BBOE Teaching & Learning Committee Meeting Wednesday, October 26, 2022 6:30 PM

001okay it's doing it good evening today is October 26 2022 the time now is 6 37 p.m this is a call to order for the teaching and learning committee of the Bridgeport Board of Education in attendance we have a Committee Member um Joe Lombard Joseph Lombard and committee chair myself Christine Baptiste Perez the first item that we have on our agenda oh and also in attendance sorry as board member Joseph sokolovic uh the first item on tonight's agenda is approval of minutes from September 27 2022. um for the approval it's approved I second the approval of the minutes from September 27 2022 is there any discussion or edits no okay seeing that there's none all in favor for approval of the minutes from September 22nd 2022 say aye aye the motion passes unanimously we'll now

002move on to the next item on the agenda which is discussion and possible action regarding High Horizon magnets field trip to the New England Aquarium and the Science Museum in Boston Massachusetts on December 5th 2022. so good evening who do I have here from high Horizons hi I'm Francine Carbone I'm the principal at high Horizons oh good evening Miss Carbone thank you for being here and I also have my teacher Timmy and social studies teacher from high Horizons as well good evening uh could you just share with the board a little bit about this trip sure um this is something that I've been doing um since uh about 2005 um when I was a Thomas Hooker and um we we start out in the fall either going to um to Boston for a day to

003the Museum of Science and and we have been doing uh um a duck boat tour to make it a social studies and science trip um and then alternate years we go to New York City to see the Statue of Liberty in 911. um and in the springtime we go to either Washington DC um or or Boston or Philly and we alternate years in that so uh this year we had planned to go into um uh in October and um with the new new schedule and of having things in time we just didn't get in in time so we decided to make this an all science trip and uh we switched from the duck boat since it would be too cold this late in the year and we've moved on to the aquarium so um you

004know this is a great opportunity for the kids to uh to experience an amazing Museum in the Boston Museum of Science and then next next year we'll actually go to the um Ben Franklin um Institute in uh Philadelphia so we'll we'll kind of um touch it often and it's still a social studies trip because I'm on the bus and I'm near the microphone and uh I'm going to be telling kids a lot about what was seen when we're in in Boston I'll open the floor up to committee Members First do you have any questions or comments no I have no questions it sounds great I'll open the floor up to board members and questions comments sounds good to me every day that was nice I looked through it everything appears to be here on my

005end for a compliance checkpoint um being that there's no questions or comments um at this time I'll entertain a motion to approve this guilt trip and send it to the full board so I moved I'll clarify my statement I'll entertain a motion to refer to the full board High Horizons magnet field trip to the New England Aquarium and Science Museum in Boston Massachusetts on December 5th 2022. so moved I'll second it all in favor aye aye the motion passes so at our next regular board meeting in approximately two weeks um it'll be presented to the board and it should be approved or any board members may have questions okay thank you very much all right thank you both have a good thank you thank you okay so we're going to now move to the third

006item on the agenda which is a presentation and discussion with Community Life Solutions Reset program at Wilbur Cross School today in attendance we have in person Christine McFarland if you actually come to the main table over here so we can catch you on the microphone and then we also have Mr Eugene Allen you can turn on your microphone and then is the other Gentleman on the screen with you guys as well I'm not Tim Grady Tim oh that's true um show Sean oh yes is um yeah she's a parent okay oh so sorry all right okay yeah okay so did you want to introduce the program to four members and committee members just if there's a presentation they can actually put it up now as well okay yeah so um I submitted I submitted a

007document that actually addresses all of your concerns as far as the overall program and overview of the program and um answered your questions and bullet point about the program so that we could um so it could be clarified those things that wasn't clear to you so um I want to start with introducing a program that we originally introduced and it is the out of school suspension therapeutic program for the children and the City of Bridgeport but a strong focus on Wilbur cross at this point I'm the program will provide therapeutic trauma informed supports and programming um for middle school children ages 11 to 13. um he's with us yeah okay introduce yourself I'm sorry that's okay nice to meet you would it be easier to sit next to yes yes okay um and it is

008um serving children ages uh 11 to 13 grades six through eight for out of school suspension and programming the program will offer families a safe place for children to spend um out of school suspension that includes therapeutic support homework completion tutoring behavior modification planning support and therapeutic family um support services and program plans to provide services to children that attends Wilbur cross Middle School located in the City of Bridgeport um so I wanted to go back so initially our evidence-based program model um did discuss three schools but because um there's a strong focus on this school we had to do some changes within the model but the model is basically the same it's not a whole lot of changes just the numbers change a little bit because we focused on this one school within the

009model within this particular the goal is to provide the children and families with support in the areas of improvement family Dynamics um improves behavior for the child in the community within the family um and school Personnel so we expect for children to have a better relationship with the with the community with school and within the family Dynamics I'm a child developer strong will to succeed in school by reducing or eliminating suspension through the model offered by the Reset Program the idea of the models is to instill feelings of reciting for a better understanding of starting over for a better tomorrow um so when we discussed one of the questions that Miss baptiste's had about the model and about the program was Will what type of Staff would be on um what type of Staff will

010we have how does the Staffing pattern look so we described it as um always and at all times having a licensed social worker um with a lmsw which is a licensed Master social worker will have a licensed clinical social worker and we will have a licensed mental health um provider on staff at all times there's going to be at least three student tutors that's a sign from Sacred Heart University that's that's already on board to provide academic tutoring to the participants with academic concerns what we would like to offer from the program is um virtual Learning and Development educational development behavior modification preventative intervention safe recreational peer environment family therapy family crisis management emergency Temple where we care um child care services mentoring um programs and financial aid assistance when necessary the need for the

011program at this time is our vision is to reset is in the Reset program is to turn out of school suspension into a positive tool for Behavior change middle school students between age uh 11 and 13 would be targeted we need the help of the students parents program designer curriculum to make this a success many schools are rightfully concerned about the number of students of all ages who are suspended or expelled for misbehavior this concern stems from the overpresentation of certain minority groups among those suspended or expelled and Bridgeport we need more solutions to help students who are struggling with behavior not more suspensions out of schools out of school suspensions referred to suspension of um of school privileges or transportation services for no more than 10 consecutive days um Bridgeport is one of the

01210 districts in the state with the lowest academic performance among students and then we took a look at East Hall where we took a look at Harvard Meriden New Britain New Haven New London Norwich um and Waterbury and Windham were also among the list when we looked at Wilbur cross they fall within the 50 percent um lowest here in the um state of Connecticut excuse districts are known as Alliance District suspension explosion rates in those districts are 9.8 percent in middle schools and 11.8 percent in high schools disciplining students are far more likely to drop out and become involved with Juvenile justice system and unfortunately in Bridgeport we rely heavily on punitive and harsh discipline which is ineffective and we issue more suspensions than diplomas each years each year students are suspended for a variety

013of reasons including school policy violations we came up with the numbers we came up with the um with the data around that so we have fighting and Battery physical verbal confrontation drugs Alcohol Tobacco property damage sexually related Behavior theft violent crimes weapons um account for seven percent of suspensions with personal threatening behavior accounting for six percent out of school suspension is awarded to Black and Hispanic students at a high at a slightly higher rate than our white students we're owning sanctions resulting from school policy violations or examine this pattern persist furthermore students who receive at least one disciplined sanction achieve significantly lower rates than other no disciplined peers according to the data there is evidence of this proportionality in the application of sanctions across all student groups specifically race and gender the majority of disciplinary

014sanctions continue to be based on violations of school policies such as disrespect disruption and insubordination students who receive disciplinary sanctions have significant attendance and performance issues what we found was some of the needs are effective academic support for students development of students social skills positive reinforcement systems firm fear and corrective discipline discipline individual behavior management plans parent training and collaboration school-based peer mentor mentors um so that is a that's the program um the idea of the program in a nutshell um as we go through we start to discuss the budget but one of the things that we do want to present about this program it is um designed to be a wrap around program so we have out of school suspensions that helps parents not have to worry about their kids when they do receive

015out of school suspensions by worrying about having to go to work and not being able to go to work whether the child could actually um it's going to actually do the homework or actually actually be able to keep up with his um peers and keep up with the work in school when missing days out of school um therefore we offer after school program in the after school program we'll go ahead and engage in some academic work not to take away from what happens in the school during the day with teachers but to give the child um that extra attention around particular subjects that may be challenging to him that may have led to the behavior that may have caused the suspension and we have the next wraparound program that will happen and that is the

016Saturday Academy in the Saturday Academy which will happen twice out of the month the child will attend the Saturday Academy the child will engage in other um and other things that's more fun learning activities Community inclusion within the city and out of the city um will will identify particular topics for that particular child on that particular Saturday will um engage your child and volunteer services um and other community collaborative um systems that we have in place and um um mentoring we have a mentoring program that's what that's a part of the Saturday Academy um which is also um available to any of the students but but particularly the students that that engage in Reset Program um where we have all my girls which is uh uh particularly um geared around females and all my boys

017which is continuing particularly gearing around working with young boys um uh do you mind if I just make a brief also like this entertain any questions yes at this time it sounds very uh interesting good um so that's how I understand I did read it while you were talking so I was trying to do um so the that you mentioned there's two different programs in here they're talking about the Saturday Academy and it's three different programs within the Reset program and we designed it as a wrap around program we feel like one um with the evidence evidence-based model that we put together with the data and with you know the actual set is that one program will work best with the other and with the other another one will work best and with that we

018come with a common goal well the reset is the name of the whole yes and there's the three things yes once the in-school support for people who are going toward that direction yes possibly yes and the other is the out of school and the other is the Saturday yes out of school is that something that would be all if they're if they're suspended to the maximum 10 days would be for all 10 days yes okay and is that happening at the school that is happening outside of the school if a child is suspended before um 12 um p.m we'll come we'll pick the child up we'll continue the suspension for that day and for the duration of the suspension if a child is suspended at 12 p.m then the suspension will will resume the next

019following day for the duration of the suspension so it would be the same school hours it would be the same school hours school hours um and uh so the three there were the three social workers yes and then there were two teaching AIDS from Sacred Heart Is that what it was yes all right um and so this is something that potentially could be every day of the school year yes cycle of people being suspended yes so these these two people from Sacred Heart I saw there was a pay a salary for them um that's something they're committing to like a year or something or yes they're committing to that for um employment I personally am for credits so I'll yeah we'll go ahead and give them their um field work credits oh I'm so sorry

020oh the Sacred Heart Will yeah so so they're they're in the education program and they're doing this there's like it's like a paid internship yes okay yes right but it's not paid by Sacred Hearts it's paid by the program by the program um and so it's like for for a semester for them for a class so you might have different ones the fall semester than the spring semester yes okay all right yes um and um I just have a lot of questions that's fine so now is this a brand new initiative or is already happening when we're crossing well at this at this particular time we started with the Saturday Academy so that's the um this this the whole program is a new initiative again we created the evidence-based program we created the way we're

021going to collect the data and um just to make sure that this this model is actually a working model so it is being rolled out as a pilot but we've been doing the work for many years we've been doing this work for over 15 years collaboratively I have some of the best people on the team right now that specialize in those particular areas that's going to make this program work and um this is a program that's been started already we already started the Saturday Academy and we have one of the parents that decided to come on and discuss how that has been great for us that's at Main Street that's the one yes that's the building at Main Street so I'll sign it 10 to 15 or else yes okay I didn't read the very

022last part you talked about it because over capacity what would happen um so if it happened to go under capacity was one of the concerns okay we have 10 slots for the school I doubt 10 kids are going to be suspended in a day I'm not sure if you know I'm sure if they are it's not out of school suspension they're going to be some in school we may have one or two that may happen in a particular day or one or two or three that happens in a week but those slots we still want to fill with some work so that means that we will go go ahead and ask the school if you have a child after struggling today and that child just can't seem to adjust today send that child to us

023today so we'll make sure no on a school day and we'll make sure that that child can really adjust reset and be back in the classroom tomorrow um our data shows that if a child attends our program is very unlikely that he'll be suspended at least within the next 30 days there should be no suspension once he attends our program just once picking up things if you want to go ahead oh I oh do you have any questions just a couple of couple of practical considerations um say somebody to get a child gets suspended before noon on that day somebody will pick them up and take them how do you obtain parental permission for that child who's transporting them and well they have the proper insurances attached to the vehicle because when a non- Bridgeport

024Public School vehicle is used to transport students as special requirements insurance requirements required yes so um that's a great question so one of the um things we do without intake packet is we have the parents sign off on all of those consents um and this has been happening without the school systems support right so we worked as a therapeutic clinical based um trauma-informed program for many years so we have that documentation in place with the support of DCF our staff have the proper Insurance to transport kids all of our staff has liability insurance um all the contractors have their own liability insurance but they fall under one fiduciary with me um we have DCF trainings in place um we're all of our staff are trained on um reporting and um all of the trainings that

025DCF will roll out for any caregiver or any provider that's providing services to them we we follow their policy and procedures as far as um doing that type of um of work with the with the kids right um if we have an mou with the school we would then have to incorporate what the school system would allow in collaboration with DCF and in collaboration with our own policies so we would definitely follow everybody's policy to make it as safe as possible but yes we plan to transport like we do now we transport the kids on Saturdays to um in the community and we all have insurances that that cover sales trans that transportation and what kind of background checks will be performed on the students and the none yeah is um we have DCF background

026checks that has to happen and we have the federal and state background checks that's on that's in everybody's file including myself okay Mr Lombard has a question yeah can you tell me a little bit about what it is you're doing already you said you were doing it now but not with that relationship per se with the school formalized how is this working now okay so I'm going to let Gene um respond to that because Gene is on the front line with that work right now all right can you guys hear me yes okay yeah I'm Eugene Allen I'm a I'm a contractor I'm actually uh a provider with the state of Connecticut uh DCF private and also Department of Developmental Services a little bit quickly a little bit about my background I worked for the

027state for 20 plus years as a case manager in juvenile detention I worked with your kids that you know you guys had no idea because a lot of them were incarcerated at the time uh I'm also a foster parent I've been doing this what I'm doing now Christine what Christine is not telling you is and I'm going to let the rabbit cat out of the bag with them is that we started developing this program about five or six years ago when she was uh a clinical worker at uh a foster care agency that contracted me to work with the most difficult my agency Safeway Family Services to work with some of the most difficult behavior challenge kids that you possibly could come and come across as a matter of fact one of the the model

028for this program was actually from a Bridgeport School System he was in the foster care system and we had developed a system a wraparound system to help this child um and it started with you know be honest with you flying by the seat of our plants all of us kind of taking our experiences we started writing it down what we were doing with this particular kid and you know get suspended from school uh can't give you his name but I can share he went to actually went to uh boys and girls Village but he's from Bridgeport his kid got suspended from school fighting trauma based extreme trauma-based behavior and we had to stabilize this kid uh this kid was uh actually hospitalized because he can tell you several times almost they weekly sometimes a month

029and we develop a program that was incentive based because that was that was what one of the things that we worked we were dealing with kids in detention we had to work work out something that would get get a kid motivated to behave themselves or to try to get into a regular routine to help do themselves we had to develop a community for the kid for a car child who didn't have the community what we try what we're doing right now with the Saturday Academy and we work with Mr Sean's kids here is we you know we started this we said okay what would be the easiest look well when you're working with Children and Families there's no easy lifts you know uh and um we were lucky enough blessed enough to have as our

030first kid shashawn's kids and we were able she was able to identify some of the issues that she was having at home and school and that's what this program is about it's just not you know community-based life for the Safeway Family Services is about the community in general you know it's an overused term about a village well this is what we're doing what we're doing with people who know what they're supposed to be doing in essence to that you know I I've always wanted to work with the schools I always wanted to work with the community you know that's something for my background you know Safeway has been doing this it's it's kind of applicable because we started doing it with the foster care agencies we you know we didn't know what we were doing

031but you know they'd call us up and say oh we got a kid suspended okay kid is suspended sometimes that suspension went into expulsion so we had to come up with programming we did it on the Fly we started writing some of this stuff down uh working with Christine and her and I and my my wife who's also similar background to me but she's much better than I am Gentlemen Just tell you the truth they're better than us just so you know but she is a program in Guru Susan Allen she started working with the YMCA YWCA kit working in the community uh she's a German girl from Trumbull who came to Bridgeport what years ago went to boys and girls Village met her in detention all right and we know we find we had

032interest in doing things like this uh so far what we've been able to do in Shashank and she'll be piping in a minute here we've been able to work with her kids and identify summer behaviors that concerned her and one of the things that I love when working with kids if you give them an opportunity to talk about what's going on around them and give them the freedom to do it they will tell you if you give them an incentive and what I mean incentive now that's not paying them to do something give them a task okay how can we improve that make them a part of the solution what's going on with you is it a teacher's fault your fault is it maybe what's going on let's let's work with that and uh we've

033been able to do some of that recently uh with the kids that we have in the Saturday Academy we've had two sessions so far uh I'll give an example of what we did I gave each kid it says Honest Kids what's going on with you in school and we talked about decision making because you and I both know that decision is the making is a big part with what goes on kid they got peer pressure I want to be like this one I'm going to be like that one you know even though I may be smarter than them I can't show that and that's that's one of her children and uh gave him a homework assignment if you will I want you to go home and this is your assignment make a decision based on

034what you see around you and let's see if we can get a positive outcome those guys those two kids and her daughter older daughter got up and gave me a presentation I wasn't expecting that I went wow her son Stephen said to me well there was a situation after I got out of class and I saw these people fighting and normally I would run towards it but I thought about what you said I said if this gonna get me into trouble and I'm like okay what decision to make I went home and I've been look doing some things in school where I said you know what don't sit in the back of the class ask the teacher if you can go to the front of the class because you're smart and I know and one

035of the little exercises we've been doing in there I said I think let's talk about your time Stables they all look at me they both look at me what are you talking about recite your times tables for me and they both did they kind of smile why are you doing that see you're very smart you're very bright so why don't we start using that that's just some of the stuff that we do um in the Saturday Academy we're also going to be looking at doing something enrichment programming uh that's one of the things that we learned that worked with foster kids who had extreme trauma taking them places that they'd never been like they're places we're at in Connecticut some of these kids have never been out of the city you know some of them

036have never been to Seaside Park that sounds kind of crazy but it's the truth and that's one of the things that we've implemented with uh kids who've been under extreme trauma has some academic or behavioral issues that got that frankly got them removed from the regular Public School setting and this is you know it's it's it's one of the things that we heard I've been talking about recently about okay if we get a kid that's identified if we got it I'm sorry guys I'm actually working now we're here you just gotta be careful you got to be quiet because I'm only playing okay one of my guys uh so you got to be quiet if you're gonna sit here so uh no not right now I'm busy right now okay let me finish doing this

037let me finish doing this and I'll get you some I promise you everybody give me another five minutes and I'll get them for you okay I'm on I'm on it they don't understand five minutes give me yeah give me just a second do not move that jv on please no he's good he's good yes I'm sorry guys I know that I'm sorry we're good uh one of my kids so that's what we do I mean I do it every day uh with the Department of Children and Families uh do it on weekends some days it's six days a week some days it's seven days a week I've been doing it for a while now so that's I didn't mean to get long-winded but I just wanted to tell you about what we were doing thank

038you Mr Allen uh Miss uh show Sean I'm gonna say it yes pronouncing your name right um sorry Miss Allen can you go on mute oh I'm sorry yes information uh I have a question if if you can just share uh from what I gather your your children is in currently in the Pilot reset program for the Saturday Academy and their Bridgeport Public School students so um Stefan is on Bridgeport Skyler goes to Capital prep it's um it's not a magnet school it's a charter school and stuff on goes to clayder which is a magnet school so it's they're not in the public school system so the Bridgeport children yes the children Bridgeport that's fine uh can you express I guess with this still being a pilot like has there been any benefit for you

039as a mom whether it's students performance and school Behavior overall uh we heard an anecdote about the the Saturday Academy helping children realize their decisions will have an impact on whether they get in trouble and to actually put like a thought process before uh acting can you just share your opinion of the program and any kind of feedback so my kids only been there for two weeks because it's a brand new program and I think Stefan has been the first student for the Saturday Academy because his um counselor from school had recommended it and I was like any help I can get with Stefan because he's a handful I will take it so I was recommended by one of his um counselor from school and I jumped on the opportunity I was able to meet

040Christine and Eugene in person and you know what they put to me and present to me I loved it and they not also just presented what they presented to me and they also fulfilled it in person because the kids look forward to going there on Saturdays and it's something that helps with Stefan the most because he's the one that needs the most Hub compared to Skyler and I think for the most oh wait something changed with the volume I'm sorry I'm sorry so they've only been there for two weeks and I have seen you know good stuff from Stefan because he has people like you know Mr Eugene that will sit and talk to him and show him the reality of life like you know you're 11 you need to start making smart choices and

041I think with him he needs to be in like a smaller setting where he can literally have like one-on-one and personal time with someone compared to when he's in school and it's like you know there's everyone just trying to pull and talk talk at him and it gets to be frustrated so on the weekend where it's just it's two weekends a month I think this program is perfect for him because he gets that one-on-one attention that he's looking for and I was trying to keep the names confidential but thank you for sharing it out for your youngest son that needs the most attention uh what school does he go to again sorry he goes to um later Gerald later that's one of our schools yes um and so it was the guidance counselor from within

042the school that referred the program yes so so after the social worker yes the social worker yes and was that for suspension reasons or no it was because of behavior so it so happened that this one social worker is very like she's involved in stefans because Stefan is just a one-of-a-kind student he you either you love him or you hate him that's it and you just gotta love him once you see him because he's such a cutie but she she just always go the extra with him she's always looking for other things because we know he's so smart but his problem is that he just cannot stay still most of the time and I feel it's because the work is not challenging to him and he's in a big setting so it's kind of hard

043when he's finished it's like I'm finished with my worth I need to do something so sometimes he does not know how to um to like bring it into positiveness he turns it into negativeness so with them being like I said on Saturday where they have a smaller group he's able to like you know Express his feelings and not feel like he's getting lost in the sauce yes sorry there's enough it's okay so for like I said for me I it's working for me because I sometimes I be feeling like I'm the only mom that have this one little boy that got so much energy and there's nowhere for me to reach out and get an outlet even to get like even 20 minutes down time by myself because I work in healthcare and it's it's

044a lot so sometimes on the weekends I'm like you know I would love to just be home just to lay down in bed for a couple of hours get him to go interact with someone else that's going to give him something positive it's just not like he's just going there just to hang out and play a video game and get free pizza you know he's getting something constructed from it and for him to be able to get up and you know he can express himself and I feel like I look stupid in front of 30 people or 20 kids and then tomorrow come they're gonna tease me the smaller setting for him works very good so I have a question comes to put out as far as the Saturday Academy goes um and that has

045the same limit 10 to people or 10 to 15. yes so that's a mixture of not necessarily people who are suspended that would also just be people that were just referred right it could be yep and so would they be would they be part of the in-school program already or they could be anybody well if a child is referred to the Reset program for Behavioral reasons not out of school suspension that child is already on the track to go into our um out of school suspension program if that's if that's a need for it so my next question is with the um which we shouldn't see that from a reset a recent student we shouldn't see a suspension right a child that's already in reset because we already you know began programming and it should

046be so the the students who were so there could be a mixture in the Academy of people who were suspended and were not suspended so for the students who are in that program that were suspended you would imagine it would end after their suspension's over unless they continued on is that what it is right so after the suspension is always we automatically uh we recommend that the child be a part of our after school program that will then go ahead and be that supportive system to the family at that point we we are involved in family within that because within our program now um Family sessions would happen with uh with the caregivers at least twice a month where we would go ahead and make contact with the family find out um you know what's

047happening find out where there needs to be improved and find out where there's challenges and we go ahead and we work with the families automatically so I'm just trying to wrap my head around yeah so there's the in-school support and recent school out of school suspension so like the reset is the overall name for the whole yes different thing so there's actually stuff happening in the school there's only nothing happening during the school day I thought there was something also during the school right so we we can't do anything in the school because that's a totally different area so this is again if we if there's an out of school suspension that's happening we're bringing a kid out of the school to program with the child there's no in the school programming because obviously you

048can't you know do that um but there is um contact with the social workers there's contact with the school person now we want to be a part of the EIP IEP meetings we want to have um a full um entry into what is happening with the child's overall life this is like a full roundabout program and we want to be a part of everything we want to be a part of what's happening with family what's happening socially what's happening academically what's happening with the entire child and we plan to follow that child through little Middle School may I interject something if you don't if you don't mind uh so Sean's kids are an example if a social worker spots a kid that's heading down a certain path a certain thing is it's kind of productive

049to that kid learning and doing what that kid has to do that kid could also and be referred to the Reset Program who may beat this needed Saturday Academy you're talking about three different portals here where a child can enter the Reset Program from a suspension uh some maybe maybe need a little bit more in an after school a clinical after school program by the way we are credential with DCF to run a clinical after school program where we do programming where it's just propagated over two or three days during the week or sometimes five days dependent on who that kid is and you know it's almost individual individuals for each individual something Amy needs something different I just want to interject that in there when we were talking about it because that's basically what

050we're doing now with kids from the Department uh doing that now with those kids in that portal I'm sorry about that oh yeah I actually have a question uh Wilbur cross specific um if this program gathers additional support from the school uh from virtual Public School Wilbur cross are the 10 slots available solely for over cross students or they have priority if there's like referrals from other schools because I it from the sounds of it the pilot is running now on a referral basis and that's that's awesome with our families here in Bridgeport again the support that they need um from it but I guess logistically if this Garners additional support from the board to move forward from it is we'll we'll cross School get priority or is it a special Focus that if referrals

051are coming in for over across students you'll make I'm going to just phrase this generalization as you'll make the magic happen for what will cross students while still serving Bridgeport students they're like no additional cost I want to I guess I want to understand that that part of the logistics because um there's there's definitely but we can't deny the fact that Bridgeport has a lot of Social and emotional needs for children living through trauma uh the socioeconomic disadvantages and the new numerous challenges that our students face and family space and that's only been exacerbated and it sounds like a broken record of hearing it be exacerbated by covid um but it's true yeah and so um I just want to get an understanding of like how it would work if moving forward but like hearing

052that it works for other parents don't want to take away from the sauce but if we're going to support how would it work for for the program for the students that live across right so because our referrals came from um the Geraldine clayta we we went and we accepted those children inside of the academy if those children are in the Saturday Academy already we shouldn't again we shouldn't see suspensions but if we do I'm going to continue to work we're going to continue to work directly with the social worker and with the school system and figure out you know what more can we do to get this child to stay on track but because we want to focus in on one particular school so that we don't become too over um over what's the word

053we don't want to have every school system or every school in the City of Bridgeport calling us every time there's a suspension because we just can't manage that that you know that level of suspension we want to focus in on will across since Wilbur crosses um seems to be um at this time I would mean focused we're going to focus on Wilbur cross and because we have Geraldine clayta already on board we're going to obviously focus in on that school as well and those referrals that's coming in but we are not opening it up to every single middle school at this time no yep so there was something in there about offering financial aid yeah a cost for the program for the students well right now excuse me right now there's no particular cost because

054we did get a small Grant to run this um to run the program at this time but obviously as the program um grows and as you know as more people hear about us and as it becomes you know as the program becomes that program that's like wow this program exists we need to start looking for other ways to like fund the program and to sustain the program so the financial aid would be what yeah whatever parents may need like we have a a whole bunch of referral resources so we also are referral resource program if there's anything that the parents need we definitely make to pay for their attendance in the program oh okay at this time it's no cost to the parents because again we are running this program I have another question about

055uh specifically the I'm I'm not trying to focus only on the suspend out of school suspension but that's really jumped out at me yes um specifically with the out of school suspended students what the thought is behind how they attend your program in other words is it mandatory the school of Lacrosse has to agree that they say we're suspending you and you have to go to this program or is it optional for the parent and the student to choose how would that happen that that Pipeline and then also back to what Mr sakovic was asking about the parent involvement in the decision to do it if in in the case with the suspension is prior to 12 p.m and you would pick them up and bring them to it you know at that moment in

056time the parent didn't know that their child was going to be suspended that day and where where is the connection there how does that communication happen that the the decision is made that they go there or back to what I said earlier would it be that it's understood if you're if you have out of school suspension from move across you will go to this program thank you that was that meant to be so um is is definitely a buy-in from the parent what the parent prefer for their child to be home and kind of just have no structure at home or do or what the parent prefer the child come to a program like ours um once we have the mou all of those things will start to like come together this is how this

057will work if this happens this is how it will go we can't create a plan without having the ends to have the discussion right so that's why we're here today how does this happen how do we go from not having any ends or any discussion to having one and figuring out how does this work all right right how does this work uh with Geraldine clayta is just oh my God we have these kids I don't know what to do parents are having some concerns do you have anything you can do for them yes absolutely come it was it didn't really take a whole lot of buying into it just like this is what happens so other than show Sean's kids um kids we also have three other kids that was referring from the school so

058those three kids attend the program as well Saturday the Saturday Academy so that started a couple weeks ago yeah I started a couple of weeks ago and that is not because of a suspension that's because behavioral concerns and this child is going down the wrong path Colleen stop the shop preventative work so that's where that started and then um with that we have sibling groups and because sibling groups for some reason just unlike shoshone's case where she has an older child and that older child is like well what about me I'm having problems social Sean has an older child that's having some issues that she was concerned about and some family Dynamic issues so what we did was we referred that child to um a mentor in the community and that mentoring program is with

059women against mass and conservation but they also run a youth program a youth female youth program so she's been going to that program and show Sean um could also um contest to that child being um the way she interacts is different the way she's working is different so we then said okay here's the mentor and we can't take you into Saturday Academy you're too old but we can't provide you with a service and then we then then referred her there and then we have the male mentoring group and they're here to discuss that too that with we have one child that they could talk about now that we brought that child from possibly being expelled to on the right path but then weeks I've interacting with us Mr sokolovic do you have any questions um

060in his program to you as well he could prevent what he to the work that he's done as well which has been amazing work for the family as well when you're ready okay yeah how you doing hello my name is kevonne once again I'm contracted with the United Mentoring Academy and uh we basically provide mentor and tutoring advocacy for other students so the mentoring we provide uh leadership skills within the kids we try to set up a diverse uh setting for the kids to learn and uh the goal would be for mentors to create meaningful relationships with the students in addition to building healthy relationships with their peers they will learn how to make plans by setting goals and implementing them in real real time uh the tutors are there to create a safe learning

061space tutors will assist in homework and lessons for class the tutors will follow up with the teachers um the progress of the students and for the advocacy the um The Advocate is a liaison for the teacher parent engagement and any additional support needed so I heard you asked about how would the communication be communicated to the parent if the kid gets suspended no parent plans for the kid to get suspended and that event that's where the Advocate comes in which is we have the parental consent through the uh forming the beginning of this you know when we meet the parent and that's where we have the consent to advocate for the parent and absence if they're at work can't attend we make the phone call reach out this just happened um what actions do you

062see fit would you like us to do this mean and transport them to the program or would you like the kid to remain in school and receive additional support things of that nature so The Advocate kind of tracks the kids progress along the way and uh helps that whole process in absent of the parent thank you and with that role we collected data from these um from all the collaborative um entities and with that is where we create is where we maintain the evidence-based model that this model will work to reduce suspension reduce um um children uh young adults going into prison because of making bad decisions so this is just a whole wraparound service of trying to make sure that we I remembered my question Yeah question so with the three social workers and

063the two Sacred Heart teachers at minimum there may be other people there because you talked about tutors and everything else um that's during the daytime one right yes the after school and the Saturday was Manning who's Staffing those so the after-school program and the Saturday Academy is being staffed by Mr Gene Allen um Gene Allen's program and in his program he uh working he is working with um how many how many staff do you have on right now Mr Allen uh I have a rotating staff from anywhere from four to five uh it depends on what day of the week is uh we've been running a clinical after school program for DCF um any kid that's under I think the age he's cut off his 13 12 6 12 13 actually the youngest kid that

064we have in our program nine is nine years old on the clinical after school program uh the state requires you to have a certain license to be a daycare provider if a kid hits a certain thing but these middle school kids are right in that lane um everyone that we see now uh would fall in that lane of an after-school program it says what I want to say here that's not not necessarily that every day it's not like a lighthouse these are kids who are highly behavioral kids who are having some issue that may end up getting suspended or our cases they have already crossed that line because they're in alternative schools every kid that we have in our program is in an alternative school yeah every one of them so they've already crossed that

065line so to speak uh they've become such behavioral issues and even then they get suspended even then they get suspended and it's expelled so we had to come up with something for the foster care agencies to work so we've already implemented that we've been doing uh the clinical after school program for almost three years will be shut down during the pandemic uh focused on we were talking about well the after school and Saturday after school so my question Mr Allen is is so you have a program that's already running with students with children DCF so with the students who could be referred from our schools beating together with those students in that location or are they separate that's why I'm not sure what right so um Mr Allen is already running a program in one

066part of the building and then the other part of the building will be another set of children Manning both but he'll be Manning both but we have staff that's going to be there we're hoping that the the staff to ratio is two to one we should you know one staff should be able to manage two children at one time so that's where we are we um we want to keep it small we don't want a whole bunch of you know a whole bunch of kids all in one place at one time we want to be able to kind of like focus in on you know on the child other staff the four to five staff that rotate what are their what's their professional background they're not social workers or teachers right right they won't be

067social workers or teachers they will be regular staff we will find um staff with a background with some education staff with the background with some behavioral intervention work um I'll do extensive training with them you know um train them on cognitive behavioral therapy skills that I could you know bring out of that model to make sure that all of the individuals that we hire have a particular background or have a particular training skill on a particular level of skill in order to work with the children thank you yeah thank you okay uh back before I go technically channels last um I have a question the budget that's provided for in here because I myself also started to get confused hearing the different buckets and who was going to be where it's just uh for clarification

068the the budget being request or the suggested costs to support staff for a Wilber cross reset um that's for licensed social workers um and potentially a paid internship with Sacred Heart University students for the after-school components of it because there's the after school there's the Saturday Academy and then the third one see out of school suspension it's the outer schools that's the one with the staff so the outer school suspension is the only one that the budget is being requested for and then to baking back well for your previous question is who's going to be there for the after school uh staff if it's not the licensed social workers okay so yeah so the license social worker which is myself and the clinical in the clinical social worker which is another stakeholder and the lmfc

069is another person we're at 24 hours we're there all the time there's never a time when I'm not involved I'm not you know able to get up and go and do what it takes and what's necessary to make the program work because I am one of the founders so obviously I'm completely involved in the whole entire process at all times um so what we did was because the first meeting that we had and we discussed the budget and it looked like we were kind of like making the budget separate what we did was made it like I said one wrap around service so we're not like saying okay this is what we'll charge for after school this is what we'll charge for Saturday Academy this is for out of school suspension we made it one

070course that we would go ahead and do what's necessary to make the program work within that one budget I'm sorry excuse me I've got to go I gotta take this kid home all right thank you very much okay Adrian all right okay so that's why you don't see the budget like um broken down into three components because we decided that um it's probably best that we run the program based on one budget and then we'll figure out how the budget should be differentiated uh let's say allocated out like how does it look once we have the budget in place so we didn't break it down into three different um into three different budgets but in every each eat umbrella it's there we always be three social workers yes to work with our students and the

071proposed ratio would it will be two to one yes okay I'm actually um I'm writing psychosocials bio psychosocials on all the families um that's not at any additional cost that just comes along with the intake process and making sure that we identify the needs and totality for each family so all of those things is is a document that identified a family's needs you know and identified you know all the services and you know that the family may need to make you know the situation work for them so we identify it there's any substance except there is we work on substance abuse if there's any domestic violence we'll work on domestic violence if there's any uh behavioral issues within the family Dynamic that may cause barriers we work on that particular issue but that comes from

072the assessment piece and we do an assessment on each family down on the intake and um oh I didn't realize sorry good evening hi good evening I heard my name yes oh look I'm looking for the paper agendas on my phone oh she's not here for this okay well I'm not sure Dr Morgan I'm happy oh you are I'm happy I tuned in for this I wanted to tune in I have a course that I do on Wednesdays so I had to come late so I said um what I was hearing I was like oh this sounds I heard cross I heard Plato those are both the schools I supervise um I Heard out of school suspensions I heard bio biosocial um intake um some of those some of those terms I know and I

073was happy to hear it because we need some extra help but other than that I'm just going to listen and hear what she's saying no thank you Dr Morgan first confirming we're on the right track as a committee yes having you guys here to present this um yeah I mean like I said the beginning it's it's ambitious and necessary um that's that's definite I just I'm kind of a little uncertain about some of the details okay um but that could kind of be talked about more than just tonight I think it'd be too much to go deeper and deeper right now um but um for example we're talking about the budget just to understand the the difference between teachers and graduate assistants I was thinking it was the same person or people but it's actually

074separate people right it's actually separate people because we um we identified that there's a possibility that we meet we may need to get teachers involved right we may not be able to um succeed at the ultimate goal by just using Tutors or just um and trying to go outside of using uh actual you know or utilizing an actual teacher a teacher that you know understands the you know a particular topic or a particular area we may need to go ahead and get teachers on board so I did include that in the budget because the ultimate goal is we may need to get a teacher involved and not you know work outside of the you know the school system where we won't use any teachers at all and and so you said tonight was to start

075the discussion tonight it was just got the discussion any answer any questions that come from because I know it sounds like a lot and it could seem like it's so much and like you the words you use ambitious like can this actually happen but because we've done it for so many years um we know you know we already had our you know we already seen the pros and cons of how a particular model works but this particular model that we're creating again evidence-based model we already created that model with the help of Sacred Heart and they did actually identify that this is a working model once we actually get it you know going I have a question um if this was supported by the district could be implemented will there be like a I guess

076like end of the year presentation where we definitely keep confidentiality but say like all students whether it was out of school suspension statistically that ideally hopefully right none of them ever got suspended ever again it'd be it would we have as a board a presentation just to see the success especially like moving forward if it's going to work for our kids then yeah something absolutely we would go ahead and um collect the data we'll we'll definitely pull together a presentation at the end of the year to show that um the model that we used was a working model or not and you know the changes that had to happen within the model in order to make it work and um we would have no problem with presenting at the end of the year or you

077know at any time that we're asked to present where are you now what's you know what's happening what do you need what do you not need you know to make this model work but we did create a model and if we go according to the model to the T the way it was created we should see similar results on the same results do you have um sample materials what you would be utilizing during the you know that's what he comes in uh yes foreign contractors for the male group if you go down down down you're gonna see a grab down down yep down down [Music] right there so that is the um that is the model that we're going to use to collect the data oh so we're going to use something called a behavior

078screening checklist three where we're going to identify particular areas in order to collect the data so the first area um of concern would be classroom behaviors um on the scale of one to five consistently attends classroom activities sometimes follows along with classroom activities really follows along that's yes what what is the classroom is it their classroom back at the school the classroom back at the school you're reporting back with the teachers yes so um so that's where we'll collect the data again our communication with the um with the school is consistent and daily um so we'll um monitor follows directions the monitor complete and work we'll monitor class involvement um we will monitor externalizing behaviors Behavior towards material or property is there any property destruction um anything out of place remains an assigned area or

079not um disruptive behaviors obviously socialization um and we'll we'll identify all of those um areas as a way to collect the data to show um one progress so this sounds like a lot of necessary communication with the school yes um so a couple of things currently because with Wilbur across in particular what is the existing relationship that they were chosen and they're willing to they want this and what was the kind of informal communication specifically between the leadership at Wilbur cross and your organization that that was formed and then with that seems like most of these things are things that would be reported back by either I don't know if it's one classroom teacher because if they're in middle school they may be in multiple classrooms and is this are these surveys the teachers are

080asked to complete every week or how is it happening at the communication is coming back and you're collecting the data or is some of these things things that you're observing at your program and some specifically at the school so it's a combination of both or is it mostly at the school so first I was asking about what what the relationship how it started and what it is existing now with global cross in particular and then how all this kind of sounds like heavy traffic of communication back and forth would need to happen in order to collect this data and report on it yes mind if I yes uh during our first year on the board I received a lot of calls about where we're Cross School um and I started to hear a lot of

081stuff regarding Wilbur cross and the quality of the education over there so when the Reset program was presented to me I looked at Old Bridge cross performance I looked at what I had heard and I spoke to some leaders in that area and I said well if there's a school that I think would benefit from it I suggested I'm wondering about the buy-in from the Educators and administrators at any of the schools because there needs to be willingness to do this report you know they they want their kids to do better so there is buy-in in that respect but when it comes down to the rubber meets the road is this teacher gonna do this survey and how often and how accurate and what's you know what's the kind of holding accountability to make sure

082that that happens so they're not working at the Reset Program blind and not getting that you know so that's something I think that's what I'm asking about actually yeah is going to happen oh I was answering your first part yeah no thank you thank you very much for that so yeah absolutely sorry that's where the Advocates will come in now but that's where we become more than a mentor more than a tutor and that's where we put the advocate helmet on and Bridge those relationships with the guidance counselors parental engagement as well so everyone's on the same Accord understanding the need consistently on the board not just on and for another it's consistent through you know advocating bridging those relationships with the guidance I think what what one thing that's standing out for me is

083it seems to me like the meatiness of what we're talking about is a lot more than a 58 000 budget I'm just saying you know I'm not trying for anyone to spend more money but I'm just saying where where are The Advocates getting paid is this all volunteer work and if it's volunteer that's what it is I just didn't know that yeah um yeah absolutely agree with that and again this is not my first meeting around this I did have a meeting before that you know did open our eyes to other things so I felt like the budget needed to be skimmed um because of that meeting and I said well if our work won't you know can't really hit the platform because of money rather let's skim it down and let's make it where

084the Board of Education can afford something like that there's so much heart in this presentation that's clearly evident you know and I'm just I'm just kind of hammering in some of the details and I'm not even I'm not an accountant you know but I'm just seeing something I'm like well how's this going to happen how that can happen so that's why I missed yes how many questions um well the teachers be expected to answer well I we would like to teach us to identify all of these areas on a scale of one to five um on a weekly basis and we didn't make it expensive we made it we're just you know we didn't ask them to do a whole lot we didn't actually write any reports we just want to skill scale of one

085to ten and then if it requires more communication then we'll communicate about it why is this happening why is this child really following along with class one so let's discuss it let's figure out a plan let's figure out how to make this change um from that conversation it'll be discussion with the family we discussion with the child it may be a discussion collaboratively and maybe individual but we're not asking for this the the the teachers to do more than they have to do because we understand that they have a lot already on their plate so we try to make it as simple as possible in the sample that they don't have to do so much um yeah so that's the answer okay so based on it so if you scroll down okay is there any

086more questions this is it it's called The behavior screening checklist and if you made it very simple because the answers are there for them to already answer yes and the circle between the one and the five yes yeah okay okay well I gotta continue with the meeting at Dr Morgan had her hand up excuse me um did I hear you say that you have a relationship with Wilbur cross already right so the answer is no um I believe that's a great question I believe that because of the way I see the system works because I had quite a few meetings before I made it here today this was like the first layer of what's necessary to make that relationship even happen um so here I am today hoping after today's meeting that the conversation would

087then help me get closer to who I need to speak to at on that level and then kind of go from there yeah um just interjected that's why at this point it's just discussion of the program Dr Morgan so whether additional fine-tuning my thoughts is probably to refer to students and families also to have a presentations with that committee um so it gets really fleshed out and delved into by the board and and one of the things that that I did ask about was when I was talking about materials I meant sort of agenda curricula not not as specific as being in school but that curriculum what are some of the methods that these these um that these practices will employ you know and what are you doing you know besides being a good person

088for them and they can talk to you and you know but like are there certain things that you do in particular in the out of school out of the school suspension times or you do in particular in the after school in particular in the Saturday Academy and maybe some of the same or all of them um you know I don't I don't know how much is it very specific to homework time instruction time play time you know sharing time you know whatever you know kind of an outline of what happens during this time like what is happening and who's doing it you know what exactly is occurring and what what is the advocate doing what is the mentor doing what is the teacher doing if there is a teacher there might be that might not

089be yeah what what is the the grad assistant doing like what are their roles and how what makes this work like what's the meat of it so that's what I'm curious about yeah maybe as um and short and sure I can make a quest like a culture shock yeah so like we want to provide academics uh enrichment and also um activities like uh I believe the somebody mentioned some of the kids never even been to Seaside Park so when you mention lessons we have lessons as far as leadership development peer mentoring financial literacy based on relationships we have with uh Banks and within the community that's willing to come in uh do financial literacy um gun violence social media anti-bullying awareness uh career aware of the high violence that's going on uh we also have

090workshops like entrepreneurship Workshop branding kind of like fun activities fun learning yes fun learning uh nutrition and wellness you know uh fitness trainers willing to come in you know on the weekends or if it rains to clarify that's the mentorship program not the reason I think the but the big thing is right now as we have this discussion and I don't want it to run it's about it's been about an hour and a half is to continue to flush it out maybe for a referral to students and families so take some of the information and I'll have us all in like a discussion so more flushing can come about so that that committee uh presentation um it's clearer as and the presentation would be for students and families to know what resources are going to

091be available um and continue to flesh out any kind of questions or concerns right um but I think I think that's the point here because the discussion can continue much longer um I love the program because it's ambitious I'll take full responsibility for the recommendation for Global cross especially with Communications with parents in the area um that I see it as a need especially and especially when I saw the performance with the um svac exams um and that's an area that I would love to see performance increase overall um and yeah I would like to continue the dialogue and hopefully have more additional substance presented to uh students and families right okay and also to answer the curriculum piece part of it is that the curriculum will be based off trauma-informed CBT okay Dynamics so

092I'll be um creating the curriculum based on cognitive behavioral therapy models that'll show that with improved Behavior comes improve academic learning that's kind of what I was getting at because all the things you said are essential and necessary and important that we hope all our kids get but not just kids who are on track for suspension it almost is like a reward you have to have all these things you know and he said not just for the free food right so of course but I mean but more specifically why are they here because of the CBT you're talking about because and so if that's what's happening or bulk of the time that they're there that's kind of what I was looking for something about that absolutely and also this evidence-based program you know kind of

093the the data the stats of the evidence you know what yeah so we definitely um again we already identified a need we identified um the services and the program and that'll work for for this particular population we had we already um came to the evaluation piece we we already addressed um we already met our goal within the model now it's just time to kind of like do exactly what the model says and you know about that when would you be prepared to start with this because as this moves through if it if it happens when would you be up and running you said some of the stuff you're still preparing you could do this for a couple weeks you know so right so if Global cross agrees to work with us we'll start right away

094because at this point again we already have a model we already have um the plan we already have the location um we already have everything that we need to begin the model and we will start right away we don't we don't have to delay beginning okay thank you yeah okay so I'll reach out to the chair of students and families and uh we'll continue to discussion any questions or comments Dr Morgan that should release the screen yes I did I just wanted to know uh when you if when and if you start with Wilbur cross um what grade levels are you looking at Middle School yes are you looking at sixth seventh and eighth grade yes yes okay yes there's a reason why I asked that um but I'll I'll I I we can talk

095about that at another time okay and we plan to follow the child all the way through so if a child comes to us at in the seventh grade we'll follow that child through graduation If the child comes to us to sixth grade we're following them through graduation we plan to work with the child through the middle school process yeah that's good thank you okay thank you very much okay thank you [Laughter] we made it so yes any additional questions if you email me I will shoot them back yeah the um presentation with the questionnaire for the teachers if you could send that okay to the I'll I'll resend you to full committee yeah also the full board so that way everyone kind of gets a heads up so that's good okay thank you thank you

096okay ah we are now thank you my hands are cool warm hearts the next item that we have on the agenda is discussion and possible action for the creations of a mandatory program centered around student gender identity and the mandatory use of students prefer pronouns uh this agenda item was introduced by board members sakolovic do you wanna oh yeah if if I may uh offend Mr Sam uh show a video in five or five minutes long as he's by uh School District in their PD just to get the example yeah just to get the conversation kicked off okay you're with me [Laughter] I wonder if the sound will play for the streaming for their end of it might boy it doesn't always maybe there's captions too because it teaches you use it right yeah but

097it's the way it's done okay very earlier question yes I think so well can you maximize it you maximize the window on the right you know on the right bottom right the bottom right can maximize the window of this right below the first thing I should say so after Paul foreign okay foreign thank you yeah thank you um yeah there is the reason for this was um I was asking around some teachers and we really don't have as far as I know correct but maybe Dr Morgan will know we don't really have any professional development in this in this space and okay looking at our own board and our own policies our own contracts and everything everything is agenda pronoun either traditionally male roles such as the chairman of the board in a contract is

098male male male we need we need as a board as a school district as teachers to start going down the middle because people feel people do feel left out and there's a movement in society to be much more inclusive for everybody and this this is a group that's um kind of marginalized I mean not every girl is going to wear a dress and not every boy is going to wear blue jeans sometimes sometimes uh girls dress traditionally like males and boys dress kind of feminine and we have some effeminate features so avoid avoiding the use of those type of pronouns without boring asking them just gender neutrals is really doesn't cost anybody anything but it could have astronomical benefits for the especially children growing up and they're questioning themselves and already have issues I can

099imagine being a student in the classroom and just finding myself and just having all this confusion and then having unintentional misgendering or even by even students maybe intentional misgendering for teasing purposes and I think that's a space we could do a lot better and you know and the whole District whole District wide and everything just preliminary thoughts anything major it could be small pieces like small videos well it could be a whole or I would like as a board and we look through all our policies as we pass them and make sure it's gender neutral in the terminology uh any questions miss our comments Mr Lombard um no questions um I agree that contracts should be gender neutral uh uh I do have one concern with the personal pronouns from a learning perspective sentence formation

100if a I feel like the waters will get murky if someone wants to identify as habit multiple identities and wants to be referred to as them or they I've already heard anecdotal settings outside of Connecticut when there was a safety issue and the program wanted to use the preferred pronouns and it was one person but when they were reporting they are causing uh certain issues in the area it was confusing to dispatch was it one or two persons who was the person how can you how so from that perspective as far as like when it starts to be multiple I would say I probably have a conservative perspective on because if day is one person and you're calling I don't know I'm trying to think of additional hypotheticals but I feel like from a safety

101perspective that can be confusing if you're looking for one individual or two individuals also I think just I agree on our district-wide policy basis it should be neutral um I think this is maybe something that would need more fleshner or just understanding from my perspective is that as we're teaching young children proper pronouns when would this be introduced that wouldn't confuse like a first grader that's just starting to make sentences you know like that's those are like the two areas like from a safety concern if it's uh you know or how uh how would it be implemented that that's the main thing is like the teacher is calling school resource officer something's going on is is that I I I what I'm thinking about is very kind to logistical yeah I guess yeah and there's

102some ways to address some of those concerns all right yes let's say Joe myself not a joke I want you to refer to me as them and you need to contact emergency services or something you don't say go get them they Joe needs help and I'm gonna look for two people they're gonna look for Joe and um as far as language language is a beautiful thing it evolves language is not static it's something that evolves every day you see they then and place a key it may be a little confusing sometimes but then when you get to the end of the sense you realize you're talking at one about one person who prefers to be see I'm not even that learning in that part referred to as oh and it's it's learning this is the

103this is the way the world's moving you you do watch your um television programs the integrated flawlessly um I want to show both billions and they got a character they refer to them and they at first it's a little difficult to understand but as you go along and you hear it over and over again you know them is the proper term for that person when they're referring to that person I I I understand it it's like an evolution even even myself because I've come a long way probably on this subject maybe in the last four or five years when I first started started hearing it in the space as I am I'm like oh what's that that's confusing but as you hear it more and more often and it becomes part of the norm every

104day you're just learning a little something new and it doesn't it doesn't cost nothing to call somebody but they want to be called well I asked you want to be called Mr Mrs if you like for instance there's no comparison I asked your preferred method of address empty so Perez you said Baptiste Perez and I use Baptist and it didn't cost me nothing to use both your surnames and that not that it's a comparison but questions about the agenda item so you first one the first part is is uh creation of a mandatory program and I heard Mrs falbert mentioned something about maybe just a video well I think my first my first question is understand what that means what's a program is it K-12 is it are there different versions for kindergartners Pre-K what

105is the program so that's one part the other part is addressing specifically uh and the mandatory use of students preferred personal pronouns there's so many layers to that you brought up the example of even a student to a student either accidentally or intentionally you know making it mandatory that the students is one thing called each other what they want to be called a teacher calls someone that a cafeteria worker calls someone at the school bus driver call someone or anyone we're involved with and that area I did I I did a little bit of looking into this before tonight's meeting that's a very dicey area there's already been mandates overturned federal federal law because of 14th Amendment Second Amendment like like people who say I know what your biological sex at Birth was I I

106because I know it for whatever reason and I will not call you something other than that even though you're saying you want this even though your parents says they want them actually the parents don't even need to know about it right a student could say to the parents they tell them don't tell my parent about it so they're going by a girl at school and they're a boy at home or whatever and so but the teacher who knows that they're a biological boy if they want to use a religious reason for example talk about religious holidays so forth if they want to use a religious reason they can't be forced to say something against what their religion says to say you can't force them constitutionally to say it's a girl when they know it's a

107well they know biologically they were born boy so that's just an area that we need to discuss tonight in other times as well about mandatory use of preferred pronouns and and and and who is being made mandatory to use it all the different layers of the school and what are the consequences if you don't one consequence was jail time one consequence was it was a financial fine one consequence was losing their job and this teacher lost her job sued the district and she won so I mean before we even talk about making things mandatory I think we need to step away from that and talk about the program because the education has decided we're really here to talk about and I'm all about education I'm not about mandating things that could cause a lot of

108big can of worms first of all that's my as a Committee Member I don't even want to talk about that tonight we will we'll talk about it but I want to talk about the programs the first thing on the agenda like like I said you mentioned it could be something as small as a video or whatever you know and and is this a program it's mandatory the parents have no saying that their kid is going to watch this video well that's the mandatory Parton theft staff treaties and how to handle these issues not not student trainings okay so the student misgendering is a different story students do correct they can do that all they want you know so not only one but I'm just saying I'm not educating the students on gender identity but you

109would have to address it as a bullying issues if somebody's like repeatedly teasing Somebody by calling them what they don't want to be called I'm sorry this is uh oh no I don't want that I love you no uh uh great I lost my my train of thought but um I do agree uh with a lot of the comments from Mr Lombard uh my concern is definitely like also what are going to be the consequences I also just have a comment into like a part of the murkiness of this is also for individuals that are in the mainstream that have changed your pronouns one day she's she's next day she's them next day she's none or it at Birth it gets a little bit more complicated I'll just use the prime example I'm referring to

110Demi Lovato because that's the only artist I could think of right now that's multiple on multiple different occasions she's changed her gender pronoun and so if a child decides like I feel like that can also just be a little bit disruptive no no no Miss Gonzalez today I'm a boy like I I don't I I'm scared that it may over Empower students for the wrong reasons and and I don't I'm fearful that it can blow up towards consequences towards uh teachers like you had mentioned where if a teacher is not deciding to acknowledge it over complications um to to it and we also got to look at them what uh what are our responsibilities are on the title none because right now student identify a student as male at Birth that identifies as a female

111can go into the men's room wait until you're ready I say a woman it's in a woman's room a transgender athlete yeah they are they can play sports yeah Dr Morgan yes yeah there are a lot of rules around trans students and this has come up a number of times um you know I've had principals call me and say you know we're getting a trans student um you know I'm not sure which bathroom they should use and I've always said to them when they asked to go to when anyone asks to go to the bathroom do you say which one are you using or you just say okay here's a pass to go to the bathroom and let them go to whichever one they go to in terms of the pronouns I feel almost like

112that's like religion now right there's so many different types of religion there's separation of State and religion I don't think um the pronouns really to have a place I think you need a name personally that's my own personal opinion because of the way schooling is done you need you need more than they because it could be two days two days uh you know that's very confusing to everyone and it's new for all of us for me too I don't know anyone who's a they are them I know some trans people you know I know some in between people you know some bi people so I know I know a number of people like that but I don't know anyone who's using pronouns if that seems like something that we haven't gotten to yet or at

113least I haven't gotten to and I haven't seen or heard of it in schools yet either had a question Dr Morgan I I want to comment on your statement or comment about you don't ask them which bathroom they go to they just go to the bathroom they go to the bathroom where they think they should go therein lies the problem look at me I don't look like what you would call a she or her and if I choose to walk in the ladies bathroom one day because the example that Mrs Baptist Perez gave Demi Lovato changing it and I choose to because I identify today but I haven't done much to me yet to change the way I look to make me look more female with if there's a way to look female then anyway

114if I didn't do that and I identify as a woman and I walk into the ladies room that's a problem because you have other females let's say in the ladies room and now I'm in there too with that if then that's that's where I have a problem with the idea of just go where you want to go and that was if you don't know if you know the cartoon South Park or not but but in the South Park cartoon they made a set they made a separate bathroom for people to go to when they didn't want to go to either bathroom you could be cisgender you could be transgender it didn't matter that bathroom was available for you so there was no questions that's a whole thing with facilities and money and planning and changing

115buildings you don't even need a label on the bathroom if the doors lock well if it's the type of bathrooms we have you have if it's a single if it's a single person that's what I'm saying if it's a if it's a it's a multiple stall I remember when I went to the bathroom we lined up and a bunch of us went in at once there were multiple urinals multiple stalls so if you're going to have a situation where it's questionable and problematic it right so so that's all I'm trying to say is it's not so simple in my opinion but it's a difficult discussion thank God it hasn't come up too often yeah well but if you're coming up tonight right and if you happen to go to the bathroom tonight in one of

116the restrooms you'll see in each and every restaurant we got the Title IX notification in the restroom which actually refers to them we cannot legally stop anybody from using the bathroom I think that's a problem I think that's the problem I think that's a problem that that that supposedly what you're saying is that we are required by law to let me go into the ladies room with other women there as a female if I say I'm a female this is more than a discussion for tonight okay what I said basically too I'm not sure do you as a board really want to take this on I'm not I'm not sure how that's going to be no just flip just eliminate discussions and it could be it could be simple as if everybody is shying away

117from the pronouns like it's an evolution what would be wrong to leaning more towards names and gender-neutral terms in the classroom and uh having a professional development about that third pronoun gender neutral in our policies that's doable if we're going to do this baby steps I think that's doable I think um it it's why not the classroom you're putting a lot of thought into a kindergarten that's a kindergartner that's just learning to read and now they need to learn who they are at five I just I feel like that's a parental choice and it's starting to infringe on on on that and I'm going to take the position of I am here for the traditional education as far as you know how to read you know how to do math and until we're there as

118a district for some of the basic fundamentals I can only feel like certain changes will be incremental or unless there's some kind of Rapid explosion in our face so I think the policy changes that can happen uh I think this is something where it may even need more Community feedback as to the applicability to how it works here in Bridgeport um because some of the issues that I've heard from regarding trans students trans athletes have not occurred in urban school districts and so it it appears to a certain extent to happen in other school districts and for me I just I am more focused on can you read and write at this stage before who are you identifying as uh it because yeah that that that's just my my take on it and and what

119what would be feasible because there are a bunch of potential legal ramifications and the last time I've been at a ladies or now you made me question the stall with the triangle skirt uh I didn't see any notification at any of the high schools regarding what you're saying so uh that's also something too that before we get delve too much into it that's why we have good old school attorneys um but that's just my two cents into it I'll open it back up to Mr Lombard and then I'll open it back up to you and then Dr Morgan if you have any comments yeah I wanna emphasize the fact to you Mr actually Dr sakovic Mr psychology um that I'm not against discussion education even of even of students but we're talking about doing dude

120you're about doing teachers right but I mean I'm not against you know discussing things I'm against mandating things I'm against mandating language I am and I also to kind of piggyback and I think what you were saying Ms deptis Perez is that when you're dealing with education especially of young people and that's where it all starts you got to do the basics and to take away that person's she or that person's he and make them they to do everything gender neutral mandate gender neutral language coming out of the teacher's mouth so she loses her sheeness and his business I think that's a mistake first of all they're learning who they are and you know what there's nothing I'm not saying you're saying this but there's nothing wrong with she or he those are those are

121identified those are real so to use a gender-neutral term for a student that's asked for it I could see that's okay but to apply it across the classroom and use generital terms as a new way of language the growth and development of language now it's all neutral I don't think that's a good idea education wise are also identity wise we're talking about identity here and I think it's it's actually stripping people's identity to go gender neutral in the classroom so to to wrap up what I'm saying before I know you're chopping at the bit all right so so I I'm I'm open to something as you know non-threatening and non-mandatory as video like you just showed you had a show tonight for people to see in an in-service as part of their in-service or whatever

122yeah it's good to learn about these things and then take it and as an adult process it and do with it as a professional teacher what you will do with it or not I think that's where we are um but I to repeat and and to end I'm completely against anything mandatory in use of preferred pronouns by the student um because I think it's the problems I've mentioned before that you're opening up a can of worms with lawsuits that the teachers would say uh-uh you can't make me do that and people have the right to not do that still apparently according to the things that I read about so okay now I want to back up to something uh respect these Perez said earlier about mandate about taking away parental rights I don't really understand

123how it would take away parental rights is because it Let's Pretend We're a classroom full of students and I say all right guys let's go rather than say Let's go people or address something like that well if I wanted somebody's attention Mr Joseph is Baptiste yes well Christine didn't use a pronoun still got your identity and then take away any parental rights I don't know what your personal pronoun is and maybe I don't care but I still did not what's wrong with saying Mister to someone who identifies as a male is not what that's identified the same thing there's nothing wrong with saying this is understood when you said gender neutral gender neutral I'm saying like if I want to refer to you also number let's or sometimes we have teachers I guess they use

124Mr and Mrs a lot when I talk to the students hopefully that misses hopefully Miss I know I know I know it's a can of worms it's a difficult conversation and I kind of like difficult conversations because that's how we get moving forward yeah we get the discussions going but I do know it hurts when somebody's misgendered I do know especially with teenage years is especially difficult for that and it hurts to take away someone's gender by neutralizing it acting like it doesn't matter long-term hurt that's not a good thing it might be I have no children I don't back down from the formalities or the fact I've heard anecdotally again different parent I'm not sure if this was actually I know it was a school in Bridgeport but I'm not sure if it was

125at one of our schools uh it was one of the teachers who decided to identify as another sex but it was not obvious and if a student misgendered the student was getting recommended in school I'm pretty sure this was not one of our Public Schools um by default I'm pretty sure it's not a Catholic school either but um besides this point sorry students are now getting punished if it's not readily identified to them I I just feel like this is this is murky I always talk about punishments but I mean mandate well so there has to be gender neutral but now the teacher's identity doesn't have to be respected because then when Nestle we Mr Smith oh no no doubt a teacher's identity going to be respected because if you've got a teacher that wants

126to be addressed by a pronoun it's that's not their assigned sex and people know that and they don't we've got a hostile work environment you mentioned bullying I think no matter what the reason is is the teacher's responsibility to to interject in bullying no matter what the reason is even if the teacher doesn't agree with the bully e they agree with what the bully thinks they still have to stop the bullying you know so that stuff's already there um I I I I think that um there may already be and maybe I don't know if Dr Morgan knows and there may or may not already be in this topic being addressed at all but teachers I think it's a worthwhile topic you know it's to think about how it a program a mandated program I

127don't know about a program but maybe I've just learned this piece basically learning piece of professional dog yeah I think that's a more fun thing Dr Morgan do you know if that's included in any of our teachers or even the executive level PD for or just an inclusion program with diversity and um I would tell you no well I would say inclusion like it probably would fit in with diversity equity and inclusion but more geared towards gender identity no no none that I've taken because uh the issues come up you know often I just haven't won the other day um it was an inclusion video had to do with you know it was like love is love but it was every love like sisterly love Mother Mother Father grandmother but it also had you know

128uh gay women gay men it had different races it was about love is love but you know someone took offense to the gay part of it they didn't look at the rest of it so um no there's no there's no program that I know of that the teachers are given or any PD that they go through and this is all you know hit or miss you know some people think it's okay some don't think it's okay some parents loved it and praised it another parent said you know I'm not going to have my child do this assignment and I don't appreciate you showing this video without my consent so it's very difficult you know it's almost like the the race yeah it's almost like the race um uh conversations that people are afraid to have

129and it's just I don't know where to go with it but I think they should have some sort of PD on how to address these topics when they come up uh parents are asking for LBG lb you know you know the the casino they're asking to have clubs after school and and principals don't know how to respond to it and so um yeah we need we need something so I think it's a good um it's a good conversation and we do need something in policy moving forward mandate anything right now because mandate yeah you know mandate you know implies punishment if you're not in compliance so yeah thank you for that I appreciate that but my thought is because of the examples you just gave the different perspectives where people are right now you know

130baby steps with things my thought is that we cannot I'm going to use a dirty word we cannot come off as indoctrinating the staff The Faculty yeah we cannot we cannot say that we are right or by we have nothing but we that the person in that video is right who's to say that she's right or not that's just kind of what's going on in culture doesn't mean she's right she even says something like or some would call it archaic terms like in in a negative way she's referring to it and some would say no that's not archaic that's just how it is so who's to say she's right we have different ideas of what's right it's not science like even science isn't always right so I feel like if anything were rolled out if

131any in any PD is rolled out like even that video it's a nice video it's innocuous it has to be presented in a way they were just giving you some information a perspective on this topic and probably along with it would be fair someone else's perspective that doesn't agree with it that would be fair another another YouTube video that says well you know what here's the reasons why this may not be the best thing like the things that Miss batis Perez was alluding to maybe it has an effect on education and a negative one maybe it's only right it's otherwise you're saying this is really even though we're saying you don't have to do it this is the only thing we're presenting you with but if we're going to be balanced here's the topic gender

132identity pronouns vocabulary language matters here's a perspective the video you just showed here's another perspective we're not mandating you to do anything well you're making a squirmish face at me yeah because I got a very bad feeling but well I'm just saying like who who are we to present only one side let me it's objective I don't know if that video exists on the other side but I'm going to say no no they they do and even just they've existed for the past probably two thousand years no no no specifically on today's topic yeah today I mean like progressing yeah I've enjoyed the discussion but two thousand years we're still we're still on Robert's Rules just finish your comment Mr Collins I'm just saying Society for years has been presenting the other side and when

133you talk about President of the other side of being inclusive and respecting people's feelings the other side is that of that is disrespecting the feelings like I heard one person like bring it back to race yep if you put a thing that all races are created equal let's do the other side what's the other side of that coin no they're not the other reasons are inferior to our race that's right that's all you got to be careful of having opposing points of views on every single thing that I disagree I disagree completely um I think I think what's been happening for two thousand years was what happened for two thousand years this issue is a new issue and this is a new issue dealing with this like this this person had a perspective of how

134it should be handled what I'm saying is I wonder if there's another well-meaning educated person who says my perspective on how this issue this new issue should be handled is X this person's is y or xxxy you know it's different perspectives I hope you appreciated that yeah so so I mean like I don't know if it exists that someone in a non-judgmental discriminatory way inclusive way says however in schools it's you know it Bears out to do this and not this although this sounds well intentioned well-meaning it's not the way to go so I don't know because the verdict is still out on this even on on youth especially the verdict is out in different countries where they're already starting to change their their their percentages of population people that are having uh these these

135sex changes and so forth a young age it's starting to go another Direction they're finding it's they're still dealing with this they're finding things about this so to start to implement a policy on something that's still going on I think is a mistake so therefore if we're going to educate our faculty and our staff about this issue I feel like it's right to give multiple perspectives on the issue so when people walk away from the PD they don't walk away saying huh try to indoctrate us on that you know they'll say they showed us two perspectives yup if you're going to give a PD to to act to staff on an issue like this you you're going to use State statutes and what the state of Connecticut says that they are required to do can't

136give an opinion on it because everybody has their own opinion on it can't give a perspective everyone has their own perspective so it doesn't matter how you present it someone's going to say well I don't agree with that or I think this way so it's always good to stay with statutes yeah state of Connecticut says they are required to do and just give them that information and absolutely that's that's good thank you and then that would probably lean towards a lot of the things I say and and you're right and Doctor very soon it is it's kind of a loaded word and to think that our staff could get indoctrinated and change the whole way of thinking from One professional development is sort of like the argument that people are using to ban books that

137if I read a book about a gay character it's going to turn my child gay and I've read books about Rapture that's not what I was continuing yeah no no but that but that is a good sense of of something aggressive against an indoctrination like look look at this look at this that's what I was saying not that they're going to change even though you want them to because that's the direction you want them to go but it's the baby steps that this is something I would need more education on um I would prefer if the Attorneys at Bertram drafted a memo that I can delve deeper into oh but I agree with Dr Morgan that we stay in line with what the law is the law is there for a reason it provides Clarity

138and it prevents us from being sued and making sure we're not stepping out of bounds um and so I'll contact the chair and see if that's something that we can get and see what are the parameters laid out yeah well if it's not laid out that's even more work yourself but if there are parameters what are there uh what's what's available for our education as board members and maybe how we can incrementally implement it like I said I'll just go back to the policies that's that's an easy change it's a small change but it's one Domino in in the direction I think you're gearing towards Mr sokolovic um and understanding what the law of Connecticut is will give us better perspective before we take any Mandatory Action so for example clarity this is what this

139is what I'm saying correct me if I'm wrong we're not against having a professional development around this for having the issue is mandating any actions after the professional development with consequences my answer to that is I want to see what the attorney says right if if there is something that we're not doing as a district that we're supposed to be doing then my answer to your question might be different than what it is right now I already answered your question of what I feel right now about mandates but I'm asking because it's not my committee no no no no no but I mean this is this was your your item you brought this thing too and you know the the homework is on you you know besides the to uh to give us more information

140about and I would like to see um well I'll look for the opposing because I don't know you may you may not find something that's very pleasant I just see something different about it um yeah okay so yeah we'll start with with the with the with the law so I went to law it's a good place to start with sounds like a plan anyway okay so no action yet so you know what this is a learning this is an overall learning day for me that's what we're here for oh no then we don't call the motion um do not let it down I mean that sounds so hey that's something we will develop and work on because we'll we'll work on we're in the discussion part um and I I won't lie I was thoroughly

141entertained at the back and forth debate so I apologize for not strictly enforcing Robert's Rules telling Joe going at it I was on Joe's side so thank you everybody that's his side but Joe's side Steve see how easy it is I will entertain a motion to adjourn so moved I second all in favor hi thank you Dr Morgan no by the way thank you good night oh sorry