feel that we're we're getting to a point where we're stabilizing the district we brought in some tools to help us manage because you know what a what a short admin administrative staff it's important to be able to see what's going on in the field but do that in a way where that those details and that information is coming to us so one of the things that we've done and uh we're going to our seventh week now

010is we've got an app now for the custodians we're digitizing the department and um that app they do a daily inspection of their schools by 8 30 in the morning my team is able to see all of the scores of every school in the district so if there's a deficiency as the head custodian goes and does its inspections we're able to see those things there's notes attached they can attach pictures it gives us a better uh perspective on what's going on and instead of running around town going from school to school now we can focus our resources so that helps us to really uh apply the resources where they're needed and make sure that the folks that need the help are getting that help that department is led by uh Alan Port Zell so we've

011got one gentleman that's overseeing the custodial ranks and uh he's doing a phenomenal job of getting out there and making sure that things are getting done in the field um we also play a crucial role in school construction we work closely with the city school construction Department ensuring that the Board of Ed is getting what they need in in the buildings that we're building in basic for instance at one point because we're we signed a deal for the thermal Loop they talked about pulling out the boilers but you know from our perspective in in our professional Insight we felt that pulling those boilers was risky so we're able to make sure that that stayed in the program um at one point there were 37 colors for basic we've reduced that down because the maintenance of

012trying to keep things like that up is very difficult so you know we play a crucial role in making sure that you know whether it's program space um design infrastructure that you know the city's getting and the board is getting exactly what they need when it comes to these buildings the good thing is that you know we're well in our we're well on our way in school construction you know we're finalizing the billion dollar School construction program with the with uh basic with the new basket coming online soon and um you know we have a good understanding of what works and what doesn't so the schools as we build them are getting better and better and you know we build at a very high level which is a lead certified uh leadership and engineering and

013environmental design um you know we've got several gold buildings uh I think uh basic is trending towards silver so you know we we hold ourselves and we hold others to a very high standard um that's a quick synopsis of what we do you know we handle all of the the kovid uh PPE um you know we we firmly believe in investing in our staff and training and certification all of our head custodians have been certified and and um um Sims which is the highest level of certification in the Jensen industry the only only other organization that has all of their lead people certified in the Northeast is Yale so we're in in in in Good Company when it comes to that we've had all of our all of our custodians did online training this summer

014and we're going to continue that next summer as a refresher and then we're going to be doing in-services to ensure that folks really get a good grasp of what's going on in the industry and we also have uh reinstituted our Safety Committee and we're into our I believe we're into our 10th meeting at this point and the good news is that you know some of the efforts that we're putting forth with training and investment in our staff is that our numbers for compensation are at record lows so kudos to the folks out there working safe and to the team for really investing in in dedicating themselves any questions so what I'm gonna do is thank you George I'm Mr Garcia what I'm going to do is I'm going to hold all questions so at least

015everyone has the opportunity to present and then more news if you have questions just jot them down depending on what the the department is and then you can ask that question because I know I know that each of you guys have uh different reports that you want to share but this way it'll move just a little bit quicker so everyone will get a chance to ask their questions towards the end um Garcia um I guess Miss Carly I see you on muted yourself okay yes sure um so Lynn and I are here to talk about um our our departments and the office of student support um we put together a quick presentation we promise we'll keep it brief um but we just wanted to make sure we had a comprehensive overview of what our departments

016do and um so can you all see my screen okay all right so myself director of School counseling and parent Partnerships and Lynn Stevens is the coordinator of family and Community engagement um so student and family community engagement so this we work out of the office of student support um I oversee the school counseling department the district Student Success team I currently serve as the district 504 coordinator and the attendance liaison for the Connecticut State Department of Education and Lynn will talk about her role as the coordinator of family and Community engagement so the office of student support where I work out of um formerly known as the office of student choice so we provide registration support parents come to fill out the control transfers homeschooling applications work collaboratively with data management around the lottery

017programs when SVA dissolved we absorbed the volunteers we currently have 300 Volunteers in the schools we also coordinate the read-aloud days in collaboration with our Community Partners we work collaboratively with our mentors through Big Brother Big Sisters and Max as well as Caribe with 130 tutors in our schools and we plan and coordinate our community resource events and I'm sure some of you have attended them before the school counseling department so school counselors we have 50 school counselors in our department in our Bridgeport Public Schools school counselors are certified licensed Educators who work to improve Student Success for all students by implementing a comprehensive School counseling program and so if these are some the primary roles of a school counselor we work with the mtss and srbi that is the program in which students are

018referred when they are struggling academically social emotionally or with their attendance we Implement developmental lessons in the classrooms crisis response referrals to Community Partners Student Success plans review data to support student achievement of course counseling College counseling individual counseling and school counselors are the 504 case managers in all of their buildings in a 504 is for a student with a disability Student Success days last year we implemented Student Success days these are um coordinated by the school counselor in each of the schools these are on the half days there are eight Student Success days this is just a snip of what that would look like by grade level and the activity that the students would participate in on these days we noticed that attendance declined on half days so we tried to be creative and

019develop an opportunity and experience for students on these half days to motivate them to come to school to kind of put academics slightly to the side and be able to focus on their personal college career growth and they do this on a platform called Zello and students from grade 6 through 12 have access to Zello and that's where they um they participate in these activities to support again their college career and individual personal growth this is also the platform where they document their Student Success plans which which is an academic a college career and a social emotional goal that they set for themselves every year and this is a state requirement for them to do from grades 6 through 12. um I serve as the district 504 coordinator I think that's really important for parents

020to be aware of so that is to ensure compliance with all procedures and procedural safeguards required under Section 504 for students and so responsible I oversee the school counselors to make sure and um that I'm working with school counselors to prevent discrimination against students based on a disability and we use a platform called CT saids to determine eligibility for a student under a 504 plan and then have an annual 504 review for all students who qualify for the plan um school counselors have a very important role in attendance as you all know um so out of my department I am the district liaison for attendance so running monthly reports for attendance our district is required to have a district attendance team so that district attendance team meets monthly to review data and we report out

021quarterly to the Connecticut State Department of Education um after those district attendance team meetings we also try to identify bright spots within our district as well as best practices and those are shared out through a day a monthly District communication to all administrators and Lynn and I actually we both attend State attendance meetings to learn about what's working in other districts and try to bring that to the Bridgeport Public School System we also have a district Student Success team this is um five counselors and one social worker and this team Works across the district to help counselors with larger caseloads when students need a higher level of intervention and so they work to make referrals to community-based agencies to build meaningful relationships with those students and families to try to determine appropriate interventions and evaluate

022and progress monitor the success of those interventions and then and hopefully eventually transition those those students and families back to their school counselor so they they offer a level of support that can be a little bit more individualized when cert specific students are identified and the coordinator family community engagement I'll turn it over to Lynn thanks Carly and I just I have to toot Carly's horn first because she mentioned that we attend the district attendance teams meetings but she's actually often asked to speak because of the great work she's done about around Gathering and evaluating data here in the district so not only does she attend but she often participates as a presenter as well um so as Carly mentioned my role is coordinator of family and Community engagement and you will see that it's

023very closely aligned with the work of the school counseling department which is why it falls under that purview a new position to the district as of last year hired very specifically for the important role of overseeing the social emotional learning program here in the district which includes restorative practices in addition I also oversee in collaboration with Carly our learner engagement and attendance program and of course as my title suggests family and Community engagement um so one of the one of the important roles that I that I having the district is overseeing our social emotional learning program um under that I have I work with 140 District staff members to uh who are SEL team members there's four staff members at school at each school and their goal really is to promote a culture of social

024emotional learning and growth at their school also a very important part of their role is to be able to share District level initiatives around SEL and conversely to share what's happening at their school so they're a direct through line of social emotional learning a two-way communication I should say I also oversee the SEL platforms that we have we have our pre-k through eight move this world program ruler which is pre-k through 12 as many of you know about ruler and Newsela which is new to the district this year which is in grades 9 through 12. and Newsela I know we've talked a lot about move this world and how moved this world is a online platform that provides three to five minute videos for our younger students to interact and learn SEL competencies Newsela was

025specifically and asked by High School staff members to provide a delivery system for higher level students so it provides articles around SEL there's there's thousands of Articles held at by grade level within Newsela I also oversee Sandy Hook promise which is a very important initiative that educates and empowers our youth to prevent violence in schools all of our 9th through 12th grade students I'm sorry 6th through 12th grade students this year took part in the final training of Sandy Hook promise called say something which provided them an opportunity to see signs of somebody who is at risk of hurting themselves or possibly hurting somebody else and to tell a trust adult it was a very impactful presentation that students and student ambassadors at schools will now carry on and sustain what they've learned and relate

026to their other to their other students at their school on the note of SEL ambassadors we've trained we're over 150 SEL ambassadors similar to the SEL teams these SEL ambassadors are the ones that help to relay a message message of social emotional learning with the students within their school they are trained in school climate and trained in restorative practices and they engage in District level activities to learn more about social emotional learning and again relay it to the students at their school um we also I also oversee the district level activities including SEL day we just participated in international SEL day and there's there's a link here I won't share it now but there's an SEL video that's fun to watch and we are in the process of coordinating a staff Wellness day because we

027received so much feedback from staff about what a fun day SEL day was for students and staff and how they'd love to engage in a in more activities that promoted engagement and relationship development I also oversee our Panorama SEL surveys that are distributed to students staff and families Carly and I used that information along with other District members to better understand the needs of our different stakeholders and also to inform us on the initiatives within the district and then lastly I collaborate with our SEL Community Partners and this is just an example of the SEL Community Partners that we have been working with over the course of this year as I mentioned with the SEL teams I relay District level information to them so this is a message that I share regularly with our schools

028to ensure that they know they have access to these resources to engage their staff their students and their family members in different types of workshops and trainings um as I mentioned restorative practice is something that I also oversee we currently have 18 restorative practices facilitators um within the district representing 14 of our schools we have an opportunity to engage monthly share best practices and also to discuss um next steps within the district around restorative practices additionally we provide district-wide support for four staff members within the district I help to coordinate ongoing training sessions for staff and students and families one of which we actually have tomorrow a district-wide PD for our staff members around restorative practices and then to provide ongoing support with with school-based implementation interventions so at any time an administrator or a

029staff member can reach out to me and say hey we have something happening at the school that we really could use some support on I can engage one of our Advanced train restorative staff members across the district or we can engage with our collaborative Partners over at Rios app to help facilitate an intervention this just gives a little bit of information around what our restorative practices facilitators do within the district I won't go into too much detail but as you can see here are 14 schools that have restorative practices facilitators um a lot of what they do in fact 80 of what they do we hope is relationship building the hope is that only 20 will be reactive and responsive because of incidents that occur that's the idea that's what we reach for um so

030that's that's kind of the the premise of restorative practices um I mentioned our Elite poem visitor program we currently have 46 leap home visitors that represent 24 of our Bridgeport schools leap home visitors engage in monthly meetings and they also engage on Microsoft teams to share information and communicate with one another when they need support regarding a home visit or maybe a specific family that they're working with and they need to identify resources as many of you have have heard about one of the most important parts is that we get to engage with our students and families but additionally what's been really important about leap is that we also are able to to gain information about attendance within Bridgeport Public Schools what are some of the key barriers that families are facing and additionally what

031kinds of strategies can we put in place to address these barriers so as an outcome from leap we've we've developed the family resource guide that home visitors use regularly and is shared across the district it's in an ongoing form that is is we add Community agencies too and then we also take agencies off as we find that they're no longer in existence or perhaps useful to our families we've developed a school uniform site our community closet where home visitors or other staff members can sign up to pick up a uniform for a student and we're also in conversation about a developing a walking School Bus a pilot in a walking School Bus for those students that have identified Transportation as an area of challenge in getting to school and then at the bottom of this

032presentation which we can share out there's a there's a nice video that the state developed around leap that's um definitely worth worthwhile to watch this is just a picture of our community closet it's not not as full as it looks in these pictures but it's definitely been a great resource for our staff members to pick up uniforms for students and Families and then lastly a very big part of my role is engaging directly with our families through supporting them with a pack ptso also our family resource guide which I mentioned in a previous slide we've hosted social emotional learning workshops and programs and I'm currently in the process of developing a parent handbook in collaboration with our parents to be able to share important District level information with our families and I also spend a

033lot of time communicating with our community agencies to be able to provide important resources to our families and our staff members around what these what these Community agencies have in existence for families and staff members I also communicate closely with Rye sap in our community schools program as I mentioned they have restorative practices facilitators six at six of our schools so I work on a monthly basis to collaborate with ASAP around our restorative practices social emotional learning and school climate I often just describe people to people that I am a bit of a connector because um people give me a lot of information and I'm also I'm able to direct people to that information so I my role has developed into somewhat of a connector to be able to engage different stakeholders within the district

034and then this is just a little bit about what Carly and I both do around parent involvement this is the support that we provide parents ongoing uh we have a packed ptso team we also have a distribution email that we that we are able to email parents directly when we have information that we'd like to share and we host monthly round tables with our superintendent as I mentioned we have one tomorrow evening and then we help one-on-one with budget support and reaching out to parent leaders to identify any areas that they can we can support them with unless this is just an example of of our Flyers that we send out for the pack ptso roundtables I like to point out that we now have you can see there's there's a pattern in a few

035of these um we now have one flyer that we use that was developed by one of our parents because she she was very Frank with us and explained that she didn't think our flyer really did a good job of reaching out to parents the most effective way it could um so she helped us to develop it and I actually just you know I love receiving receiving this parent feedback because it's so important to help us understand what the needs of parents are so I just sent out actually another email today and she um she sent it back she replied and said you know I think this could be tweaked a little bit if you said this this way it might help parents understand it better so again that is part of my role that's what

036that's what I need to hear is the parent feedback about how we can improve that engagement for parents and that's it thank you so much ladies um is there another department that is sharing I'm not sure if Miss Dixon are you Sharon are you just sharing on oh you are sure I am sorry allergies yes I was asked to share though I'm a little hesitant after Carly Lynn's the little uh slideshow hello everyone as you all know um um I'm going to present on the um human resources department So currently the human resource is responsible for both non-certified and certified staff in the Board of Education that makes up about 3 000 employees uh Tim McNamara the Assistant Director of Human Resources is the point person for the non-certified staff the custodians the cafeteria uh

037aides the security guards paraprofessionals uh and then I oversee the certified staff such as the teachers the administrators social workers um guidance counselors slps and everything so obviously HR one of our biggest responsibilities is the recruiting and hiring of new staff hopefully uh starting I believe April 3rd you should see our new Billboards that are going up advertising um two upcoming job fairs uh we have a job fair scheduled April 27th 4 to 7 p.m and then we have one scheduled Saturday June 3rd 11 to 3. both will be held at Central the job the bulletin boards it was we tried getting pictures of our teachers up on it as well but they said the pixels were too big or too small and so we did settle on um we have the new logo uh

038we also then put in our link to uh to show direct everyone to the main website uh for applying for our open vacancies uh hopefully this will help us at least get um some more word out there about our upcoming job fairs uh we are also leaning have more heavily on social media uh Tim grasty is great with um posting and um on the school's uh websites our social media platforms parent square and then I know a lot of us end up taking some of the Flyers and posting it on our own personal uh social media platforms I do have a LinkedIn uh um account for human resources so at this point we are sitting with about a hundred vacancies That's not including our teachers who are not certified who have perhaps the um pending

039certifications there are about 50 of those and hopefully the administrators are deciding who are they going to hire back so we're working with the administrators to figure out which uh teachers who have yet to gain certification will be rehired for next year so but as I indicated we have about a hundred vacancies uh I know today um some of the um saw three members of the Board of Ed went to the job fair Yukon and they were they indicated that they met a lot of music candidates and some other candidates unfortunately no math or science but you know one of the things and as you've all heard us discuss is another uh tactic to um increase our teachers to fill the shortage areas are is the cross endorsement so we have the cross endorsements going

040on right now for languages the um special education math and science so those are proceeding I know math and science they've started their training to assist their um the teachers with getting uh the taking the Praxis exam coming up so hopefully that will help us build fill some of our shortage areas in these hard affiliate filled topics and other than that uh we work with labor relations and the Personnel committee on the city Side for certain um non-certified positions some are civil service positions so we have to follow their process and their procedure as well but uh we continue to post for those uh we are trying to help George Garcia fill his vacancies I know um everyone is feeling a shortage in in finding people to work in their departments so other than the

041basic hiring um you know we did we have a set process for the hiring and then the onboarding um process for candidates we recently at the end of last school year we first created the A diversity equity and inclusion committee that committee again met commenced again uh this fall and we actually recently attended training with at CES to improve on our recruiting and hiring of teachers of color so it was an amazing few days of training and we came away with a lot of good ideas and this group is continuing to work together to develop ways to not only recruit teachers of color but to retain our current teachers of color so we have a lot of ideas it being worked on we are working on creating a interview committee that will meet and do

042interviews hopefully every couple of times a month and we want to do interviews after hours for candidates who may be working during the day so um to get those candidates in uh you know we do have some people who work and can't make the usual school hour in uh interview times this committee is also working on a set um questions that will be asked pretty much across the board I did um review these questions for the superintendent she gave me great feedback on some of the questions and we're hoping that that will help streamline the process as well this interview committee we are also working on a training for them to help us be aware of our subconscious or implicit biases to help us when we get these questions how to adequately or properly um

043now calibrate the answers we receive and when we do the scoring so it's we are more open-minded and it's again this is geared towards recruiting and hiring uh qualified teachers of color other than the hiring process HR is also we handles the discipline process of the certified and non-certified staff again as you know the non-certified staff is governed by the city of bridgeport's contracts excuse me for a minute I have animals in this room and it's getting a little noisy so I apologize but um so we worked with the office of Labor Relations when we deal with the discipline of non-certified Staff the uh we work with gathering information and then the office of Labor Relations conducts hearings and investigations for certain um disciplinary actions as far as the certified staff usually the first round

044of disciplines are held by the department heads or the building administrators they usually as Progressive discipline they handle the needs initial meetings with um a certified staff member they may do a verbal warning a written warning when those do are not successful and behavior continues then HR will step in and become involved where we may issue the more severe forms of discipline such as a formal written letter reprimand suspension without pay or termination so we um we try to make sure that we are doing uh Progressive discipline across the board for every employee as set for by most of the contracts and the City of bridgeport's work rules as uh there is something called egregious acts there are certain incidents that we can bypass Progressive discipline and issue us more severe form of discipline uh

045rather than issuing a simple verbal warning we I require that when it comes to the HR that the administrative supervisor that they provide to me all written documentation emails letters and notes um regarding their involvement with the certified staff this way if it goes further and we have to suspend without pay or terminate we have the documents before us and that we have the evidence or the facts to support taking such a severe Act of discipline finally another thing my office is responsible is for the Title IX um investigations as the I am the Title IX coordinator for the district Title IX is the sexual harassment or discrimination um of students or staff and there are Title IX officers at each school at least one at each school then a lot of times they'll they

046may conduct initial investigations um in conjunction with speaking with me there are times where we I will have to conduct an investigation that's um when there's a formal hearing everything again is documented on our website it shows you the steps we have to take the forms that have to be filled out the record keeping that needs to be done and everyone you know it's we get training on that every year so we do try to make sure that that is being followed um we have I usually turn to one of the executive directors to be a decision maker if I conducted an investigation and hearing also HR is responsible for being the witness one of the witnesses for the board of education on any chro or other legal actions Bertram and Moses they handle most

047of our they handle majority of our legal actions the City attorney does handle some of the chros as well but again um it's usually myself testifying at one point or another or uh Tim McNamara uh testifying uh we assist our children Moses in gathering any necessary documents and evidence we work as the liaison between Bertram and Moses and any of the staff that need to testify as well uh now I'm trying to blank about what else we do um we all we are also working on trying again as I've said to you all numerous times hiring is one thing it's the retention that we have we need to start focusing on as well and that is a big thing that my office is trying to do is to focus on how are the retention of

048our staffs we've been focusing on doing um exit interviews retention interviews as for those who have been here for a while we are now going to start interviewing uh teachers or certified staff who wish to transfer schools so we are trying to gather as much information as to why things work or don't work uh or how we can improve to retain our teachers what can we do to help them out and my office um Steve Stephen Correa and Michael Brosnan are the ones who are um heading up the retention interviews and everything like that we are trying to create a data and to be able to present that to everyone to help them or to give guiding points on how to address some of the issues or concerns that come up finally as the summer

049is approaching we will be entering teacher the Bea negotiations so that means Marlene myself and I believe it'll probably be Floyd Dugas from virtue of Moses will be participating in the contract negotiation uh Tim McNamara sits in on the non-certified negotiate contract negotiations as well and I think that's HR in a nutshell depending on what fire pops up on any given day thank you so much um I don't know I think Miss Siegel I don't know if Miss Eagle is presenting but I know we do have a few items but is this everyone that is presenting before we move forward okay so I'll leave you alone Miss Eagle sorry all right so now I will open up the floor for questions um I'm gonna start with Miss cashmere because this was her item that she

050wanted to bring forth to the board uh so miss Kashmir um I'm assuming you had a list of questions uh for each department um not sure if they look the same for all of them but feel free to um ask your questions to the Departments um I'm sorry my for some reason my camera Works funny in teams and it's not working today um I actually don't have a list of questions I just wanted to comment and say thank you very much for these presentations I think that um in the light of the Board of Ed uh looking for full transparency with everything I think it's very refreshing and a smart idea to refer parents right back to this video um and you know for parents who have no clue what the function is of the

051Board of Ed because the teachers in the schools are absolutely important don't get me wrong but the the system and the way that it functions I think is it would be very refreshing uh for parents and in the community uh in general so I just wanted to say thank you so much for your time it's so appreciated and I'm looking forward to more of these presentations as we go along so thank you very much for everything I appreciate it thank you uh Mr bennahan I see your hand yes Mother chair thank you so much um that you say I'm trying to sketch from the beginning from George you know like you said trying to get all a question um you're still here yes sir oh how you doing Mr Garcia um difficult question um you

052said when you need to have 170 custodian and so far you have 157 yes okay I just want to you know clear that I know we're going to bring more um we're going to get information in the facility meeting I don't have no questions for you because I trust you and I know you do amazing job and understand you know and I really appreciate your report um Miss Russia um you said and we were talking about you're talking about the school council how many um reports you receive from the school council and um from the school you know your school cancel they give a report on how many or what school have much report they um give it to you so I meet monthly with my department um but they contact me um you know

053when when things arise um we review a lot of reports with the school counseling department we review attendance reports um we review academic reports um when a student is failing classes or multiple classes uh the school counselor will arrange parent meetings um to bring the family in and discuss we also have what I was referring to as the srbi so we review those reports when students are referred to this team so we see how many students are on srbi for each school so we can help provide that layer of support through the Student Success team and then we review academic data so we review our PSAT and our SAT scores to try to identify ways that we can continue to support on the students and I think the last thing that we will report that

054we look at is our community-based referrals and our leap referrals so how many students were referring out to our community-based organizations and how many students were referring for home visits those are all reports that we look at as a department but right now you're going to have a number you know like how many um reports you know your school canceled I'll give it to you um I don't have a number of how many reports no each school counselor means an own reporting system and that gets um those reports get reported directly out to the administrators in the buildings um but then I just provide supervision and and support at the district level thank you the question for you miss Rochester you secretary I got five counselor in One Source their work for the driest you

055know for the drister um student um assistant team that's gonna be that's that's um they run the whole District yes so unfortunately some of our school counselors have very large caseloads um you know for example at black um at Caesar Battaglia there's one school counselor for all of those students and so this team um supports those schools that have really large caseloads um and to provide an extra layer when students need more support than the school feels like they can offer so if I'm the counselor at a school and I have you know a group of students that really need more support than I feel like if I feel like I've exhausted my resources within the school I can look to this team to case manage those students and provide outside community-based referrals and progress

056Monitor and meet with that family and because it is time consuming for a school counselor and and it pulls them out of the classroom a lot and so this team kind of works across the district another really great function of this team since they do work across across the district is they can find what's working in some schools and help replicate it in another school so they have a really nice District lens of what's happening in different schools not to be a very tough and very busy you know job but so you know that's you know I know we're sure you know hope we can have more and you know about this I have to they have to be very busy and very tough they are very busy thank you Miss Russia I'm going to

057miss link now miss Lynn you talk about um yeah just want to know about this um SEL how many staff there are how many staff members that participate on the SEL team yeah um so there's currently 138 SEL team members um so anywhere from three to four at each School of course they have other roles within the district they have their they have certified positions as either a school counselor a social worker or teacher but they also serve as the SEL team members to facilitate activities at their school okay thank you um I know you're talking about the program I really correctly fast run the way I said new seller Newsela yeah that program it's part of all the specialty students the wonderful that um you can pick the grade level you can cater it

058to the academic needs of the student and a staff member let's say they wanted to talk about empathy they could type in empathy and do a search for empathy for let's say grade they can even go down to lower grade levels if they let's say they had an eighth grader that maybe was reading a sixth grade level they could type in empathy sixth grade and pull up all articles related to empathy into a whole class lesson on that thank you and do you have a parents that volunteered you know help you with the program um you know with the program you're running do you have volunteer and also I know you said a survey but you how many researchers servers you received back I just sent out the survey today we're Distributing it via um

059electronic resources but we're also having hard copies of the survey we've had it translated into Spanish as well um so that was sent out through our parent leaders but administrators will also receive that I have a QR code in the link and again the hard copy will be sent given to administrators as well do you have parents volunteer help you with the program are you referring to the parent handbook no yeah yeah so we I do have a few parent volunteers that would like to participate I believe there's about four currently um but I will be doing more recruiting tomorrow at our parent Roundtable at Harding High School and I see you say something and I said um in your presentation about LGBT yeah and I see that and that's very important and because I

060know a lot of kids a lot of students I don't want to see you know if they hire they scared to talk about the the situation and that's going to other schools they already open and they're very welcome and they got programs and they have so many things what principal schools have to um support on this case I say you have any presentation but I would like to help you in a work like you know with that situation because I know kids sometimes they cannot speak um with their parents but they can speak for somebody else and let them know listen the door is open for you 100 we're here for you so I just want to know what and what what we can do to help all these students in this situation yeah you

061know I really appreciate that question because I agree with you 100 that it's such an important topic that we embed into our conversation at all schools um I will say that triangle Community Center does a wonderful presentation I've seen them present to staff to students they presented to our school counselors as well and they are willing to present to parents they provide a very um non-intimidating uh wonderful overview and just to have a welcoming way of engaging parents and staff members in conversation so I think that they're they are great Partners to engage in the process and help walk us through it for sure and I know you see um the school uniform I like I appreciate that and that's great to have that I know we have the um it's going to be the

062new practice BTS for president pastoranger high school she's working she's doing I know just I believe she spoke to you she's trying to collect more uniform for our cases when we start back that would be wonderful my what I would like to do is find a way to replenish our supply and keep it available for families now that we have this community closet that we can maintain I would love to continuously fill it with uh uniforms um we're currently low in in small sizes we have a lot of small small children who need uniforms and also I know we work and it's not easy but sometimes they don't give it to you Miss Russia miscellaneous information we need to update the packing PCS so uh this day why because um I know I really know

063we had new leaders and some of them they are not part of the school and they still send you the same information that we don't have you know we don't have that I just want to let you know thank you Miss Lee to have the information out the bulletin boards are costing us 977 dollars and change can you repeat that I believe that it came out to 38 977 and change blow out okay it's four bulletin boards uh they will run between April and into June one starts I believe in May April April now for 2023 no oops say that again you say April now 2023 to June 2023 yes thank you and that I'm just I don't know if you can ask me that question and that man is coming from where I think

064they was part of Esser funds ARP yes sir thank you Marlene I'm just gonna say Marlene thank you missing I appreciate that um and you said um how many vacancy we have um so far 160 170 you say no so we we have true vacancies about 100. we have approximately 50 50 quasi vacancies because they are teachers who are not formally certified so we have we can rehire them for next year but they do that's why I call them quasi vacancies okay and your departments are doing promote they are taking you know sending information out to Harry more staff or people certified are we doing that yes right so we we continuously to put out our job vacancies we've been posting on different platforms we've been intending a lot more job fairs and you know

065we have our two job fairs coming up all right thank you Mr no more questions Madam chair thank you very much for everyone thank you I do see some hands raised um but before I go to them just want to make sure Mr Circle Mr Lombard are you guys okay do you want to add anything before I go to the hands I can wait I have questions no no questions for me all right so miss cashmere I saw you first go right ahead I stand corrected uh Miss Brown I'm sorry I did have a question um two quick things the first presenter I'm sorry I was in my car on my way home but what is the name of his Department um building up uh building operations and Facilities building operations and Facilities all right

066I was taking notes I just that's the only part that I didn't get okay thank you um this question is for the student support department um have you seen an increase or a dis decrease or neither with um the Department of Children and Families referrals district-wide I was just wondering that's a very good question um and I wouldn't have that data readily available so I wouldn't feel comfortable making an assumption one way or the other um Dr Young actually is our district liaison for um who works collaboratively collaboratively with DCF I think that that is something that we can definitely look into and provide you with some data around referrals okay thank you you're welcome thank you Miss cat Miss Kashmir uh Miss Baptiste Perez good evening um my first set of questions is for

067human resources um some of the questions were answered where are the location of the Billboards since there's going to be four the Billboards are going to be on Route 9 on 95 and route 8. so I know the there's an electronic billboard that's um exit 27A by the um Arena and the others I believe are on Route 8 there's one and we'll be on 95 in the um Stratford area okay thank you um then my next question was for the delegations of I guess legal representation when we have a chro uh complaint come in uh houses split between the city of Bertram with who's going to represent us honestly I have no idea it's I think um actually I believe the city tends to handle more of the non-certified chros since the again the City

068of Bridgeport owns the Contra collective bargaining agreements with the non-certified staff this city attorneys usually oversee those and then Bertram and Moses oversees the certified staff okay thank you and actually I want to just pivot back to the billboard questions so we're going to have two of the two of our Billboards you're talking about 27A I know that one because I see those Billboards all the time uh there's one when you're going Southbound and one when you're going northbound the both digital Billboards we're going to have um with our advertisement we're gonna have one I'm actually trying to pull up the email that has the actual um locations of all the Billboards um we will have only one of those all right and then I'm going to assume it's much more expensive because I guess

069it's a live billboard with the digital Billboards versus the traditional yes it was more expensive I actually wanted to stay away from the digital because I kind of like the old-fashioned one because that's it it's our billboard it doesn't change on it's not on a rotation but um the billboard I originally wanted was rented so he offered this one which was equivalent um in price and viewings when I looked at all the different Billboards the information he provided was the average uh viewings per I forgot how if it was per day so I tried to pick ones that had the highest viewings and then I tried to pick ones I didn't want to have them too close together so I was trying to figure out location wise and and then um I wanted to try

070to get them a little out of Bridgeport so originally they were supposed to be one in the fair more in Fairfield but that's the one um that was rented and then I and that's why I opted for the one in Stratford okay um in general with the Billboards I think that's an excellent idea that's someone that commutes on the highway I see competing districts advertising in our city so I think it's duly noted that we advertised back in in even in a different District um so I totally agree I don't think there's an issue with the timing from April to June because I've seen other districts post all year long so the need to advertise the availability District um is necessary I also kind of like the digital billboard I don't know you can easily

071tunnel vision ignore the traditional signs but if something's like a flashing light it's more likely to grab someone's attention but that's just my opinion and those are all the questions I have for human resources so thank you Miss Dixon then my next question is for student Support Services I just have a quick question regarding the community closet um I was driving at the time but is the community closet at one particular location I didn't get to see the presentation um is it at multiple locations and then our shoes provided and the reason why I'm being very specific with shoes is I've heard and this may be for a committee but um I've heard stories of students being sent home because they weren't wearing the right sneakers I even think they came up during a pack

072ptsl of students being sent home because they were wearing Uggs to school or something and to that extent and when it comes to uniforms or or clothing options being available so a student doesn't have to be sent home uh what is inside the closet and maybe it how is the district support in the closet is it just by donations is it um how is it being done and I think using this opportunity now to Market that we can probably maybe solicit someone to make donations a great questions and um I would love for that to happen that ultimately again now that we have this that space that is absolutely my goal is to to utilize the space to continue and hopefully receive donations I'm currently and and continuously the the community closet is located at

073Bridgeport Learning Center I maintain hours on Monday afternoons um from 2 to 4 P.M so staff members can stop by and pick up uniforms I've created a Microsoft form staff members complete that in advance so we can then track where we see the most needs not only size but also with school and grade level as well so that's kind of the gist of it in terms of what we Supply we currently have we have shirts so we have pants we have fleece as well uh both along and I should say long and short sleeve shirts and fleece there have been requests for undergarment um they were not in the budget but that was noted that there was a request for that there was also a request by a couple of people for umbrellas for students

074who walked to school in the rain we do not supply shoes at this time but I do recall Miss Baptiste I think that that was at one of the PAC ptso meetings where that question was or that comment was made about the Uggs as well but I think that's I think I covered everything that's at the closet we also actually have um SEL items there we have some some journals for students and families along with some coloring SEL coloring books as well and some mood beader posters so I would love to find a way to continue to maintain that and I'm certainly open to any any suggestions uh no uh thank you for clearing clarifying that um my my last question is actually for you madam chair we've only had three departments present um are

075we going to receive a full list of other departments or is this the only presentation and is this going to be presented to the full board um this is not the only presentation I've mentioned earlier in the meeting that um we didn't want to uh um we didn't want to fill the meeting with just these because we also had other items so miss cashmere and Miss Perrin we thought it would be a good idea to break the Departments up so that each of them will get an opportunity to share um at this meeting um I don't see no problem with adding this to a regular meeting as well um just making sure that that would also need to be planned out so that it doesn't tend to make our meetings long no disrespect to any

076of our staff we appreciate all of your all of your information but we would have to work something out where we have maybe two or three a meeting reporting back so that everyone you know can feel like they're getting all the information on that is presented kind of like what we did with the um the fiscal Department um when Miss Siegel presented so kind of that same vibe that we're trying to aim for but no not all of them will be on tonight but going forward as many we're going to try and get through as many department heads as possible also they all you know all board members can hear and also the community can hear what each department does I just want to piggyback off of Christine's um comment um I I wouldn't have

077been able to make this meeting if the um the charter school meeting was not canceled so yeah that's why I had originally requested is that if these meetings can be moved to the to our regular board meeting I understand that we have long agendas but even if it's just one department just one at each board meeting until we can kind of make a dent in it um I think we'll be very very helpful I just wanted to say that um I like I said I see no problem with it I think um the the initial side of it and I I probably missed that part of the email where the request was for these to be at regular meetings but I I in the interest of time being that we should I I personally think

078it should start at the committee level and then you know see how many we can get through here and anything else we could provide at the regular board meeting um that's just my thoughts um but I will like I said I will see what Mr Lombard thinks and any of the other committee members think as well I mean any of the board members all right uh Mr Lombard I know you had questions thank you so thank you all for your presentations and I just have some questions and follow-up regarding what you presented today a couple things that stuck out in my mind so I'll go and order the presentation so Mr Garcia um just wanted to ask you if you would to elaborate a little bit on the smart schools initiative I you talked about

079it briefly I think I have an idea of what it is but just so just so there could be a good understanding of what it would provide what it would offer uh given the possible the financial investment that would require to do so that's my first question so um the smart school initiative is something that we're working towards um as we uh submit for this department of energy Grant so the the concept behind it is that you know as we start to evolve as a school district and our buildings are becoming smarter and we start to recalibrate and and get things to work at the level they need to we like to have more control over these facilities so pretty much any sensor that's in that building we like we'd like to have control over

080whether it's lighting um energy conservation measures water um HVAC control uh just about everything can be pulled down to the system and then we will get alerts um and we can manage the process a lot more succinctly in terms of how we manage our buildings so for instance if we see that there's a spike in water uh you know we can start to do a deeper dive to see if there's something that uh may be broken or a leak somewhere if we see that there's a spike in energy um you know that that will lead us to to take a deeper dive and see what's going on and then indoor inequality will get alerts if there's any spikes in uh any kind of vocs so you know we see that you know as we start

081to evolve as a district we need to find tools that'll help us manage as we work with less uh staff that doesn't mean that we still can't get the same job done okay you said that you're writing trying to write a grant for that yes so we're working along with UConn on that Grant currently and um we're also working on a parallel Grant with the with the Department of energy with the Board of Ed um Grants Department Dara and Jones okay thank you and the other thing I just wanted you talked about the new what was it the health and safety or the Safety Committee yeah and just to point out what you may very well know already that the new facilities committee well the facilities committee has now merged with the health and safety

082committee here on the board so it's all in one on our side okay thank you uh so the next um is for Miss Stevens and Miss rotarys um my first question is could you tell me a little bit more specifically what is the walking School Bus absolutely so um it's essentially where you would have it can be formatted where you have parents who are walking students to school or you have staff members that are walking students to school and they essentially the staff members or the parents would pair up and they would go from home to home and pick up students at that home and walk them to the school and then conversely they could also walk them home from school okay and and what is the status of that right now it's it's currently

083just in up for discussion uh Reed school has proposed that they would be willing to Pilot it if it was approved we've been advised there's actually a website called thewalkingschoolbus.org and it's extremely comprehensive it advises that you start very small within a neighborhood and you identify a specific perhaps a specific day of the week that you would want to to use um and they've shown that many many schools see a growth in their attendance as more and more families engage in this walking School Bus okay thank you and my other I don't know if it's a question or asking for just for some elaboration on the the magnitude of SEL activities that that happens for the general population as opposed to only those who are identified and just just your typical identified students because most

084of what I've heard over the years has been about SEL for those who have already been identified having needs what I'm wondering about how much has it trickled out to just the general population so I appreciate that question that's a great question um you know we we see social emotional learning as needed for all students so the focus really is to for all schools all staff members to be working with students on really what we identify as those five Castle competencies so the self-awareness you know the self-management the responsible decision making and then the social awareness and the relationship skills those are essential life skills that students need um that they will need throughout their life but also many of those skills are needed just to learn to to before you can do math and

085reading sorry all those academic people out there you need to be socially adjusted and be able to place where you can learn so it's for all students so there has there been an uptick in activities for them or how is that how's it translating yeah absolutely so I mean the uptick really is um again filtered through our SEL team members at each school so in addition to the four members many of the schools have a larger s school-based SEL teams that meet regularly to discuss their SEL activities so we we monitor move this world usage there is an expectation that that teachers within grades pre-k through eight will be using move this world at least three times per week within their classroom we monitor the different types of activities and engagements that students are having

086within the classroom as well and we also you know we've we've done some early data and I'd be happy to present on it in more detail but our early Research indicates that those schools that we've identified as having strong SEL teams who also have restorative practices facilitators at those schools have lower levels of chronic absenteeism so we're seeing a direct correlation between the engagement of students when SEL is happening at that school okay thank you very much you're welcome and my last question is for Miss alter Dixon so I was involved at the committee level before it came to the full board with the cross endorsement process continuing it from last year and for some subjects for the first time this year but I'm just going to ask you to discuss a little bit about

087specifically the one you mentioned with the cross endorsement for special education and because I think of that as such a very unique complex uh uh area for a teacher to be able to administer and I'm not saying Math and Science language art also but there's some so many more things that go into uh special ed in addition to just con only not just but only content so what type of ongoing support is there for those people who are getting endorsed by taking the exam and not by having taken the classes in it first of all let me again apologize for my I don't know if it's a cold or allergies but so I'm a little stuffy the special ed it is not they can't just take an exam they actually have to go through the

088co the train uh classes um we do crack Arc is um I believe Ark is our program that we use for the cross endorsement and also Southern um Southern Connecticut also has a program that we're using where the the staff member goes through the classes so special ed is it it's not like math and science where you could just sit for an exam you actually have to have the credits and special education before you can become endorsed in Special Ed and it's the same thing with language is it's not just a simple taking of the test not that it's simple but um you do need to actually have coursework and a minimum amount of credits in that in those areas so for special ed it is a um the first round three it's a one-year

089program and we're still working out the Kinks that we saw with the first round of this where we do need to focus more on ongoing and support from the special ed supervisors because you're right it is it's far beyond just teaching in a classroom there are so many other components that go into being a successful special ed teacher so we're we're still learning and we've been working a lot more with the special ed Department to ensure that going forward the people who do get the cross endorsement are also receiving the proper support and professional development and ongoing support from from us okay thank you that's very assuring reassuring thank you you're welcome that's all Madam's here thank you Mr circle of it no questions all right um I only have a question let me just

090pull it up real quick um my question is um for Miss Dixon for the job postings and career postings are those also linked to the libraries the local libraries because I know um even in just my own job in New Haven we utilize the libraries as well for those that are coming in and that could be for a variety of reasons but is that something or is that something we can do if we haven't already started I would love that um no we're not linked up to the lot with the libraries so that is definitely something I'll have to look into I think that's a great idea I mean we we want to get our job postings out anywhere and everywhere and the more Avenues or Outlets we can use the better yeah so I

091I definitely think that um will be beneficial because I know a lot of teachers and I have a few uh teacher friends um in different districts and they still use the library I mean I know internet is everything but there's nothing better than a hardcover book so just you know putting certain things in different places may be um beneficial and then I lied I do have a question for no no it's for you Miss Dixon still um I do appreciate the billboard um that has been and Miss Siegel can tell you from the very beginning that was one thing that we definitely wanted coming out of The Branding initiative committee um and then miss Carly also you know Miss Carly and miss Lynn did a really good job with the attendance campaign you know seeing

092you know seeing how that is um and just from being in the marketing side of the house um the a lot of the billboard companies are going towards digital because they're getting more and more so you you're probably going to see as much as we want the hardcover ones they're going to slowly Fade Out and everything is going to be digital because it's easier to get more than one in a in a platform so I'm glad that we're actually doing that and I'm excited to see what um what likes you know we'll get from it not really clicks but um likes the analytics we'll get from it and see where um people will have better exposure because I think the attendance campaign was really really well done um so shout out to miss Lynn and

093Miss Carly um so hopefully you know it works really well um and I'm looking forward to see what we could do on getting recruitment measures um out there and getting teachers into our district but I think that is all that I have I do see one more hand I'll go back to Mr benningham before we go back to our agenda items Mr binahan so go ahead you have the floor thank you madam chair really appreciate that I'm going to uh miss Lynn um and I'm going with Mr Lamarck said when you say walking School Bus please correct me if I'm wrong you said the staff go to to home to pick up the um bring the student on school that is what point but it is what is proposed we currently um have leap funding

094so we could use our leap home visitors that are already going to homes to facilitate this activity as a pilot it's a good idea of course we want our students you know learning to educate but don't worry about the step of the safety issue you know and worry about safety Union all the Styles I don't want the stuff girl you know got hurt with 2023 I think good things happen bad things happen so I want to be sure you know the safety or the staff you know worry about that thank you I agree and I I have to say this I cannot shut my mouth but the bulletin board is like I was going price up like when you buy the dozen egg in the supermarket everything is going not too expensive I'm still thinking

095that I'm still thinking about that but I have to say you know no more questions no more coming Madam chair thank you all right well again thank you to all the staff members that provided um updates and uh we'll continue to uh bring on more so that until we get to the entire list and just also want to remind everyone that this is also recorded So I really hope I know a lot of us do share this um so any parent that may be listening and you know you may have missed a meeting this is also online for you to to play back and hear what their committees are and what they do I'm not committees what the department has to do so I'm really excited thank you ladies and gentlemen for joining us this

096evening um no problem we're gonna move uh further into our committee um our agenda I'm sorry the next is Mr piras with an either Mr Pirates or Miss eagle with an update on the crisis Management District RFQ go ahead Miss Siegel oh yes good evening to everyone Mr Perez I think you're aware is away in Portugal on family emergency um the public relations RFP closed on March 16th uh there are six vendors who submitted responses uh to the RFP uh Miss Pirates sent the evaluation workbook to the four members of the evaluation committee and those members are the superintendent excuse me the superintendent uh the Chief Financial Officer myself uh the Executive Director of Human Resources and the director of specialized instruction uh the due date for Return of the evaluation workbook is uh this

097Friday March 31st and upon the return we will tally the ratings in one chart and rank the totals the vendor ranked number one will be the selectee subject to approval of course of a contract by the Board of Education and approval of the City Board of purchasing in accordance with standard operating practice next we will develop a draft contract with the vendor requests review by the City attorney and bring the draft contract to the contracts committee uh together with the rating chart if the contract committee gives approval then the contract will be presented to the full board for approval and after the board gives approval we'll proceed to the City Board of purchasing but we will be able to proceed once the uh City Water purchasing approves uh with the signatures um and then the

098contract will be in place uh if uh there are public relations uh tasks that are needed in the current school year and um thereafter for the term of the contract thank you so much Miss Eagle for that update really appreciate it um we look forward to hearing um um we look forward to seeing the process through um through committees that needs to go through so thank you you're welcome um the next item is discussion impossible approval of the moul group agreement with ryssap week program to expand support for the learning and Bridgeport Public School District I believe this is Miss Clark how are you yes good evening everyone and I just have to clarify uh the name of the program is um The Learning engagement and attendance program leap and expanded came in an unfortunate

099place so it is just a continuation of the work that um we were funded on uh in our first year the contract actually came to us uh via CES so those of you um sitting on the board might have remembered that we gave a large contract out to ricef for this particular work but it was under another fund Source um this is obviously State motivated but this second year actually came directly from the state and we are given an additional amount of money and so that's why we're bringing this back uh the amount that this contract is proposes for forty four thousand five hundred and fifty two dollars um the riosap team is providing uh home visiting services and chronic absenteeism services and so I asked Carly uh to stay on and Lynn stayed on

100as well because uh their presentation earlier this afternoon talked a lot about leap they would be able to give you some updates as to what Rios app has been doing and continue to do while we focused on this really larger War we got from the state our award was a total of eight hundred thousand dollars and we are doing lots of great work as you heard and there's this very smaller contract to Rios app to help support the work is Carly and miss Lynn you want to add anything else sure um so Lynn directly oversees but I'll just I'll kind of set the stage and then I think she's still on um so yes as uh Miss Clark shared we received 800 000 from the Connecticut State Department of Education to continue our leap work

101um and so we are using the majority pretty much all of that um to conduct these home visits um because we have had an increase in staff that are interested and we've also seen the benefit of the home visits um with the data and the data that was just released um an evaluation done by the Connecticut State Department of Education so we know that they work we know that they're important to build those relationships and we continue our partnership with rice app to utilize some of their staff to support our staff in the home visits and also to be that connection between the home visits and other Community Partners and agencies that can provide additional support then I'll pass it to you it sounds like you just you pretty much covered it I apologize I

102had to take a quick call from a principal but um we you know we we really have had such a strong outpouring from our staff members who are interested in engaging with families and we've seen that it's very important that staff members um be able to represent the specific schools that they're located at because they have the information about that school oftentimes they know the families so that's been a really important piece of that um so we've even moved away from having perhaps a staff member from another school engage with a family from an alternate school because it seems to be more effective if the staff members actually exist at that school thank you ladies so much Miss Clark is there anything else you want to add uh no this is a standard boilerplate contract

103that we've been receiving from legal so there are no substantial changes there's obviously a statement of work in there um we would appreciate if you guys would move this to the next step so we can solidify this continued relationship with Rios app and complete this really great work which we've been getting really great accolades from the state on for this LEAP program thank you I'll before we do that I'll open up the floor for any questions or concerns from board members I'll start with Mr Lombard any questions no concerns or questions thank you thank you uh Mr Bennigan yes I don't have no question about um uh Miss Clark say now I'm going back a little bit if you don't mind very fast um oh my God sorry it was so many things at the

104same time oh my God I'm gonna pass I was just remember I'll let you know sorry I just forgot Mr circle of it uh no questions I just had a big session Deja Vu because it seems like I heard it only yesterday okay all right um Miss Baptiste Perez no questions uh Miss Cashmere no questions thank you all right now I'm circled back to you Mr Bennigan has your question come back okay go no keep going keep going come back come back in I I have to think about it I just woke up I don't know why I was gonna move to um I was going to move to have Mr Lombard make a motion so you're the last one okay I'm assuming that's a no no just forgot anything you might email you okay

105perfect um Mr Lombard would you like to make a motion sure I moved to approve to move to the full to the full board mou agreement with ryasap LEAP program to expand support for learning in Bridgeport School District second all in favor aye aye any opposed any abstentions Karen not Miss Clark if you could just provide me the correct language uh um because I you know we were just going off of what was in the thing so if you could just give me the correct one and I'll make sure it's added to the agenda yes all right uh Mr binahan yes I remember the question now I thank you madam chair I'm going back what um Akisha said when she's talking about each department having um every time we have our board the kitchen meeting

106do you remember that all right yes but okay my my little suggest is just is I'm not talking you can um agreed that later with the the board members as me as a student and family Let's see we have each department here we can bring it to the committee and then we can do a report and then we'll bring it to you when we do about location so we don't have like you said our meetings get longer like uh right now working with um Russia and Miss Lima one of my best staff we can talk about the each department and then we bring it I bring it to you to mind you know to about the case you mean a little report I just suggest that you know so we came here on the same

107page that's all thank you and share all right thank you um the next item is discussion oh I already read that one the next one is discussion and possible approval on the agreement to provide uh proposal to develop services to the Bridgeport Public Schools for the development of a proposal submissions to the U.S Department of Education Magnet School assistant program that is a mouthful and it is correct so this contract that's being presented it's by metis and Associates the total uh proposed is 43 637 uh Medics Associates will work with the district on the development of its msap which is that uh launcher explanation uh application for this cycle um I just want to be very clear Fairchild wheeler was started with a very large Grant from this program in 2013 uh when we received

108that original award and so we have been trying for the last couple of years to receive a new award unfortunately we've not been successful uh the first time we tried again was in 2016 we had support of uh the grant writer who was also the evaluator on the grant um and we were not successful in that 2016 our grant originally went from 2013 through 20 17 we tried again in 2017 writing ourselves with a newer plan we were rejected and then we tried during the pandemic that cycle was expanded in terms of the deadline and we were also not successful we actually got really close we got really good feedback but we just didn't make it and so as we're looking at doing lots of additional expansions and you know having new team members in

109the district again this is something that we've been pursuing for years what is the way that we ensure that we could get closer to what we felt was that lightening in a bottle in that 2013 year which is to work with an agency that is well known for you know getting Awards and um unfortunately our prior grant writer evaluated from 2013 they have um since retired and no longer doing this type of work and medis was met by Dr Baldwin and we interviewed them and we feel really strongly that they can take our vision and work with the team to get a really good proposal out we are moving very quickly we've been aware of these Cycles it's been a long time trying to find the right fit for us the RFP came out from

110the federal government and you would feel that they would have given us lots of time Unfortunately they didn't the application is going to be due May 15th and so we would like to move very quickly with on bringing on medicine uh so that it can start getting as much information uh from the district and and you know writing out a really good proposal plan okay so I'm just gonna be very honest I don't know exactly what you're saying so okay like and maybe it's just me but just like what like what will go into this particular work so I don't know if I'm the only one but uh just uh just maybe you did and I just didn't get it so that's exactly what will metas be doing I guess that's what it is they

111will be writing our entire application so um The Proposal is um at least 120 something pages long it's filled of a lot of different content so it's going to have a narrative section on an abstract section it's going to have collection of lots and lots of tables um so as you would be aware for the magnet schools there is a desegregation plan that needs to go in we need to collect data focus on you know really having an interesting plan that we are not doing something another magnet school is doing so that we do make it to final round so it's really working along those lines and uh this group has worked with other you know districts and cities most recently I believe they worked with Waterbury and except for Asus magnet program if I

112just actually saw a commercial for the TV for them they were successful in the last round so they have over 20 years of experience of putting together proposals and applications and they have agreed also to become our evaluator which is good because because then they're working with us on our proposal plan and then they'll help us on that evaluation part as well traditionally these grants can go up to five years and it's a 15 million dollar um proposed if we do this right and we get what we need um we could get up to 15 million dollars so looking at the cost for um them to work independently again we have tried for several years with the school principals working with our office to get it together a federal grants are really large this is

113going to the Department of Education it's very intensive this particular program uh do we write federal grants in the grants Office 100 have we gotten them 100 this particular program it's very specific I think they look for rain name recognition we know that happened in 2013 and we're trying to get to that same bit and medicine is the associates came to us as uh you know promise group and we you know interviewed them and felt that they would be able to get us you know again nothing is guaranteed but it's worth us putting our hat in the ring uh to see what can happen got it I understand now um I'll open up the floor for uh questions and comments and concerns uh Mr Lombard no thank you for asking for clarification I appreciate it

114problem Mr sokolovic yeah if if you're a better woman what would you think that increase in odds were by engaging this firm uh honestly I have been on the mantra for the last couple of years do the opposite of what you've been doing and as I indicated we we've been trying internally working with the school uh great principals assistant principal writing coming up with plans doing a lot of leg work and like I said we have not been successful I have really seen that name recognition particularly for this program matters uh seeing that you know medicine was most recently you know awarded for Aces and Waterbury and other communities around this country I think that you know again there's no guarantee but this is the opposite of what we've been doing for the last three

115or four Cycles on our own so it's to me at least worth the effort so no bets but I think I agree okay 20 increase 40 increase all right Mr bennahan any questions comments or concerns no no question at this moment no comment thank you Miss Clark always you know give you a good report we you know very appreciated thank you thank you Miss Baptiste Perez um well the first comment I do have to say is the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting an outcome and so the last time we received the grant you said was in 2013 correct so it's been 10 years of not receiving that funding source so uh something different we're probably five years too late to implement something different um to do it

116so whatever's going to increase the odds uh potentially receiving the grant now do we know for that particular Grant and you may have just answered that but it was oversight on my part but for that particular Grant have they helped a different school system in Connecticut receive it like did you say Waterbury received the grant yeah Aces yes Aces is located in Waterbury and they just opened a new magnet program and I do not have the name in front of me although I sold a commercial just the other day I can get that to you if you're interested and a list of other awards that they have um garnered for this program as well no Dynamics I mean we have to make the I mean if we get it it's going to be a huge

117return on investment is that correct oh 100 15 million dollars over 60 months 100 for forty three thousand dollars I mean Miss Clark doesn't have to be the betting person we as a board will eventually have to approve this or not correct oh obviously I'm just gonna leave my comment there thank you all right uh Miss cashmere any questions comments or concerns no thank you I'm good thank you all right thank you again Miss Clark I'm going to turn it uh to see if Mr Lumber would like to make a motion yes he would I mean I would um I'm gonna do my best with this wording I'm not quick so that can make a motion to to move to the full board for approval an agreement to provide proposal development services on the Bridgeport

118Public Schools for the development of proposal for submission to the U.S department of education's magnet schools assistance program second all in favor aye aye any opposed any abstentions here and none um Miss Clark if if this is the correct language I won't ask you to change it uh so it'll be added agenda um there are no other items on our agenda for this evening I will entertain a motion to a journey motion to adjourn like it all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions here and none everyone have a good night thank you for the great work good night see you have a good night thank you thanks