001okay this is a call to order of the Bridgeport Board of educations second regular meeting for September 2022 today's date is Tuesday September 27 2022. uh if you all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance foreign would you call the role civil Allen here thank you Christine Baptiste Perez foreign Bobby Brown president Erica Castillo Michael macaron present Joseph President John Weldon president and myself Joseph Lombard president okay before we get into it there's a couple of procedural items I'd like to go through first uh our first new business item a discussion possible approval of thermal energy Supply agreement for new basic high school we have some outside presenters for this so I'd ask that we just relocate this to uh immediately following the superintendent's report foreign so I will make that motion is there a second
002second all in favor and opposed okay John because to amend um Sybil Allen pass Christine Baptiste Perez pass Albert benahan all right Bobby Brown pass Joseph Lombard yes Michael macaron yes josephic yes John Weldon yes Sybil Allen yes Christine Baptiste Perez no Albert beneham yes Bobby Brown yes so that's been relocated on the agenda and as I understand there is an item related to a field trip that needs to be added so I'm going to seek a motion to add the matter related discussion and possible approval of field chip field trip for as a Fairchild wheeler yes going to Sleepy Hollow and Sleepy Hollow and the Mario Como bridge by the Mario Oklahoma Bridge to be presented immediately following the thermal energy Supply agreement so I'll make that motion is there a second second you
003do another roll call sure thank you Sybil Allen yes Christine Baptiste Perez we'll do it immediately after this item I just said can we the thermal Loop can we place that before the thermal Loop so Mr lip can sure yeah that needs to be brought by a board member and then it would have to then be followed by Robert's Rules another amendment to the way it's being called right now I'm gonna make a motion to wait there's a motion on the floor ready I'm going to withdraw my motion and I'll withdraw my second we're done the prior motion to place the thermal Loop first on the agenda I second um okay we can over complicate it or we can just say we're going to put this prior to the thermal Loop yeah that's better so
004I'll make a motion to put the field trip prior to the thermal Loop discussion all right second okay Sybil Allen you want to press it are you in favor of yes Christine Baptiste Perez no Albert bennahan Bobby Brown yes Michael macaron yes Joseph sakolovic yes John Weldon yes Joe Lombard yes blessings the procedural items next on the agenda is minutes we have three meeting minutes to approve first is August 29 2022 regular meeting is there a motion to approve moved by Ms Allen is there a second second by Mr bennahan are there any edits you guys make the chair go ahead I have something that I I um said about how to work the board members in working together and what's not at that I say that I want to be sure and understand that
005as board members as me as a board member I'm not going to school to tell the staff and the principal assistant principle what to do because that's not my job and that's not my protocol so please they have to be at that in that minute please okay Mr McLeod if you clarify that in the document thank you are there any other edits all in favor all right any opposed extensions September 15 2022 special meeting is there a motion to approve second Luke by Mr bennahan second by Ms Allen was there any discussion or edits I have discussion and evidence right go ahead on the last page after it says Miss Casino says she was comfortable with not moving forward to expand the committee um I had made a motion to adjourn which was seconded and
006then all the board members from my recollection had voted in favor of it and so it needs to say Miss Baptiste Perez made a motion to adjourn which was second I don't recall by who and I couldn't tell from the video and the majority of members said I and then proceeding that it should say Mr uh Weldon said unless everyone jacks and so the adjourned time should actually be earlier but I didn't get the time stamp okay all right and so also just make sure adjourn is followed by it was the majority of members said I and voted in favor of it Mr McLeod you take the correction all in favor hi can you post any abstentions lastly September 21 2022 special meetings they're emotionally approved some move moved by Mr bennahan second second by
007Ms Allen is there any discussion or any edits all in favor any opposed any abstentions okay student representative reports have here this evening from BMA we have Julia Australia from Fairchild wheeler uh Arrow we have Lindsay Muhammad from Fairchild wheeler bio we have Isabella Ferrero and from Fairchild wheeler I.T we have Michael Hemmings so these are our student reps here I only see three of you some might be a protection oh virtual all right so um you don't have to if you're not prepared but um if you'd like to tell us a little bit about yourself and if there's anything that you'd like to report from your respective school I'll go down the list here news Australia good afternoon can everyone hear me did you press for a green button yeah Green Light okay press
008the buttons okay can you guys hear me now let it go okay I got it thank you um so my name is Julia Estrella I'm the representative for Bridgeport Military Academy I am one of the leaders of my school the president of the student council leader of the academic team and I'm representing my school here and um thank you for having me um so things have been going well for my school uh you know the year started off great we had our annual reform of the Battalion um we engage in physical activities like exercise and things like that to begin the school year um as well as boot camp for 9 11 we did a remembrance walk around Seaside Park um We Begin our after school clubs like Color Guard drill team academic team especially
009for the new freshman students that want to be involved in more involved in school extracurricular activities as such we held our open house on September 14th a lot of new parents came and were able to meet a lot a lot of teachers and a lot of parents had very good feedback about that um and we begin our leadership training program for our school which is a we went to compete with other schools as well as participate in leadership training in general for seniors and juniors to have that leadership training to prepare them for their future and one of the only concerns that we had for my school was transportation for students many Cadets live less than two minutes away from school and they're concerned about days getting lighter and later in the morning darker faster
010in the afternoon in regards to walking to school BMA is doing the best they can to accommodate these Cadets and that will be all for me thank you okay thank you does anyone have any questions for Ms Australia [Music] I'm going to phrase this commuting to school with daylight and it getting dark are you saying students would probably want to later start time so that way they don't have to commute let's say like when it's still dark like 6 30 in the morning um yes that's what was mentioned previously just because um parents were a little concerned about uh you know sometimes when it's starting to get cold it's a little darker out and it can be dangerous um maybe they're just concerned about their child safety was that a parent issue or a student
011issue a student issue brought by the parents about students no a parent told their child and their child brought it up so it was apparent concern but yeah students as well okay thank you thank you um Lindsay Muhammad good evening my name is Lindsay Muhammad and I'm representing the Fairchild wheeler Aerospace school I'm president of NHS and now I'm here thank you for having me so basically students have been issued all of their laptops in school already and we've began clubs again we also had our back to school night on September 14th so with Hispanic Heritage Month happening we've been promoting to Hispanic heritage essay contests that are happening and on October 7th we will have all day periods with Hispanic heritage Spanish Heritage and Latin American day in which classes and activities will be
012held to celebrate Hispanic heritage Longridge we have not I'm currently decided on a date yet but it will be happening soon our NHS induction ceremony and all of our seniors will be taking their sat on October 27th and juniors will be taking their PSATs on October 25th um on November 2nd 50 era students will be taking a field trip to the Aerospace alleys 2022 future Workforce opportunities Fair which will be held at the Connecticut convention center and just um to add in their scores have been up in the Aerospace school for English language arts by 3.9 math up by 3.1 and science up by 2.4 and that is all that I have for today thank you okay does anyone have any questions for Ms Muhammad okay thank you and welcome to your first meeting uh
013I was remiss bastic High School is represented online we have MS unisia marciel Miss martial do you have anything to report yes um hello um my name is I am president of the NHS um I am a senior and I am one of the two representative for basic high school um we've had a successful opening at basic high school we've had several um after school activities and clubs and are encouraging the development of others um basic was happy and proud to receive recognition for the FAFSA Challenge and for receiving the governor's award um the automotive class led by Mr Bloom continues to make progress on the building of the aircraft Tango flight and is expected to take off in three months seniors are now working on their college application and preparing for the upcoming sat
014and they're also preparing for their Capstone project um that will be all thank you okay does anyone have any questions okay thank you and again welcome Fairchild wheeler bio we have Isabella Ferrero good evening my name is Isabella Ferrero and I'm proud to be here representing Fairchild wheeler campus biotechnology High School uh since the start of the school since the start of the school year we hosted our back to school night where parents were and teachers parents and theirs and their child were able to meet their new teachers and get a new perspective on the new Fair child Wheeler Community additionally after a child wheeler we have more than 30 clubs to join where students can meet new peers of similar interests and share their unique ideas and finally our upperclassmen provide extra support through
015a program called linked up crew for a new freshman to accommodate themselves and get a feel for our high school environment thank you thank you and last we have from fair trade wheeler I.T Michael Hemmings hi my name is Michael Clemens I'm a senior at I.T um so so far we had 25 clubs that are up and running a step Camp recently passed it was very successful we had our senior volunteers work with teachers and incoming specimens to help kids get accustomed to the school students completed many projects each day uh paper bridges and Lego coating Etc uh laptop distribute laptop distribution was successful and so was our open house which was September 14th and we also have a field trip to the University of October 13th and that is all okay does anyone have
016any questions for Mr Hemmings okay thank you and welcome there are other yes no and I have a question but I would like to give please everybody give a big hand to all the students represent they always come to bring before we did that I want to just make sure to read them all so they're all stated and then we'll do that so all the representatives are basic High School Ms Marseille and then we have Nikki Ann Thomas at Bridgeport Military Academy in addition to Ms Australia we have Evan Arroyo Central High School we have Latonya Ferguson and Brianna Broderick Fairchild wheeler arrow in addition to Ms Muhammad we have Annelise ovalle and Fairchild wheeler bio in addition to Ms Ferrero we have Chanel Morgan and Fairchild wheeler I.T in addition to Mr Hemmings we
017have Jose narcisse and at Harding High School we have Jaleel Stewart and vasty Gifford so as you said I just want to get a big into a student [Applause] thank you very much guys thank you Mr Chef all right Mr chair yes ma'am are we going to implement the same roles as in the last school year where if students wanted to participate in our conversations or discover discussions that's really the reason you're here is to participate in our deliberations I'm sure it's been explained to all of you that uh while you're you're not able to vote we want to hear what you have to say about the different things that we're talking about so we can hear from the student point of view but what your thoughts are so please actively participate raise your hand
018okay okay next on the agenda is a public comment we have six speakers this evening the first is I apologize I'm gonna butcher this shinedum please correct me go ahead there should be a button there we go yes uh my name is for the record uh long time residence Bridgeport um member of Faith acts member of gen now on the board for partners um and I wanted to go on to record to just say that speaking to the board especially looking at the agenda for today first wanted to commend the board um the items I see on your business seem to be basically responding to the public comment that has started at the beginning of the school year for coming out from the outcry from the community asking to be thorough in this process for
019selecting superintendent and also making space to include the community so just wanted to start off by commending the board and my comment is really just to encourage that as you go into these discussions and possible actions that again continue to consider the community's input consider how um voices have responded and how we want to set the precedent going forward for how our district wants to be a collaborative space a space in which our entire Community feels included um and that as we go on this journey collectively that we are very very intentional in making a situation in which we are setting up not only just our students for success but whoever it is that comes into this role is in a space where they feel that they're able to succeed and they feel that despite
020any contention we can all have that this is a community that is dedicated to uplifting them in their role and looking forward to their success in that position thank you sir foreign Joanne Kennedy good evening for those of you that I'm here at the last public comments I'm going to read this into um the record again the scripture says somebody little children to come unto me and forget them not for such as the kingdom of heaven we have to take care of our children this was dated September 14 2022. the members of the of the Bridgeport Board of Education the greater bridge for NAACP and its education committee recently wrote a letter to the Bridgeport Board of Education share and its members on the boe's failure to be transparent and inclusive in the Bridgeport superintendent
021selection process given the political climate in this nation and significant efforts being made by special interests seeking to control and manipulate public education it's imperative that local Boards of education's public school education be not only transparent but inclusive and reflective of its community on September 8th the Bridgeport Board of Education held an exclusive meeting hiding in plain sight at our largest High School Central High School so sequestering themselves in an upstairs classroom guarded by Bridgeport police officer on scarce Public Finance overtime dollars four Board of Education members thank you guys very much opt to remain instead with the public who were denied access and entry into the staircase leading up to the second floor location of the secret meeting the intending public remains strong and United while more participated via live Facebook live to witness
022the actions of the Bridgeport Board of Education chair John Wilson who arbitrarily and you know unilaterally refuse public entry and access to the most important work the Bridgewater education is charged with doing the selection of the new superintendent including an interim or Acting Superintendent greatly impacts 20 plus 20 000 students twenty thousand plus students and their families who attend Bridgeport Public Schools Monday September 12th the Bridgeport Board of Education had to add had to cancel a regularly scheduled Board of Education meeting due to chairperson John weldon's failure to publicly post the agenda chairperson John Williams Express duty is to ensure that the bboe agenda is posted within requirements of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Act yet he continues to fail to uphold the basic and debate this basic and expressed Duty chairperson Logan is one
023of two white males elected as Republicans on the Bridgeport Board of Education amongst a majority of Democrats and working family parties elected to the bboe members and in a public school district where most of the children parents and stakeholders are black and brown and represented by the Democratic and the Working Families party yet chairperson John Weldon is using the taxes lauded by the national Republican gang of dilettants who are attempting to hijack the public education system I.E Florida Texas Georgia through manipulation and control we must demand the Bridgeport Board of Education work on behalf of the families and children attending Bridgeport Public Schools we must demand transparency and inclusion we must demand equity and accountability we the people are the power for without the people who are the parents there are no children for without
024the children who are the students Scholars there are no schools and therefore no local Boards of Education be strong and powerful we have to continue to demand demand demand demand not to only have a seat at the table demand to have our voices heard and acted upon together we can put an end to this madness empower the undecided Bridgeport working family party town committee Connecticut working family party the greater at Bridgeport NAACP the Greater Bridgeport and ACP education committee Al Aziz Islamic Center advocacy for gaap elimination and equity in education earnings and environment LLC Julie Martin Ortiz Connecticut connected 23rd State Senate District make the road action Connecticut Greater Bridgeport Ed Jones black Democratic Club Dr spelled 132nd Democratic town Committee Member and Bridgeport Generation Now votes thank you [Applause] Tracy Garcia hi my name
025is Tracy and I'm here today with the group make the road to express my demands as a Bridgeport youth regarding the new superintendent I am a member of the community and as a member of the community I demand a transparent and respectful process When selecting new superintendent as a member of make the road youth power committee we demand the following things from our new supreme and remember this I'm 13. I didn't think I'd be doing stuff like this I didn't think I'd have to speak up about stuff like this but here I am doing it so one a superintendent that truly understands before Youth and what they go through a superintendent that prioritizes a budget that allocates fun funds for the best interest of the students a superintendent that commit that will commit to working
026on getting teachers and counselors paid adequately a superintendent that will invest in infrastructure of the schools a superintendent that will commit to investing in more quality meals um one that actually implements restorative justice practices in schools and the superintendent that cares about students having C at the table I'd also like to expand a little more on why I think that the teachers and counselors should be paid a little more adequately um I'm taking this from personal experience okay I had a teacher who would come to school one would come happy because he loved to teach another one was just absolutely sick and tired of the way he was paid he loved his students but he just didn't like the pay he was this close to quitting but he kept staying and I don't think that's
027I I don't think that's right people should be paid to do what they like they're doing what they love or what they think they need to do and the money that goes to them helps them with stuff that goes on in their life and they're just more stressed about teaching the kids well stressed about stuff at home the things they need money for and I don't think they should have to stress um and I think that the narrative here is that we do not care but I'm here to prove otherwise thank you for listening and please take in consideration our demands [Applause] Juarez so members of the board I am Angeline and I'm here today with Nate the road Connecticut to express my demands as Bridgeport youth regarding the new superintendent as a member of
028the community I depend I demand transparent and respectful process When selecting a new superintendent as a member of make the road youth power committee we demand the following things from the superintendent a superintendent that truly just understands Bridgeport Youth and what they go through a superintendent that prioritizes a budget that allocates funds in the best interest for the students a superintendent that will commit to working on getting teachers and counselors paid adequately a superintendent that will invest in the infrastructure of the schools a superintendent that will commit to investing in more quality meals a super an Implement restorative justice practices in the schools a superintendent that cares about the students having a seat at the table I would like to add a bit of emphasis on the superintendent being understanding and letting students have a
029seat and be able to talk here in these meetings transparent meetings because we students are the future we are going to be good we're going to we're just generally going to be the future we if we get good education if we want to learn in schools if we learn we want to learn we'll do good and then we'll become good people and the narrative is that we do not care but we're here to prove otherwise because we want a better education for ourselves we want to study thank you for listening and please take our consideration into demands thank you for your time thank you Miss Juarez [Applause] hello members of the board my name is Giselle and I'm here today with my team make the road to express our demands as a Bridgeport youth regarding
030the new superintendent as a member of the community I demand a transparent and respectful process When selecting the new superintendent as a member of make the world youth power committee we demand the following things from the new superintending this is why the students of Bridgeport demand a superintendent that truly understands Bridgeport Youth and what they all go through a superintendent that prioritizes a budget that allocates funds for the best entrance of the students a superintendent that will commit to working on getting teachers and counselors paid adequately a superintendent that will commit to investing in more quality meals and lastly a superintendent that cares about students having a seat at the table I would like to emphasize the topic about bridgeport's upcoming new superintendi so we the students of Bridgeport demand someone who is from Bridgeport
031so they can clearly see our needs from our eyes of being here it is important because students are not getting exactly what they need these days so thank you janelier Rosario hello everyone I'm janelis Rosario from make the road I'm gonna keep this short I'm just here to emphasize what the youth have said and what they are demanding and I hope everything that they have said today is heard respected and is acted upon it is important to have a transparent process with the new superintendent because this will really shape our youth in Bridgeport bridgeport's education system is in critical condition and we need to do better to invest in our students and their future as some of them were saying they are the future future doctors future everything so we need to ensure that their
032education is invested in so when you are older someone can take care of you thank you and have a good day dude includes public comment uh next is the Chairman's report and I'm actually going to turn it over to Mr testani because he has a recognition to make sure well then I'm going to read from a letter uh written by Dr Charmaine worthy principal at Jenny Tisdale Elementary School Michael paolucci is an overcomer Problem Solver an innovator and a dynamic member of Tisdale School Arts team his enthusiasm love and passion for teaching and his students have hardly arrival on our staff and we have an incredible faculty Mr paolucci does not work or serve for awards or accolades but simply to inspire and impact all those he comes in contact with each day he has
033mastered The elusive art of Being firm but fair having roles yet maintaining relationships and keenly remembering that he is really teaching children whom he freely offers love acceptance and Grace one walks into his classroom and finds the environment alive with excitement from the students passion from the teacher and a wow factor from his choice of delivery medals while remaining current with the latest instructional strategies and Technologies he can still reach a troubled or struggling student with simple yet profound words and empathy coupled with complete professionalism likewise he can accelerate and challenge his brightest students because of professional development experiences and Innovations he has pursued and mastered Mr paolucci has a calling in his life and that calling is teaching he teaches his students to strive for excellence to love music and to respect each other
034he teaches all of us to give our best for our students to wear a smile to have faith and to remember that storms of life can often produce beautiful rainbows and New Growth Michael's commitment to his elementary students into his school community in Bridgeport shows his Stellar leadership as the Arts leadership team leader and implementation coordinator his high energy and enthusiasm ensure that children receive quality programming and exceed their own expectations he is a key member of the Arts teaching and learning team at his school whether working with students or planning with peers Michael provides students with meaningful learning experiences students are constantly and consistently challenged to think of themselves as capable competent independent and lifelong learners he is an inspiring educator who Embraces the dynamic demands of roles as teacher and learning leader to
035improve student learning and professional development opportunities has demonstrated understanding of the learning process has helped create a true learning community at a school and planted the seeds of similar successes at many other schools in the district his peers recognize him as a leader actively involved in professional development he openly shares his techniques for classroom successes and student achievement with his peers he is the ideal Champion for bringing Innovation into the classroom or aiding others and developing or modifying existing strategies to assist in student learning his quiet confident demeanor helps support his peers to better understanding of teacher practices which leads to Greater student learning it is with admiration and support and without reservation that I introduce Michael palucci as the Bridgeport Public Schools 2022 teacher of the year foreign [Applause] [Laughter] there's always a catch
036Mama come over here I just wanted to thank everybody involved in the process of the selection process it truly is a an incredible honor to be recognized in this capacity um and uh yeah I just hope that uh this brings you know more awareness to the importance and urgency of culturally responsive teaching and anti-racist instruction so thank you very much for the recognition thank you [Applause] okay we're going to move on to committee reports and referrals the superintendent search committee has not met since the last meeting uh ad hoc district-wide branding initiative Ms Brown our committee met a couple weeks a week today successful meeting we are moving forward with our logo process we look forward to being able to present and also offer opportunities for feedback from teachers students and board members our next
037meeting will none other than be October 12th at 6 30 Central High School Library thank you okay any referrals okay contracts committee has not met since the last board meeting are there any referrals for the contracts committee okay educational diversity equity and inclusion Ms Castillo is not here though she's indicated she's going to be here at some point so we can maybe Circle back around with if she's able to uh attend uh facilities committee are there any referrals for facilities foreign finance committee are there any referrals for finance or report I don't think finance committee is scheduled to meet this this Thursday um the agenda is not posted yet will be posted in compliance with foia 24 hours in advance of Thursday's meeting so by Wednesday 6 30 p.m you it should for the latest
038be available for everyone any referrals I would call your attention for finance that we are completing the first quarter of the fiscal year and we do need to adopt a budget for the fiscal year so I would encourage you to reach out to Ms Siegel to try to coordinate starting that process governance has not met is there any referrals from governance health and safety committee uh I have people who have expressed their interest the committee needs to be populated but in the interim does anyone have any referrals for health and safety Personnel are there any referrals for personnel we were hoping to have some referrals to Personnel however um candidates from outside of the district that were moved forward in the process and and within the district I'm sorry uh in the process for the
039selection of principal at BlackRock School Fairchild wheeler I.T and for your child wheeler bio have all since withdrawn their candidacy so um they were not the top candidates the current employees that uh serving as interim were all the top candidates so we will move forward in the process okay thank you and Families so informative we're going to um meet uh October 20 2022 at uh Central High School but Mom Mr chair I just want to put on the record I bet he sent an email about starting the next month I'm going to change the time because that's I'm a part-time I'll leave at 6 o'clock Ms Brown Living sister classroom we want to have a great successful you know meeting so we're going to start at 6 30 she just wanted to know for the
040record yeah thank you Miss value I know she'll update you I already sent an email okay thank you any referrals teaching and learning today at 5 30 for to this meeting um one item is actually going to come up so bother to discuss it regarding the field trip that the board will decide on for fair child um the board did review uh the District's performance in these uh s back is the short term for it but it's pretty much the end of year Examination for grades three through eight and grade 11. um part of the discussion was the tough pill of reality with the state of our schools um according to the S back scores district-wide we are somewhat on par with our neighboring uh or I forgot what's the terminology so similar kind of
041school Dirk schools yeah dirt doesn't sound much optimistic um um so that would include like Hartford and New Haven however for for being comparative for those apples it's it means that only 20 of our students are proficient in ela so that means 80 of our students are not proficient in reading and math uh for math 90 of our students are not proficient um and for science 17 of our students are proficient so 83 percent are not and um being able as a district Mr testani did explain that there is a plan being implemented that's not from the top down uh to move our students forward um there was some discussion um whether we're putting stress on students with covet learning loss and stressing our students with the idea of catching up um I was of
042the position of 80 of y'all ain't passing so we have to put that pressure for our students to be successful whether they leave and go to another school district I think that's part of student achievement um but we're going to analyze the data even more because I I did request it last minute and digested so the board can really especially teaching and learning can really figure out how we're going to take action for a student achievement and bring that up and change those numbers I ask that we start comparing ourselves to our neighbors of Fairfield County and see how we're performing to them uh just so we can have an understanding um but those are all active discussions that will be continued um and so I do appreciate Mr testani and the staff for getting
043that in so we can have that today and um our next meeting will be sometime next month okay any referrals or questions okay superintendent's report yes thank you as we discussed about a week and a half ago at the next board meeting tonight there was some mention about recruitment retention and teachers so we did provide and we will go over a PowerPoint presentation led by our human resources department but we have representatives from all the Departments throughout the district that are facing challenges but I think it's important not only to discuss that the number of vacancies but the strategies that have been implemented to try to recruit and retain teachers here in Bridgeport there's no shortage of effort by all these individuals here tonight representing departments that span across the district as everyone is well
044aware there is a teacher shortage Nationwide there is a teacher shortage on the state of Connecticut and there's a larger more growing crisis in urban education across this nation to the point that some of our young people spoke about today one of the challenges is the inability to compensate at a competitive rate to our neighboring districts in Fairfield County that is something that we have tried to work collectively with the Bridgeport Education Association in conjunction with the Connecticut associate Education Association the largest teachers union in the state in the last session to try to address the strains that are being put on the districts that are most needy across the state which are the alliance districts there are 36 districts now identified as Alliance districts it is not a an exclusive club that um school
045districts strive to be part of but unfortunately uh we are in that predicament and one of the major challenges whether it's in Bridgeport Hartford New Haven or Derby Ansonia is the um Recruitment and Retention of high quality instructors so I will have Miss Denise altro Dixon our director of Human Resources Executive Director of Human Resources kick us off to go over some of our Recruitment and Retention framework some of our foundational beliefs and some of the brief statistics through the human resources department and then we'll get into some of the more detailed efforts that are being done by the department at I think this is an important presentation and I ask that you all find a seat for you yeah let's all take a seat those of us who can't see let's take foreign ready
046one here it is okay thank you for those of you who do not know me my name is Denise outro Dixon I'm the Executive Director of Human Resources uh so good evening everyone as the superintendent indicated uh you know at this time uh the shortage for teachers is felt nationwide at this point this is not just Bridgeport that has the high shortage of teachers in addition to is every District competing for teachers that are out there less and less people are enrolling in schools to become teachers we've had conversations with local universities about their enrollments and we have been told repeatedly that enrollment for educational programs has decreased tremendously over the last few years whether it's covid related or just people are no longer seeking out the teaching careers it is something that is being
047felt throughout the nation so at this point in time one of the things we are focusing on doing let me okay first let's go to statistics at this point in time there are about 80 vacancies for certified staff in the city of bridgeport's public schools now when I say 80 vacancies that may sound like a lot to you it is a lot but when you look at our fill rate percentage at this point 95.3 percent is our current fill rate for teachers so that means 95 of our teaching positions are filled so but 80 vacancies is a lot um at this time there are 75 vacancies that are in the classroom setting there are some vacancies such as this uh speech language Pathologists School psychologists social workers that are not in the classroom so that's
048why we say there are 75 of these vacancies when when each of the department heads speak they could talk to you specifically about their departments this number 80 also reflects other areas uh such as Elementary we have one Pre-K vacancy physical Ed and health vacancies Ela and English vacancies tech ed and social studies we also have um for the 2022 to 2023 school year we have hired 27 New Paras and we have it about an 84 percent fill rate for paraprofessionals in the school we are continuously I'm going to go back we are continuously reaching out and recruiting we have uh numerous Partnerships with local universities to not only take on student teachers when they are working in our school districts we try to snatch them up and hire them permanently as much as we
049can we also have we also started other Partnerships with schools we we are focusing on our current staff we have many paraprofessionals who have desires to become teachers so we have created a paraprofessional Fellowship as we're calling it with a local University where while they're working to become paraprofessionals there will be paraprofessionals in our school they would then become teachers in our school we are offsetting uh tuition for part of this program and in return they are committed to work with us as teachers in Bridgeport for I believe it's three years we have other fellowships and Partnerships residencies with schools which allow us to take the residencies who work with us for a year and keep them for three to five years in our schools we have focused on increasing our recruitment or advertisements we
050have used social media parent squares a great thing that we use to blast out announcements we are on CT reap our biggest thing is the Apple track which we use to do our uh Recruitment and our job postings we use social media in LinkedIn I know we have used our Instagram account so we are out there trying to recruit everyone we have also brought back in-person job fairs in addition to virtual job fairs we have signed up with a company called Brazen which uh allows us to do virtual job fairs in fact we have one coming up uh beginning of October which will be a virtual job fair I do want to say that for the 2020 2022-2023 school year uh just for in the course of the summer we hired brought on nearly 200
051new employees and that's both certified and non-certified I know when we talk about diversity I will let you know that of the certified staff about 30 percent of the new newly hired certified staff are just this summer alone was of a minority descent for non-certified such as facilities clericals paraprofessionals cafeteria staff we hired about 64 percent of those employees are a minority descent at this point I'm going to turn it over to some of the unless anyone has any questions for HR I will turn it over to the different departments minorities so minorities are when you fill out your job applications and the question is you fill out the minorities are African-American Hispanic Asian two or more race and then it's um it's it's listed as black non-hispanic and then we also have an unknown
052okay thank you Miss Alger Dixon um next slide bilingual World languages Miss Anna Susa Martin's director of department will speak to some of the challenges and the growing needs that the district faces each and every day as more and more students enroll in the public schools requiring um additional support from our staff good evening everyone Anna Souza Martin's director of bilingual education and World languages k to 12. um so to give you some perspective from um June until uh late August we had about 24 vacancies um again my department um hires Spanish speaking and Portuguese speaking staff and that is based on the Connecticut State Department of Education and the language program mandates so they identify if a school has 20 or more students of the same language and then they mandate that you provide
053a program with the teacher who speaks that language um So currently um we had 24 vacancies as of today we have two vacancies we are down from three to two um we do have teachers there are about 13 teachers who hold a durational shortage area permit which means that they're certified in an area however they speak the language and they have some credits where they could um be granted this uh shortage area permit to teach in bilingual or ESL or World languages Department we do have 11 long-term substitutes and many of those substitutes are either teachers from other countries um Central America South America who are working toward their Connecticut certification and so they fall under the long-term Subs we also have candidates who are long-term Subs who have degrees maybe not in education but
054have degrees and they are working toward uh they have enough education credits and they're working toward their Education certification so the supports that we have um developed in in the department is to provide instructional support to all of the staff but particularly to our long-term subs and our durational shortage area permit teachers because they have the least amount of experience teaching so we want to provide them with instructional support we have provided them with one-to-one classroom support a professional development opportunities I provide new newsletters we have a teams page with resources and websites that they can access as well as providing them with classroom observations and feedback for improvement uh some of the recruitment strategies um is an is a partnership or our Partnerships that I've established with the local universities and I'm proud to
055say that we have seven teachers that are enrolled in um arctel or at Southern um with Bridgeport financial assistance to pursue either bilingual education or ESL and so next this coming school year they'll be certified so that'll open up the pool of candidates we also have been um recruiting through Apple track Word of Mouth referrals reaching out to um teachers in other states to see if there's reciprocity so that we can provide them with certification here staff referrals I'm constantly tapping into my staff asking do you have any friends any family that are interested in teaching um and who are bilingual we also I collaborate regularly with the Connecticut State Department of Education their certification specialist so that is all for my department thank you okay as far as the people we help out get
056the certification how are they obligated to stay for a certain amount of time yes yes so depending on the um cross endorsement initiative or the fellowship it could be three years it could be five years so they all sign a promissory note um that if they leave before that there'll be some financial obligation to give back to the district [Music] um this is funny I have a question for my children before me Susan I have a question when you say um on Spanish and Portuguese but they can be another language another person if they come right yes yes so right now um Bridgeport is only mandated to provide Portuguese uh Spanish and Portuguese language program called families and students from many different uh cultures and languages and that's those students receive ESL English as a
057second language thank you and use that current vacancy um the three they go two now right what is the titles and my last question how the registration go to a new Department you know parents come you have a lot of people Okay so we've been providing registrations and as a result we've been connecting with Aaron Aaron no teachers from other countries who have help too so and um we worked with make the road uh at the newcomer rival Center uh to provide training for uh parents so we're providing lots of Community Based all right thank you Mr Garcia before you you go with facilities we'll go we'll come back to the facilities I want to talk a little bit about the Math teachers because that's been an area that is a struggle uh Mr planus
058is at a workshop um some of the same supports have been put in place to help um students uh help teachers be retained in the area of mathematics many of the same recruitment strategies um connecting with universities participating in District recruitment fairs um Mr planus also reached out and participated in a virtual job fair back home in his neighboring town of Ponce Puerto Rico we forward all our postings through social media but in the math area we also forward them to math agencies throughout the area and the country we work with CES to provide workshops to help folks get their 4-8 certification and pass the assess assessment we've also provided information the teachers to try to do cross endorsements and incentives as well and we've also purchased licenses to practice for folks to practice for
059the High School exam state exam which is the practice Praxis test so there is no shortage of efforts from our math department equally as challenging as the science department and Mr Henry's here he can speak on the science department yeah foreign I appreciate your time I am Dave Henry I'm the science director as well as the Director of the aquaculture program here we've had struggles finding people to fill these spots um when I started in this business 19 years ago I was hired under a durational shortage area permit which was referenced earlier dsap as we call it um and for I believe all 19 years science has been areas of shortage it's even more felt this year um we have um four recent applicants in our system that have applied for jobs in Bridgeport Public
060Schools uh two are from the Philippines one's from Bangladesh and the other ones from Connecticut she's been hired the other those three have responded they are looking for uh visas to come to our country and work um so it shows I guess how dire the situation is with the help of Portia Scott who I believe is here Scott's been a great addition to us as assistant science director she's been wonderful in getting out into our schools to help some of the long-term Subs that have taken on the responsibility of teaching science to our students we also have teacher leaders thanks Mr testani in the district for putting those in place those are also crucial in helping fill these uh gaps so I do welcome any and all applicants either here in the crowd or on
061the Internet any science teachers out of work please reach out directly to me or to Bridgeport Public Schools we want to do the best by all of our kids here certainly and are doing all we can uh every day so thank you all right question Mr Henry yes I feel like everybody's rushing you know we can ask questions uh Mr Henry um when you said a number of vacancies 14 they always have this High number or the it was low before so Mr Henry uh this has decreased over the last two weeks or pardon me over the last four weeks but we are currently facing this number of vacancies so whatever teaches we have now they work in like a double heart with the students because you sure are all signs oh unfortunately those classrooms
062are covered by substitutes they're not covered by we don't have the teachers so in a middle school for for example there's one science teacher for middle school so if there's a vacancy there are no science there's a sub and as Mr Henry mentioned maybe a Lead Teacher there to provide support so that there's some teaching going on in the science area in terms of is this a low number um we've had years where it's worse uh many years ago many some people in the room will remember we actually the district went to India and brought over Math and Science teachers to fill vacancies that was a two-year commitment and those folks had to go back and we've struggled ever since um to continue to try to find certified science teachers it's it's a small pool
063it's very specific in terms of certification to teach the science disciplines so you have to be certified in biology to teach biology you have to be certified in chemistry to teach chemistry which means you have to pass the Praxis exam in that content area and most of those folks work in in Private Industry where they can make a lot of money that's what we're talking about teachers are all sub teachers Subs have to meet the certified no no one question hold on a second I'm not finished yet hold on I'm not finished yet give me one second um so you want to tell me that the students are not um receiving the education complete 100 because the sub is not certified correct the sub was certified we'd hire all right thank you of course you
064want to add to that question yeah because that's one of the reasons why I've been going to those that have new teachers and long-term Subs who assure that they're getting the curriculum they're getting the rigor and they're getting instructional practices that they can Implement even though they're not a certified all right thank you for your information and I can share as well as your supervisor and evaluator she does have an office here at aquaculture but uh it's often not occupied because she is on the road and uh with you know filling me in with all she does so again I'm appreciative thank you Porsche for all that you've done for our kids thank you Mr Henry thank you um well we'll stick with the Henry theme and uh call up Dr Henry who is our
065director of performing in Visual Arts um and again no shortage of efforts from Dr Henry and her department and trying to recruit um certified teachers in this area hi good evening everyone I'm Sarah Jane Henry um it's rare that art and music are areas of shortage and it is right now and I'm not the only we're not the only districts struggling um our surrounding districts are certainly um trying to poach our people so I'm doing the best I can to keep our wonderful staff where they are and it helps when we have a teacher of the year so thank you for that um so we do have six unfilled classrooms right now but what I'm doing with principals is we're working to expand Performing Arts into including theater so that that opens up a skill
066set for teachers so that we have a broader pool to pull from I like the other departments our long-term Subs are all invited to all our professional developments and meetings they have access to all our online resources I am working to pair them up with veteran teachers so that they have somebody to ask questions if it's not me it can't always be me but they can always reach out to a colleague to share lesson plans and that sort of thing I'm standing up study groups for my non-certified staff who are looking to take the practice so that they can work together to pass the test together I've got one teacher on a strict schedule that she has to follow until December so that she can take the practice she said that she needed that so
067we have meetings set up so that I can keep her on task so that she can be ready for the practice I'm working with local universities to get some of their students I say to them you know if you've got classes in the evening send them to us during the day for the Practical experience and we're just trying to fill all the classrooms so we're we're six short right now but we're trying to make borrow and steal from wherever we can I have a question for Miss Henry sure miss Henry thank you for your information you know you always do agree um um what's going on with this sixth classroom is not covered why are they disactly why are happening what's this there is literally no one so anyone who's applied in Alpha track we
068have hired we've interviewed and hide we've had interviews day off as soon as the application comes in um Mrs pivarado has been very helpful with that so we've interviewed people and one of the six vacancies is a one day a week art position at BLC so it's not even a full-time position so that is up there um to our High School classrooms so what they did is they just collapsed the section and didn't offer it this semester I'm hopeful that we'll get some December graduates and then be able to run the section in in the spring and then we've got two classrooms over at Marin and as I said we've tried to expand it to include theater or Performing Arts so that we have a larger pool of candidates available so at the moment there
069it's five full-time positions and a one day a week position but the two High School classrooms have been closed okay so and then we have a middle school position at curiel all right thank you Miss Henry you're welcome besides classroom we do have a number of support staff that and one of those areas of School nurses I'm going to call up lies that early to discuss what you can imagine is a very difficult time to recruit nurses people are praying paying a premium for Health Care officials due to the covet pandemic which makes the salary schedule here very very less competitive and not very attractive to most folks floor is yours Dave good evening I'm Liza early supervisor for school health and nursing services in the district we currently have six vacancies that are being
070covered by agency staff things that we are doing in order to recruit is we are working with the agencies to see if they can find they're struggling as well to find registered nurses there's a shortage Nationwide and in Connecticut specifically half of the nursing population is age 50 or over which means they're heading towards retirement and less likely to take on a new position but we are working with HR posting on Apple track indeed and some of the nursing Publications they've taken as specifically um in those Publications geared to School nurses those who are interested in school nursing we've worked with some of the colleges we take student nurses in their third and fourth year to expose them to school nursing in order to hope that they're interested enough to apply after graduation we also
071have our nurses recruiting with some of their colleagues in other areas that they work in and Friends word of mouth and hoping that that assists Us in hiring more nurses and that's all I have a question for you yes good to see you again thank you for everything you do um I know we got cleaning some schools we got Clinic school-based Health Centers yes yes does Clinic they are allowed to do uh physical for the students for baseball School so Optimus and Southwest Community Health Center operate clinics in our schools if parents sign their students up they can perform physicals routine visit sick visits immunizations for students in those schools you know although nurses we have in our school they already have the update the physical and everything and update you know for our students
072no so we have students who may not be up to date at this time Southwest and optimists did undergo a transition to their system this summer and that pushed a lot of their physicals back but we have been working with them and making sure that students provide us with some information and an appointment date to make sure they're in compliance and how's the update for the coffin you know um you know the Clinton coffee you know the investigation and all the stuff like that okay so we're the City of Bridgeport Health Department is still offering vaccination clinics they're utilizing Griffin Hospital they're in our schools um every week they've been rotating through different schools showing up at around 2 30 3 o'clock so they can immunize staff parents students the General Public all right thank
073you no more questions thank you okay thank you well I have a question um I'll stick on the topic of School nurses uh do we have any kind of similar program uh like with the paraprofessionals for recent graduates or um maybe students from a community college with an RN or a degree in nursing but to encourage them to go into a bachelor's in nursing is that the requirement um no that's not a requirement and the City of Bridgeport will accept nurses who also have an associates in science of nursing what we don't currently hire are licensed practical nurses which are what the agencies have been providing me with so we're working with the labor relations department and the nurses Union to perhaps amend the contract so that we could hire licensed practical nurses and and
074from your expertise what's the big difference between the RN and the practical nurses is it the LPN you're talking about yes I'm used to yes and I know what the difference is okay regarding the two different kinds um uh are we trying to get into any kind of short-term contracts with nurses similar to what we're doing with paraprofessionals that once they get um are qualified to be nurses um where we asked for a two-year contract or anything like that so their contract is held by the City of Bridgeport Labor Relations Department so that would have to go through the city is the city doing anything like that um we were in talks with the nurses Union in order to expand the hiring process to not just RNs but LPNs and are the six uh vacancies
075uh that's covered by Staff Agency at particular schools or are they kind of like the floating yes there's only one school nurse per building and so they're dispersed throughout the city read Cesar Pattaya Columbus um Wilbur cross curiel and the last one has left my mind right now but um yeah so throughout the city thank you thank you before you go I forgot to ask you um I know the time is running with me but um before we go um work school we have Clinic so we have Central Harding best I could provide you a list if that would be easier I could email you a list Central Harding and basic have clinics um Barnum waltersville we have a clinic at Caesar battalia there's not a full clinic but at clater we have a mental
076health services through Southwest provided there we also have clinics at Reed School Columbus but they are asked us to do a physical that's you know that's my question yes including go let's see goal or Barnum school and they want to go to Central to do the physical they can they can go I'll be in that school correct the requirement they're um under the regulations of the Department of Public Health and so they can only service those who will be attending their school okay we also have to cover the parochial schools correct Miss early we also cover the parochial schools yes we do same services to the parochial or private schools the next two folks I'm going to ask to come up are are magicians truly first our director of school psychology frana Ponte can talk
077a little bit about what is the causes of the issues and also some of the things that she's been able to do which is truly magical thank you I'm Francis Aponte director of psychological service for the district so just to preface everything school psychology is a national shortage area it has finally hit the Northeast and it's hit the urban areas So currently we have one Boe contract vacancy three agency vacancies and one part-time agency positions are all School psychologists it's just how we break them down and unfortunately we cannot hire long-term substitutes for school psychology you have to be a certified school psychologist in order to practice as a school psychologist currently we have two agency psychologists who are helping to provide coverage and my number is actually three part-time retired School psychologists who have
078come back out of retirement to help support the district we have reached out to contract agencies the capital region educational Council Staffing Solutions which has is we're in the process of having them support us and getting more school psychologists the Connecticut special education employment system we've used social media I reached out to former interns including my former interns to see if they're willing to come back into the district or if they know anyone who's moving into the state from out of state so that we can try to fill our vacancies to support our children I have a question sure um thank you for your information but we have um speech therapy I'm a school psychology director of speech language pathology we'll be speaking to you next time that's okay I have a question um does
079each School get a school psychologist we try to provide as much coverage as possible not every school has a full-time school psychologist because of the of the shortage area is it just for shorted like so one position is to cover is the bilingual school psychologist position at cesa bataya we have split assignments so School psychologists sometimes cover multiple schools in the district so we have a couple of schools right now who are not covered but we'll be getting covered within the next week or so we talked before Mr sakola has asked a little bit about what the ideal keeper school psychologist and what the actual case float here is so ideally based on our national standards the caseload is one psychologist to 500 students the average in the state of Connecticut is one psychologist to
080350 students and that's for all students regardless whether they are general education students or receiving special education services right now about on the average the school psychologist the way the district has to cover not only Bridgeport Public School students but the charter school students private parochial students and any of our students placed out of District it's about one psychologist to 700 students okay yeah I know that was the question coming and one of the issues is one of the big issues with that is the travel to these outside um areas takes up time which then takes away from time dealing and working with students so that's why I say Fran's a magician but she's been able to do um so I know that a lot of the Community Partners had arpa dollars to help you
081know take that burden off of the school has there been a either a response to our students I don't even know if this is your question I think that the difference between what a community psychologist or someone that provides counseling support is different than what a school psychologist does um in basically evaluating and assessing students when they're referred for special education their annual reviews their trannual reviews um it's a lot more involved than just counseling they do very little if any counseling unfortunately what school psychologists do is very educationally focused question um you will have around total like how many kids you know how many kids exactly in total you know I'll report well we service students based right now currently based on their evaluation so depending on how many students get referred for evaluations
082it varies from school to school year to year last year we had about 900 evaluations that were done by our school psychologists in the district and those numbers change constantly all right thank you I call up Laura Rivera she's our director of speech and language pathology um again she's been a constant Champion to try to recruit qualified individuals to support students she'll give you some of the background on what um the challenges are and why there's not a immediate Solution on the horizon before we before we continue I just want to note for the record that Ms Castillo has joined the meeting uh virtually thank you good evening my name is Laura Rivera and I am the director of speech language hearing and occupational therapy services um I'm reporting primarily on the issues that we're
083having with respect to speech language pathologists um I do want to confirm that the state of Connecticut has designated speech language Pathologists as a significant shortage area that impacts the state overall I think it's important to share that we have in the state of Connecticut just three universities that produce cohorts of graduates that's Sacred Heart University Uconn and Southern Connecticut State University I did go back and connect with all of my partners in those universities and can confirm that we usually have approximately 111 students that are part of a graduate cohort each year and so 111 students are the ones who go out to fill vacancies throughout the entire state with respect to the medical sector the clinic sector as well as education so it's no wonder that we do not have access to many
084of these professionals currently we have three vacancies that are impacting us I do want to stress however from a strength perspective we do have 94 of our schools assigned and supported there are three three schools that are currently unmanned we do not have a legal ability to provide long-term substitutes for these positions because speech language Pathologists are licensed through the Department of Public Health and certified through the American speech language hearing Association there are no substitutes that can take on those roles due to their credentials with respect to the recruitment strategies I work very closely with staffing agencies and local clinics much of what has helped us this year are the local clinics who have actually provided staff that work in the clinics and give us part-time support to meet the needs of some of
085our schools I do have ongoing conversations with them um Staffing changes week to week we could be at three now we could be filled next week or it could increase I do hire a speech-language pathology assistance which is fairly new you in our approach this year we did tackle that last year to see if it was a viable resource for us and it did turn out to be so the only thing is that speech language Pathologists must serve as supervisors for speech-language pathology assistants they are referred to as slpas slpas can provide therapy for students and that's something that we would want to continue in order to meet mandates I do connect to the universities I have great relationships with um two out of three I'm working very closely with UConn to build that relationship
086a little bit more um um in depth uh graduate students they they leave the district they leave the state um so it's really a potluck when it comes to dealing with universities I do advertise on social media um I do have job postings that are out there I check Apple track every single day since the spring we only had three direct applicants and all three of them were hired beyond that there have been no other applicants and at most recent submission to the Connecticut special education employment system we haven't had any applicants through that either so where we are is just continuing to push and connect our Network to see how we can fill these gaps um I'll answer any questions thank you for your information um how many right now stuff you have there
087are how many staff um of speech language pathologists 44. in question did you start know when the students need a um speech therapy uh they know exactly let's say the student needs more help they need to be speech or something like that that's not students receive speech language Services when they have been identified through the special education process so if there is an IEP that identifies the need for speech language Services whether it's a primary special ed Service or a related service that is how we know we have students on caseload we do support this the schools with respect to prevention um Whenever there is a need to consult a speech-language pathologist specifically whether it's respect to reading or writing or anything along the lines of educational access the staff is aware and very much
088on top of participating at the building level all right thank you you're welcome I have a question sure if this is not specifically for you but it's generic I keep hearing we post on social media on what platforms and where I haven't seen much on like I saw for the virtual job fair on the Bridgeport Public Schools Facebook page but where where are we posting and are we keeping track are we generating any leads I personally reached out to LinkedIn on through Linkedin because that's that's the the platform where you can really recruit um and any of my private connections uh throughout my years of experience I too am a speech language pathologist and do have contacts so I reach out to them through Facebook privately um from a public standpoint it's LinkedIn from me
089I can't speak to what the district does outside of that uh Mrs testani do you know because I keep hearing social media and my first thought was LinkedIn but social media is so Broad and we don't actually see I don't see much uh of it so I'm trying to figure out like where so LinkedIn is a large uh platform that we use indeed um the CT reap platform is where all certified staff um whether you're looking for a superintendency in many cases to a classroom teacher they are most districts in the state utilize that platform and they'll give you the jobs that are open and the links to their application process and then I think this outro Dixon can speak to I know she mentioned Instagram I know that a lot of our colleagues will
090then post on their own personal social media along the administrative jobs but so sweet is is used by e as a district keeping track of like our followers because it's one thing to post and this is not a specific question towards anybody um but just out of curiosity it's like I get in Dairy posts I don't I don't really use Twitter so I could post something on my Twitter it's gonna reach out to all five of my followers um and so are we trying to like Target like if UConn is the school for speech pathologists in Connecticut Sacred Heart and other schools are we reaching out like Nationwide like these are the top 50 schools that generate I want them to follow me and follow me and uh follow me and I follow them back
091and build relationships like are we I guess are we effectively using social media um and it and how does it work across departments because if if one Department's using Twitter uh maybe there should be something like uniform of like all the accounts because it there seems to be openings in every department so probably working together it [Music] at all I I know we've talked about this multiple times but this is just one of those moments Mr Weldon and the rest of the team communication they would identify the different areas of industry and make sure that that message is out like direct press release the whole time but if there isn't any acts of combine the message together this is probably one of the fine people who may or may not see them may I may
092not see them uh so everything that you're saying there's no idea in auditions thank you um they do workshops for parents um foreign language Pathologists do workshops for parents oh my goodness um we provide the support building level as needed so we have we have provided workshops for parents in the past um we've done so bilingually I know that I personally have been part of one major one um through parent Resource Center I believe which I that was pre-covered um my staff usually meets the need at the building level we're always trying to bridge the gap with our principles with our assistant principles and ensure that the staff is aware of how to utilize speech-language Pathologists and to what extent so we're very much involved all right welcome any other questions okay thank you our
093last two before facilities is our Social Work Director De Young and our director of School counseling Carly Roca Reyes there are there's only one vacancy but I think it's important they can speak a little bit to how the number of applicants and especially Mr Young when we do have a vacancy the number of applicants has shrunk immensely as years have passed yes I'm the director of social work um 10 years I've been doing this and this is the first time we've had a resignation today so this was um uh created prior to today and so I would have put a number one in the vacancies that needs leaving because another District poached him and getting more money but I've never had this before so I'm completely out of water but um we do have a
094lot of applicants for social work however the applicants a don't understand what school social work is so we get a lot of self-taught we get a lot of people without the certification we get a lot of oh I can do this because they think they play with kids so we do get hundreds of applications but about five of them are viable so today I have to put together my interest abuse but out of the the four I had ten applicants but most of them had no certification so we're starting to see in my department what we're starting we what we see in other departments that we're getting less and less people qualified to be school social work can you talk just briefly again what the proper social work to student ratio should be well the
095proper student Social Work ratio is 250 kids per social worker and right now we cannot even think about that what we do is we take the caseload and we match a social worker to the caseload if I were to ration it out it would be about one social worker to about 500 to 700 kids so yes we're completely off the national grid point of water can we get the social worker slide up on the screen I was trying to thank you and school counselor we're we're different people but we're on the same slide hi I'm Carly Reyes the director of School counseling and parent Partnerships we started the school year with seven vacancies in the counseling department we are down to one vacancy that has just recently beat been filled so as of this coming
096Monday we will be fully staffed with 50 school counselors in the district 50 school counselors for how many students 19 200 and right our ratio should be the same 250 to one but for example Cesar Battaglia has one school counselor Eleven Hundred students one school counselor 50 total for the district so it ideally what I'm here is we won't have any vacancies but everyone's plate is filled three times over so we do have is is it that we don't have vacancies because we don't have money or is it we have we that's we wait wait I'm trying to make sure I understand I'm able to convey the point is we actually need to Triple the amount of staff and we're not identifying it as a vacancy because of budgeting purposes correct but that's also with
097the addition of the 10 school counselors and 10 social workers we added through RPS well in reality that 50 two years ago was 40. and they're going to be gone so we're going to be back there by next year in a year and a half yes okay a year and a half will be so instead of triple quadruple something like that pretty much yes okay so if we were to Triple FTE as you can listen to both of them it would be a struggle even try to fill this week and also to have to do Charter Schools and there's also again the social workers are stretched amongst the uh the charter schools which we have no control over the IEPs that are written and we have to support the hours that are placed another challenge
098as well so the 19 000 plus enrollment at the charters yeah but that sounds like it's across departments it's not just oh it's all the charter schools what we were going to underserve our students anyway essentially right and so we got a pretend the charter schools don't exist their place would still be triple loaded okay a large caselo correct okay so it's it's instead of like finding a scapegoat we we have a fundamental issue in our budget and Staffing and recruitment finding the right talent to actually apply and not think like I like kids so I'm going for this I get it I just I just want to make sure like I I understand because it's not you but it's a systemic it's beyond you it's and it's all of us trying to come together
099and put our minds towards how do we come towards a resolution for this for our district and so um yeah no it's Bleak I'm not even trying to point fingers at charter schools because I have a question for Mr Young yeah um I would like to know when we can do we can do as a team a nice workshop for the parents of a special need because I know a lot of parents they're really lost they need to know the right they need to know a lot of policy you know we got policy we got rules and I would like to see you can plan something and I would like to help you because I know we need it more we need it but people ask questions and I want to like to give an
100answer if maybe I'll run that's why sometimes I say call this person call director this person but we need to have something called you know a nice Workshop World experiment house especially well specialized multi-faceted too though so it's not just special ed kids with educational needs but there's also behavioral needs too there's also speech and language needs there's also different types of needs so I could put something together yeah everything in your department everything include yes yes I would love to you know leave them and I would love part of that committee and help you thank you you're welcome and I'd like to just call up our interim director of special education Lauren Lucas to speak to the special education teachers and the growing concern as the year continues to move forward thank you I'm
101actually going to jump back just on your point regarding the parent training it is something I'm working with carleon to create a monthly training for all parents that will have a special ed topic just as you mentioned So reading your child's IEP your rights as a parent with a student with a disability and things of that nature so it's something that we're working on as a department yes thank you for bringing my last committee meeting we talk about our committee yes of course so right now we currently have 13 vacancies two are newly added positions because of the increase in numbers of students with special needs so they're not currently vacant positions they're newly created positions that we will be hiring for right now we have four vacancies that are currently being covered by long-term
102Subs in self-contained classrooms our long-term Subs are overseen by a special education teacher in the building they serve as the case manager at all PPT so that the long-term sub is not responsible for doing the legal paperwork we do provide the long-term Subs with that support from the case manager as well as all professional development that all of our certified special Educators receive um for recruitment strategies we are working on the new CT special education employment system that the state has provided where you can do a Statewide search post your job and all applicants all over the state can post their resume for you to recruit we're also working for the sped fellowship program we were able to recruit some really great general education teachers into special education positions this year under a dsap we're
103advertising on social media on LinkedIn Facebook I personally post on LinkedIn and I'll post an actual job so they can apply on the LinkedIn so I can go in pull their resume and interview them just off LinkedIn so they don't have to go on Apple track we're also connecting with local universities I actually attend the administrative night at Southern Connecticut State University twice a year for new graduates right before they end their student teaching where we're given the opportunity to do mock interviews review the resumes with them and give them tips on interviewing and we can also offer them positions if they're available at that time last year in the spring I did offer four teachers positions within Bridgeport just from those meetings um we're also providing dsap opportunities working with the paraprofessionals in the
104community as well as the job fair recruitment thank you wrap a question sure how many of the four accepted the position at all four are they still here yep oh well kudos keep it up all right and they are certified right yes and as I said um you know I would like to do something you'll be including that committee then Workshop to help our parents you know they can know the rights absolutely um just to your point before all four of those teachers actually student taught in Bridgeport also so it's kind of easy for us to recruit them so we work very closely with the HR department for any student teacher to try and recruit them in last year I'm sorry were there student teachers last year now teaching this year or yeah last year
105they were student teachers we hired them right at the end of their student teaching um on a dsap for the end of last year and their certified teachers this year do we have any contracts to keep them longer than just this year no I'm a lawyer there is no country they can leave at any time unfortunately one of the other things we're doing is we had HR look at um the certifications and if we have any general education teachers that are currently not using their Special Education certification and we're working with the union and seeing if they look looking to take a special ed position within Bridgeport of course yeah this is not just to you but to everyone first um what we're doing when you guys are doing recruiting do we look at um
106neighbor and hbcus while we're in the community that we can reach out to like I know we have a few like Howard like is there any Outreach that goes that far I know they don't live here but to possibly rear them into teaching on different it's a great opportunity then I would look forward to you know working with you in that thank you last but not least uh George Garcia our facilities Department um as much as you would think it is a struggle to find Qualified and folks that want to work in our facilities Department George good evening George Garcia director of facilities so we've got quite a bit of uh vacancies in our department we've got we made some gains on the custodial front we've actually hired five since the report so we're at
107around 11 custodians now we have one trades person that's one of our four HVAC technicians and that two Logistics Personnel we thought it was important to put our long-term apps uh long-term absences which really are our compensations because that number is being driven by the fact that we're short throughout the district we're pushing our folks to you know a level where we're starting to see an increase in compensation so what are we doing to sort of hedge against our uh deficiencies throughout the district we've decided that we needed to invest in our staff we wanted to make sure that you know we invested in the folks at our hair and we made them as efficient as possible we've uh had certifications for all of our head custodians they're all certified in Sims which is the
108best practices in the industry and all of our custodians were trained all on the same platform all the best best practices in the industry uh this summer so you know we're taking two parallel paths as we try to fill out our roster uh we're interviewing 10 candidates a week we're not going to settle on who we hire we want to make sure we get the best quality possible um but that's where we are in terms of facilities I have a question yes our custody custodians covering so are the are their plates overfilled too so they're clean in multiple schools absolutely um not multiple schools but you know uh ideally to have the district filled out properly we need 186 custodians uh we're budgeted at 160 uh in terms of where we think that we can
109make it work it's about 172. but you know once again we're looking at technology and training and making investments in in the staff so they can feel confident what they do and uh really get things done the first time they do them so like that we can move on to the next [Music] thank you for everything you do thank you enough for the time you come back you do a lot of change it was not easy you know you changed a lot of things and I appreciate your amazing hard work you know I know it was not easy especially about the pandemic and everything so you know for the worker or as a board member as a leader as a parent I should say thank you I appreciate your hard work and it's just uh
110we have a great team of dedicated folks that you know want to come to work and do what they have to do everything no you don't do a miracle but I know you tried the best thing to fix to be sure our students as parents staff be okay in safety I really appreciate that thank you oh wait I have a question are you recruiting on social media we're doing everything we're trying to recruit through uh peer-to-peer social media any which way we can um but there is uh you know the biggest issue we have is the disparity pay you know other towns are paying 10 to 30 percent more know what the city of bridgeport's offering so you know it's it's a challenge but we're trying to build a work environment where folks want to
111come to work every day feel good about what they do and provide a stable solid workplace for them and hopefully that's attractive enough to start to recruit folks and then the investment where you know they can see that there's a path to to you know increasing uh what they can do in terms of promotion and whatnot you know hopefully all of those things will help help us gain the folks that we need to get there so our custodians are even our custodians are paid less than other districts oh absolutely [Laughter] can we do that so they'll take the five minutes okay let's look okay so that concludes superintendent's report yeah I guess thank you all right we have a motion for uh like a five minute recess yes again moved by Ms Baptiste Perez second
112by Mr bennahan for a five minute recess all in favor aye opposed all right [Laughter] foreign [Music] foreign which was the field trip field trip are you still there the studio and macaron yes yes sir okay foreign so the next item is discussion possible approval of field trip for was it Fairchild wheeler to sleepy house Sleepy Hollow New York and the former Tappan Zee Bridge Mario Mario Cuomo Bridge so this came out of your committee Ms Baptiste Perez oh Mr Elizabeth is here yes okay here's the lip go ahead now I can speak to it if you want the uh our early college experience um of course the UConn course we have a course in American studies prior to covet they've gone on these trips and we're building a portfolio so they've gone to the
113Notch and up in Massachusetts Connecticut border with an old Notch is out went to the seaport and other places so this trip is going to be going to Sleepy Hollow and also to the Tappan Zee Bridge or the Old Tappan Zee Bridge and they're going to incorporate that so we have our our school student transport bus that's going to take the students on the 11th of October uh to Sleepy Hollow look at some of the architecture as they're studying the early Dutch experience and then go to the Mario Cuomo bridge and go on that just to see what the engineering feed is that's a pretty interesting engineering feat they're going to incorporate that in the day okay as a side local note our former mayor William Finch was the executive director of the New York
114Thruway Authority when they built and finished that bridge so are there any questions for Mr lip does anyone want to move to approve the field trip second second by Mr bennahan is there any further discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed and any abstentions okay the trip has passed all right thank you I want to thank the board for adding this to the agenda I appreciate all the support thank you next is discussion discussion and some someone needs someone needs to mute online okay okay you need to mute yourself for now okay so discussion and possible approval of thermal energy Supply agreement for new basic high school we have three people who are going to present on this the first is Scott Gilmartin uh I don't know is Dan Donovan here okay okay uh
115these gentlemen are from new power LLC they're the ones involved in the thermal Loop project and they're going to present about the project itself explain what it is and how it works and how uh basic is integrated into it and we have attorney Ron pacacia from the city attorney's office who is here to discuss about the actual Supply agreement um there is a brief PowerPoint so we take our seats for those of us who can't see and I'm going to turn it over to Mrs Gilmartin and Donovan you have the floor okay well great well thank you very much for the opportunity tonight to present this agreement for approval uh as uh was mentioned by the chair my name is Dan Donovan and with my partner Scott Martin we're the principals of new power and
116uh we're we've been working very uh closely with the basic high school building committee over the last 12 months uh with the committee it's engineering consultants and it's a legal team which has been uh primarily Ron and and his his colleagues um and we have negotiated and finalized an agreement uh which we are calling uh the thermal energy Supply agreement and this actually goes back uh over six years that we've been working on this and it goes to a legislative action that was taken by the uh by the legislature which provide it for both a electrical production and thermal Loop and this electrical production and thermal Loop was a key concept of actually providing low emission electricity using fuel cells and taking the Heat and putting that into a thermal Loop and the heat from
117these units will be basically emission free and it's a fairly low temperature it's about 140 degrees so it's really hot water that's going to be circulating as part of the thermal Loop we were awarded this uh through a competition a solicitation that universe that United Illuminating had and we have successfully completed all of the development for the project and we're planning to start construction in the first quarter second quarter of next year so we have been long in the development process and have completed the significant portion of that uh through citing Council Pura and the Connecticut Department of energy Environmental Protection uh a thermal Loop yeah and here we have a district heating system um it really is very opportunistic in the sense that we're taking the Heat and in this case we're it's the
118display is showing an electrical power plant but where minus the smokestacks if you could direct RIT guy what you need him to flip a slide oh I'm sorry okay I was doing it on my side yeah so we're on a slide three of eight is everybody in at the same point now yes yes oh good okay so this is a very uh simple schematic of what a district heating system or a thermal Loop is basically the heat that's generated from the uh production of electricity is Ascent in a in a pipe uh to various customers and it provides both uh domestic hot water and space Heating and this can eliminate the use of natural gas uh fuel oil or even electricity for the heating needs of our customers next slide please and our facility is
119located very close to uh the uh University of Bridgeport where the basic high school is going to be located we're on iranistan and Railroad and uh it was specifically cited there because of the location and the the close proximity to a number of potential users and since that time uh we have brought in not only uh the basic high school but also ASW para college and the University of Bridgeport all of these uh institutions and organizations uh had signed contracts with um with our thermal Loop and hopefully uh basic high school and the Board of Ed will have a signed contract shortly um next Slide the basic high school is located right on the on the very edge of uh the University of Bridgeport and our system is uh going to be connecting to a
120number of the buildings and it's a natural extension to go to the basic high school um next slide if we uh if we look at uh the um what the thermal Loop will be doing it will be providing basic with all of its heating needs uh and this is going to be over a 20-year period because our contract with United Illuminating to provide electricity is it 20 years and um we can also potentially provide the domestic hot water if there is space available but this is a seamless integration of the interface between the thermal Loop and the basic High School uh new new power provides all the equipment and the installation uh basic high schools still maintains its boilers and its connection to the Natural Gas system so there's always a backup and in addition
121we're eliminating all of the CO2 emissions that would have resulted as as the production of of heat using natural gas boilers and in this South End which is a extreme sensitivity to climate change and sea water rise it's it's a it's not only substantial but it's a it's a very visible statement that Bridgeport and the Board of Ed is doing something for the future of uh their students next slide please and we're on seven of eight um the pricing is very straightforward uh it's going to be a 10 discount to the scg Tariff um we're uh this is a tariff that uh it's the natural gas tariff and it's and it's publicly available very visible um and as we mentioned it's it's very environmentally Superior because it eliminates the the fossil use fossil fuel usage
122um we also eliminate the wear and tear and operation and maintenance of of the heating equipment because you won't have to basic high school won't have to be running their boilers uh because we're going to providing all the heat similar similar to what we do at the Cherry Street uh uh uh School uh the charter uh the Charter Oak School and we provide the heat for that building for all of the of the School's classrooms and this is is going to lock in Energy savings over 20 years and the next slide uh our last slide shows the potential savings both from natural gas usage and O M and maintenance cost and I just want to take a a moment to mention that I think everybody who uses natural gas is aware of the escalation that
123has been occurring recently these these figures were done earlier so it doesn't include some of the the larger jumps the year-to-year change in natural gas has been over 51 percent um so that trend is a continuing Trend and to be able to reduce the overall cost of heating uh the the school and having that on a constant basis with a 10 discount is just going to add significant benefits both to the Opera and maintenance costs for this school so that's a very quick summary of uh our uh uh project and our agreement and uh we're looking forward to um answering any questions you may have um but uh I just want to mention that this has been a project that we've worked very closely with all the members of the building committee and we're we're
124very happy uh with uh the outcome and the relationship that we've built thank you foreign that's the end of the presentation we can come back so so um okay does anyone have any questions Mr bennahan now first I'm going to say we're talking about how this works at this point and then we're going to segue to the agreement with attorney vacation so go ahead Mr Bethany thank you Mr one um seeing the information in all the mob and everything this is not going to be no issues no problem you know the pipes or the neighborhoods or something like that because now everything looks nice I don't want to have to buy 10 15 years they say something's wrong they're connected with the neighbor you know we get sued stuff like that so it's everything it's
125like a stretch the line everything goes straight to the full bathroom High School yes uh that's it's a good question we're as I mentioned we're using hot water so this is 120 degrees uh it's this is not the you know your grandfather's old steam uh types project uh it's uh going to be in uh pipe it's going to be um you know small diameter relatively small diameter pipe it's going to go down a random stand and go in directly into the university and so most of the network will be all along the university uh but they'll all be buried and uh the connections are it goes right to the building and connects into the existing hydronic system of the building so it's as I mentioned it's fairly it's seamless and uh the actual equipment is
126is relatively small it's it's really just heat exchangers that just transfer heat from the thermal Loop to the building system and my last question for you sir the announce that are not they are not saving in the 20 years saving everything oh there's a kind of money it's coming from the budget for basic high school sorry for the new Ambassador High School yeah yeah so instead of spending money for natural gas uh you would be replacing that with a smaller outlay for the the BTUs that we provide through the thermal Loop foreign okay Mr Lombard yes um you did indicate that there would still be possibly boilers or backup heating systems is that correct that is correct so is is in the plan that the backup systems would be adequate to heat the entire School
127in the event of subcut yes there is yeah that was one of the sticking points Mr Garcia and uh other Representatives on this from the board including myself um were adamant that the boilers would be installed as if they were going to be the primary heat source and if there was ever a failure of the thermal Loop we would um shut off the thermal Loop and fire up the boilers and they would be adequate enough so we did not replace um the boilers in the design and construction of the building as originally uh proposed and then you mentioned something about at one point it possibly being used for the hot water so that was something that was mentioned but we did not discuss that if that becomes a possibility down the road but that was
128something we were not interested in doing because if we don't have proper hot water we would have no way to open the building at least we have backup in terms of the heating system if if that was going to fail and I'm also just curious about the uh commonplace of this technology throughout the country or the northeast or in cold areas is this something that's relatively novel and groundbreaking or is it being used in many places well attaching it sure attaching it to a fuel cell system is novel and unique uh thermal Loops are are very commonplace in Europe especially but also for example in Hartford it's an older system it's a steam system but it's been a thermal Loop and has been operating for quite a while matter of fact uh the new powers
129bridgeport's thermal loop system is one of two uh non-regulated utilities under the Connecticut legislative act that has permitted in the state of Connecticut and Hartford steam is the other um uh unregulated utility for thermal loops okay thank you for your rate of the existing thermal Loops this is how old is this technology and how long has it been in use oh it's been many years uh you know uh 40 50 years uh it's actually been improved over time uh because of the use of lower temperatures um and it's very the technology is actually uh very straightforward it's just hot water being pumped throughout the loop and then as I mentioned earlier in the building there's a small heat exchanger there is a tube and frame there's nothing that is a moving part in that heat
130exchanger it's just and it's non-contact so the heat just goes from the loop itself into the building's existing system so there's no moving Parts um as I mentioned we have this at Cherry Street it's very straightforward it fits into a very small uh uh space um so there's uh very few opportunities for this to have a failure here um somebody needs to mute another question um as far as you mentioned fuel cells where the fuel cells located and um how are they maintained yes so uh they are located at iranistan and railroad uh this is a small triangle between 95 and the railroad itself and the fuel cells are maintained by uh High Axiom which is the new name for doosan under a 20-year agreement and we have a corporate guarantee from the parent uh
131and uh High Axiom doosan is a one of the largest companies International companies uh and they've been making these to these fuel cells for 20 over 20 plus years and uh and this technology is uh actually getting additional uh effort and uh and a push because it uses hydrogen and right now there isn't any hydrogen available in in large quantities in the United States but uh we use natural gas but the natural gas is actually separated into hydrogen and oxygen and the hydrogen is what is used in the fuel cell so as we turn to a to a greater hydrogen economy uh these fuel cells will be able to operate a hundred percent on hydrogen so they are actually the technology of the future is used to the nitrogen yeah and it combines and it
132combines H2O yeah I understand it was a lot of community uh uproar over the location of the fuel cells bin because there's some residences over there concerns about noise and some emissions because it's not it's not exactly totally 100 carbon neutral is it uh as as far as emissions it's uh point and I have to report this to knee pool for our existing facilities on a on a quarterly basis and the emissions are 0.000 uh two uh pounds per per year uh it's just negligible and on this on the CO2 the only reason there's CO2 is because there's uh we're using natural gas and it is this it's it's a small emissions of CO2 uh relative to other uh forms like fossil fuel units uh and that would be totally eliminated uh once uh we
133convert over to hydrogen which I you know it's it's not uh it's something that I think there's a big push in the United States to do and we're going to be ready for it and then we'll be 100 zero emissions okay final question I just lost that I'm sorry give me a minute no I got a question um B that this project is going to be 20 years if it is approved um are there any healthy health concerns that we should be aware of or look to make sure it doesn't happen within our district with this project being you know something that we want well you guys are looking to do any health concerns that we should be addressing uh well as as far as health concerns I think this is uh you know this
134technology is zero emissions it's hot water um and uh as as I mentioned non-contact so basically you're you're having hot water at 140 degrees going in a loop that heats a heat exchanger that and then heats the hot water Associated and this is the hot water in the building again it's not the domestic hot water per se a water supply it's just the hot water that goes throughout the building to heat so uh in in reality this is much better than having a natural gas boiler in the bottom of in the basement of a school with all of the issues associated with natural gas and Emissions uh and is a tremendous step up as far as environmental and health meh point of order like what is that is do we have a Cricket here yes
135distracted you expel it from the meeting okay we don't have enough custodians to smash it though all right do we have any more questions sorry I remember my last question um there was a concern about Community concerns around noise and stuff around the fuel cell in the area with those I know there's a lot of community opposition in the beginning when I was first proposed has that has the community's concerns been met yes uh we before we could um move forward we have to get approval from the Connecticut citing Council and we did get approval from the Connecticut signings Council which if you're familiar with the process the Connecticut exciting Council permits all uh uh uh electrical production facilities over five megawatts but they they have a very uh open outreach program where all uh
136participants are able to provide public comment and we went through that process for I think it was uh probably about uh 16 months uh and uh and the citing Council uh ultimately gave approval uh based on uh all of the information that was provided and and addressed the issues that were brought up by both the community and other interested uh participants thank you I have a question go ahead what's the what's the temperature I believe we heard two different temperatures regarding the 100 degrees 120 to 140. um so and and Ron can address that we actually have in our exhibit I believe it's exhibit D or or E uh it it does have the temperatures that will be provided to the school but basically the thermal the the uh the temperature in the thermal Loop
137is a slightly higher temperature uh and then it it goes to the buildings goes into the heat exchanger and heat BTUs are taken into the building and therefore that the Heat going back because it's a continuous loop going back to the fuel cell is at a lower temperature so uh it's just a continuous loop where temperature is put in it the fuel cells where the the excess heat is brought into through a heat exchanger there too into the thermal Loop into the hot water it goes to the buildings buildings take some of the Heat and then that goes back to the fuel cells to be topped out the gap okay I have another presentation that there's a 20-year contract with UI is that right that is correct is the contract with UI also between new
138power thermal BPT LLC or is it with a different entity it's with new Power Fuel Cell uh and uh and new power fuel cell is a subsidiary of new power as is new power uh Bridgeport thermal Lube foreign the 20-year contract is with a different entity in the parent subsidiary kind of relationship right right and that's that's done for for practical reasons one's an electrical power plant and the other is a thermal Lube okay and how is that applicable towards us since we're in a contract with we would be entering a contract with new power thermal BBT LLC right and that's all of our customers sorry we have we have a City attorney here to talk about the contractual relationships I think we should well it's not Reserve those to him it's not not necessarily
139that I have I have questions based off of listening to their presentation okay so I I could I just I can quickly address that and that all of our customers have are the same counterparty with new power and so uh para College University of Bridgeport uh ASW or that it's basically the same contract with the same signatories and when was the fuel site created uh I'm sorry the fuel site yeah the one you kept mentioning like on Afghanistan that's not too far away from the location of the school yeah so that is a uh a parcel of land that the fuel cells will be built on and that is a uh facility that will uh Visa location for 21 fuel cells so the facility is not there yet no it's not there no it's not
140there yet it's get it's going to be there shortly but uh it's uh it will take um uh we have all of the permits and the contracts uh to move forward and the thermal Loop is the last of the parts of the project yeah so uh we expect construction to start in the first to second quarter of next year and so when you mention contracts of was it I didn't know there was a peer college and what was Cherry Hill like what other entities you have contracts with that you mentioned during the presentation so the thermal Loop will it has contracts that are signed with ASW which is the recycling medical recycling facility that's adjacent to our our site uh care College which is part of uh Goodwin and the University of Bridgeport which is
141part of Goodwin um so and and they in the University of Bridgeport and pear College are actually you know the our largest customers will be our largest customers but the uh basic high school is located at the University of Bridgeport campus uh and it it fits nicely into the thermal Loops locations I think the rest of the questions all reserved for the attorney okay so why don't we segue into the issue of the agreement itself which is the the meat of our discussion here this was just to give everybody an understanding of what the whole thermal Loop project was so we'll turn this over to attorney Ronald acacia who's from the city attorney's office are you there at 30 Acacia yes I am care to present uh yes I'm glad to I've been involved with
142the school building committee for probably over uh 20 years probably 25 years now and this is the first time we've used a a system like this and because of its uniqueness uh it we needed to have someone who could tell us more about the industry and about the agreement its terms uh how the savings are um uh achieved how the equipment connects and all that stuff uh so uh the Board of Ed hired a specific uh consultant knowledgeable in the area uh the man's name is Fred fastiki and he advised us about the agreement about the terms of the agreement about the business aspects of the agreement uh the savings that would be achieved and one of the things I wanted to mention is that the agreement also guarantees that a new power is going
143to deliver this hot water so if the if the system ever um uh were to go out of operation and our backup boilers would have to be used they would owe us a credit back for the hot water that hadn't been delivered so there are protections uh in this uh contract uh the contract was presented to the school building committee that school building committee has approved it uh you should understand that there is no cost to the city for the installation of the thermal Loop connecting equipment in fact the agreement uh because we had to hire a consultant then we'll have to do some design work to interface the thermal equipment with the uh with the actual building system uh the heating system itself we're getting monetary credits back or payments from uh new power
144in that regard I think uh in one case we're getting up to ten thousand dollars for uh consultant that we have to pay and we're getting another uh thirty thousand dollar payment upon the execution uh of the either the execution of the agreement or when the uh the fuel cell connection uh is made uh so we have so there there are some additional payments to us in addition to the savings that will be achieved um the we have a lot of Provisions in in this uh this uh commercial uh agreement uh that are somewhat standard um we have indemnification Insurance uh we have an obligation for that new power has to remove its equipment if there's a default or at the end of the term of the agreement um we have uh if new power
145has financing we have uh discussions about lender rights when lenders would be able to cure default or get rights of notice of default things like that we have a section on defaults and remedies whether the Board of Ed defaults or the new Power defaults and the remedies will be available we have a section on dispute resolution um we have we give new power certain access rights to their thermal equipment which we didn't want to be a permanent easement over basic school property so we have the access rights embedded in the contract as a contract right um what else can I so it's a it's a a mutually agreed upon negotiated agreement uh with new power and with the advice of uh George Garcia our outside consultant uh Larry Schilling from the school building committee um
146that brought this agreement together over time and uh if you have any questions this year when um the gentleman say I'm Mr bakacha yeah um he said the turbo look that's why it's a turbo Turbo Turbo look you say right thermal Loop yeah thank you um he said no calls for the city so it's not called either for the board of the kitchen either right I want to be clear for that I don't want later to come throw a bill to board the kitchen because he's in now calls for the city so I want to know us we will freak Mr chair if I may yeah go ahead yes understand now that the uh the City of Bridgeport owns the property and its School building committee is building the school designing and building the school
147at some point when the school is completed the Bridgeport city council will dedicate basic high school to the board of ed for educational purposes and at that time this contract would transfer over to the Board of Ed and the board of Edward administer it would pay the uh the bills and uh in a sense uh take charge in the relationship with new power But to answer your question specifically there are no costs to the board of ed the cost now for the installing the equipment is up to new power and uh the City of Bridgeport is in charge of building the school and transferring a complete school to the board yeah but I just want to be sure for the record because you say not close for the city so I want to be sure
148and for America you know it's clear for us but thank you for your answer no more questions so I wanted to piggyback on that to clarify when school buildings are being built the city pays for the building and they get a match from the state of Connecticut and all of that the Board of Ed doesn't incur a single Cent when we when a school building is built in this case correct me if I'm wrong Mr picacia the city is paying for the building of basic but the elements of the project related to the rmal Loop are not being paid for by the city they're being paid for by new power so they're they're covering their apartment that that is correct in addition just just so you know we had to pay for a a consultant
149Mr uh uh fabozi or um I forget festigi to advise us and we will be reimbursed up to ten thousand dollars for that and then we're going to get a payment a uh a payment of thirty thousand dollars at some point during the uh initial Inception of the agreement yeah you absolutely covered Mr cartoon Mr one on YouTube but I just want to be sure we black and white cleared I don't like surprises thank you okay I think Ms Baptiste Perez who's next and then Mr sukalovic who's the consultant for the designer who's the consultant for his design work or your question your question is to new power well it was well mentioned that there's going to be a consultant for the design work so any party that knows who the consultant is can answer
150the question I I think it is the architecture the a e firm that is designing the building they've done the design work for the system is that correct yeah chair I can answer that this is Van Donovan okay um yeah so Shoreline uh Mr pastige's company Shoreline did the analysis that uh Council um uh uh vacation vacation thank you uh Ron uh councilmania has uh has alluded to uh the actual design is uh on our side is done by Waldron engineering which is a major contractor uh who is very familiar with thermal loops and uh matter of fact uh they will be our project manager for the thermal Loop and also for the interconnection that we're doing with United Illuminating uh with uh uh and also will be the owner's engineer for our fuel cell
151project thank you um attorney Picacho can you walk us through the remedies that are available to the Board of Education if new power defaults but I don't have a paper copy of the agreement but uh I will I will go through is it possible to call it up on the screen it's in the board package all right it's a rather long agreement are you able to where do you want to send it she's gonna okay they're gonna take care of that for you right foreign ideas foreign okay do you see it up there Ron yes I see you can advance to I think it's page 29 . yeah Pages aren't numbered so we're going to try and figure it out and then maybe in the final version you can number the pages what item number
152is it ask them what item number it is yeah what item number is it try section 14. yes [Music] foreign [Music] next page 14 points there it is oh my good eyes okay all right okay so the if there's a provider a default then the defaults are listed in 14.1 a there's a provider default the owner has the following remedies and the owner is the city initially uh if any default occurs while the city is still in control of the property but otherwise after the city transfers at the board of ed the Board of Ed would become the owner and so these would be its remedies so if there is a default in the above paragraphs under 14.1 the owner can terminate the agreement on 15 days prior notice to the provider and A lender
153if there's a lender involved attorney Acacia Acacia can you hold on one second we're looking at we need to be looking at providers well I thought you wanted owner remedies right yeah oh well you mean on a remedy owner remedies yes we're the we're the owner new power is the provider we were in the wrong section there we go let's stop but all right take it back Mike [Applause] to the left to the left we're ready okay so you were saying right if I can just clarify what is it that your question is about the new power is cease to exist what are our remedies as the Board of Education walk us through it in a digestible for La citizens to comprehend uh I don't know if I can do that uh this is a
154it's a commercial agreement um and it it provides that if the the provider new power commits a default like it files for bankruptcy it ceases to operate it um defaults under its obligations to provide the required uh heat uh in a sufficient amount sufficient for the board of Ed's needs those would be material defaults that the Board of Ed would have recourse for including in a serious default that is that goes beyond any opportunity that new power might have to cure it the Board of Ed would have the right to terminate the agreement entirely in within 15 days prior notice if there is a lender involved that is a lender to new power that's financing the thermal Loop we would have to get give notice to the lender as well and in certain circumstances the
155lender would have the right to cure new powers default all right there from from a practical standpoint that's why we have these backup spoilers that's why we pushed for those that if anything goes wrong the administrative legal elements of this agreement are all well and good but we'll just turn the boilers on yeah has anybody looked into the financial stability of new power and I suppose we would be looking at new power thermal BBT LLC and not the parent Corporation because that's who we're getting into a contract with to ensure that there's someone to seek a remedy against I don't know that anyone has done uh due diligence like that so we have no due diligence to ensure that we're getting a contract with an entity that will exist when it comes into our control
156um okay that's not good um it says owner May terminate this agreement upon 15 days prior written notice to provider and lender how are we supposed to know if they bankrupt what if we learn on the 16th day who's going to provide notice to us if they become bankrupt or if something shall happen to their financial Financial stability or dissolve D well typically they would file a new power would give us a notice that they have filed for bankruptcy because we would be trying to enforce our agreement uh if the water turned off or something else happened and new power wasn't responding to a problem uh we would be making Demand on new power and new power would have an obligation to tell us if they had filed for bankruptcy and then the bankruptcy laws
157take over after that happy any kind of provision in here for a priority so that way on the bankruptcy totem pole we're not the last one to try and recover uh there's we there's not no discussion in the agreement of whether we have a priority uh under the bankruptcy code the bankruptcy code would determine if we have priority and what kind of priority based on whether we're a secured lender or secured creditor or unsecured creditor so wait what kind of creditor are we you don't know yet I'm not familiar with bankruptcy law I don't practice in that area well I think what we're at the Crux of is if we decide we want to get out of this agreement we just need to give them 15 days notice it doesn't matter when we found out
158there was an issue once we found out there was an issue and we wanted to pull the plug we would just give them 15 days notice and again turn on the boiler can can I also this is Dan Donovan can I make it a point chairman uh this is a 90 million dollar project and the actual amount of heat that's going to basic high school is relatively small uh there are going to be a lot of people as you know Ron mentions uh uh attorney uh um uh Picasa mentions that we will have lenders involved uh with significant funding uh associated with the project so there is a substantial uh outlay of funds in this project uh and the thermal Loop fuel cell or is going to be providing a significant amount of electricity to
159UI so there is a substantial amount of diligence that will be done on this project by all lenders and the uh amount of of time and effort and funding is going to be substantial in this project so uh I think as as was mentioned by the chair that besides all of those issues being a part of this project the uh boilers that are existing that will exist at the basic high school will be sufficient to be able to provide all the Heat and uh the equipment and the installation will all be on new power uh account and therefore there will be no uh negative impact to the school other than it will just be operating with its boilers okay anyone else have a question yes I have a couple questions um you mentioned uh ten
160thousand dollar payment for design processes and have we got a course estimate of how much that's actually going to cost is that partial reimbursement is it full reimbursement and what why not put it towards full reimbursement because I know there was discussion before about looking at the plans again and how do we have an idea of that cost is the City of Bridgeport going to be made all I know it's on that side those ones well to the I'm I'm not I'm not this is Ron pakisha I'm not intimately involved with the details of the school project other than my conversations with uh George and uh Larry Schilling but they believe that our costs were somewhere around 5 000 and if that there had to be redesigns or any additional questions added that ten thousand
161dollars would be sufficient to cover the city's costs in that regard and as far as the thirty thousand dollar payment you say when you say we get thirty thousand dollars you're saying the City of Bridgeport or the Bridgeport Board of Education frankly I don't know who would get that who would be entitled to that payment um the City of Bridgeport is contributing its share to the construction of Basque High School uh it may go to reduce the city's costs for the high school but uh no one has really said who that thirty thousand dollar payment would be made to presumably I think it it would be to defray the city's costs I think as a member of the board and when these things come before us it should be made explicitly clear who that money
162is going to because if it's coming to us I want to make sure we have a leg to stand on and if it's not coming to us I think we should be aware of it and also um I don't know who this question really should be directed to or this appropriate time or not but when this initially came before the school board School building committee proposal was voted down there's a lot of concerns about maintenance and the viability of the process being in our buildings and this and the feelings of the school building committee at the time was it's not really a board of education say well we do we are the end user of this product we do have to purchase the gas and they do need us to purchase the gas now at
163that meeting superintendo testani and our director of facilities each voted no on that may I ask what changed your minds to bring this before us now the only thing that changed was the fact that you weren't going to have boilers and Mr Garcia and I were adamant that we would go forward with the continuation of installing the equipment so that we can bypass the thermal Loop if there was a failure and just operate as usual so um we also brought in uh the architect we met and discussed with the um the design team of the I guess he was just called the HVAC system and they were confident that we could just shut off the thermal Loop and fire up the boilers and it would be no harm no foul to the operations of the
164school we never miss a beat which was sufficient for Meek and George Our concern was that this thing fails one day we have to close school because we have no heat that would not be the case so both boilers are being installed as the original design um their equipment didn't change any layout in terms of taking away space from any usable area of the school building okay and a further question uh Thomas Baptiste Perez's point about the financial viability of the firms involved if one of the firms go Belly Up and we have to shut down the system or maintain the system our facilities capable of taking up that to George's point I think we just operate like we normally would if this never existed it's like a win-win it's a win-win I think the
165issue always was about using this a lieu of boilers and once you integrate once you kept the boilers in as a Fail-Safe the issue all the issues went away so and also um back back to a contractual question and saying we're saving uh 1.3 million dollars over the 20 years and there's a section of the contract that mentions that we're responsible for certain taxes and fees as the user has it been accounted into the savings foreign Mr chair as far as I know that that's some general language that's put in there but the the city and the Board of Ed are not subject to uh taxes in general there are certain things that that we have to pay taxes on Okay so okay thank you other questions I have a question uh if the thermal
166Loop does fail and we have to turn on our boilers who's going to cover the cost because then we convert back to gas well that is that's one of the remedies that we have is that we would be able to bring uh a claim against new power for a number of things whatever uh damages that we may have suffered because of their failure and also the loss of the benefit of the bargain here which is a 10 savings over a 20-year period so there are these remedies and other remedies that would be available under the law or in equity uh to compensate the either the city or the Board of Education my concern is with 14b subsection 4 is that they would only be liable for actual damages not incidental and so special punitive and
167consequential damages and so if in year 19 the thermal Loop fails um what's our warranty on the boilers like how long are they supposed to last so we get boilers to go for 10 years and then year 19 thermal Loop crash we got crappy boilers and no thermal Loop like how's it all work out I mean uh we're not going to be cycling with these boilers we're going to cycle them just enough to keep them within the range of specifications so theoretically I mean it should last well beyond that point okay can someone repeat yeah can you come up to the microphone in terms of the opportunity there we go in terms of operation um we'll be cycling the three boilers just to keep them within range of specifications so theoretically these boilers should last
168well beyond the 20-year time frame of the 20-year lease I'd have to get that information it's not 20 years not 20 years probably five ten years I mean the different components different warranties so burner one boiler another so if for some reason going on the 10-year number right thermal Loop fails something's wrong with her bully it just so happens to be the 10-year part that's arguably an indirect damage oh who negotiated this part for the types of Damages I can understand punitive damages but like why when we get indirect or incidental because we're running the risks that are boiler systems won't work and if thermal Loop is supposed to work the way it is I don't see why they wouldn't cover incidental indirect damages but I think my answer to that question would be that
169it is Our obligation to maintain our boilers and if our boilers aren't maintained properly or the warranty doesn't cover them and they break that's not a fault of new powers that's yeah we're relying on them for for 20 years at least we're to provide to provide hot water not to fix our boilers or maintain our boilers yeah but if they mess up and we still have to put in boilers to make have a security plan for their mess up why aren't they going to cover it was that something that was negotiated or no did we even ask for it for them to cover incidental damages no that the the paragraph you're talking about is uh it's intended to limit huge damages to either party they can't come after the board of ed for punitive damages
170they can only come after us for actual damages and the same thing uh with us we can only go after the actual damages that we suffer if our boilers are out of service and it has no fault of new power there's no reason to have new power be responsible for it if new power does something that causes our boilers to break for example uh that's a whole other story and that's that we're protected for can you direct me to the section for our liability to Newport so like for for our default it's 14 to B3 ownership attract we try to make the the provisions mirror each other but I know that they're the remedies to new power are different if we decide that we want to terminate the agreement and go to uh solar hot
171water heater for example because new power has made a large investment in this project so they have a different measure of Damages if we default we just walk away from the agreement or don't perform we try to negotiate in this agreement the broadest protections that we can have that are reasonable and we try to mirror the uh the same obligations and remedies that new power would have against us so that it's a it's a fair uh back and forth kind of arrangement and we have dispute resolution uh Provisions in here that allow us to resolve disputes which is very good we have a a force measure provision which says what happens if something totally out of a party's control happens and they can't perform their obligations there's a process for that to put the other
172party on notice and give all kinds of information as to how the default or how that situation might be corrected so we try to make sure that we don't just uh default each other and terminate the agreement we try to work out interim steps that can resolve uh the problem uh in the meantime short of you know just uh Fallout War you uh my next question is do you know for the exhibits when they would be supplied there's several exhibits in the last few pages that just says to be supplied and um yes yes the reference is made in the agreement to uh to those exhibits and it says that when the final designs are done uh those uh exhibits will be agreed upon and they will become a uh a part of this agreement
173but the final designs haven't been done haven't been accepted um I think that um Mr Donovan has given Mr Weldon a copy of a couple what those exhibits might look like like uh as as an example and no I don't have anything like that personally uh okay we can certainly provide them to the board but they would just be a sample of what the uh the the design uh might be for the interconnection equipment between the school and the thermal Loop um the I think the last exhibit I don't know what it's uh lettering is the last exhibit is a uh a safety a a safety standard I think that the city will have to provide to new power and that will become part of the agreement and that hasn't been developed yet and if
174I made chair um this is Dan Donovan uh to to to um counsel um on bagasha's point um we did provide uh to uh Council um examples of the exhibit B uh engineering construction drawings and also um exhibit F which is the description of Internet interconnection equipment and thermal exchange equipment and as the council has uh has stated uh we haven't finalized those uh designs obviously because we're we're not in the uh this will be done when the design goes out for construction but we did provide uh the preliminary design that was developed by Waldron for exhibit B and we also provided the process flow diagram for exhibit app again provided by uh Waldron engineering so they have uh you would we are able to provide copies of what would be provided uh in those
175two exhibits and and to uh council's Point uh Exhibit C published standard safety program is the safety program that either the Board of Ed or the city has that would be included into this agreement if and when available and typically we allow the uh the technical people that are involved in the construction process whether it's our architect uh with uh Larry Schilling Who's involved in the construction process and then new powers uh Engineers or technical people we would let them resolve these exhibits and we would accept that the exhibits based on their technical expertise and add them to the contract foreign any other questions we have 16. all right so to be clear we're not approving the thermal Loop we are only approving this agreement for basic high school so I'll stick a motion to
176approve the thermal energy Supply agreement for new basic high school roll call please I will move it is there a second second by Miss Castillo okay roll call vote Mr Slumber sorry um so uh civil Allen all right Christine Baptiste Perez pass Albert stepped out Bobby Brown Erica Castillo just here right yeah yes I um Michael macaron still here yes I am and what is your vote uh yes okay Joseph sakovic no John Weldon yes Joseph Lombard yes uh did I miss anybody it's me oh sorry you passed Sybil Allen yes yes um so I'm just oh Mr benahan's back can we repeat the Motions we're take there's a motion to approve this agreement with the thermal Loop uh Mr Lombard's taking your roll call vote to approve the agreement to approve the energy Supply
177agreement for the new basic high school we're not approving the thermal Loop that's already been done at the city but this is just the agreement no no okay so no Perez I'm abstained same okay this is five that's everybody five yes five yes three no no one is one abstention so agreement passes thank you gents for being here you're welcome thank you [Music] okay okay um themselves um in the interest of fairness I neglected to to notice this but we have uh Anna Batista and uh the sahana Smith um so I'll seek a motion to uh next here item 11 B which is discussion and approval to extend 2021-2022 flexibilities for implementing the Connecticut guidelines for Education evaluation for the 2022-2023 school year so I will make that motion is there a second okay you
178want to do a roll call vote yeah okay can I see it again 11b discussion impossible approval two steps okay okay we'll call them civil Allen yeah we're seeing Baptist Perez pass Albert bennahan I just want these guys to be able to go home yes Erica Castillo yes yes John Weldon yes Joseph Lombard yes civil Allen yes Percy Baptiste Perez what is the roll call voted out again we're considering item 11 B nest on the agenda so they can go home moved in front much earlier because it just wasn't that's why we're doing it now thank you that's it yes go ahead that's it that's it all right thank you so much I hope you all have a great night thank you thank you yeah no we moved you to be next you still need
179to hear from you stop they already were next that's what I'm confused about but we didn't put them in the proper order so now please make your presentation [Applause] thank you so um Amana Bautista president of the teachers union and I'm here tonight to co-present our presentation on um the educator do we have it up oh who has it up okay there you go thank you the educator evaluation and support plan for 2022. if you could advance to the next page please you want to watch this there's only three slides you don't have to move it's a little late for you all right so uh basically pdac members met in the spring of 22 and agreed to implement the flexibilities within the Connecticut guidelines for educators evaluation so keeping this in mind the plan was
180accepted by the Board of Ed last year and we are presenting the plan for acceptance for this year so basically um we're still recovering from covid-19 pandemic and what this uh provides is a balanced approach to supporting Educators staff and students while maintaining an emphasis on teaching learning and profess professional growth next slide please so all teachers develop one student loan student loan I'm sorry all teachers will develop I've been up since five I'm sorry all teachers will develop one student learning goal with a minimum of two edu two indicators and basically those are focused on social and emotional learning for students student engagement ending families cultural responsiveness or academic achievement most of the teachers do choose academic achievement but you could choose any one of those at least two indicators you could choose three
181so uh the key here is that when the teachers meet with the administrators it's mutually agreed on so the teacher comes in with a goal they meet with the administrator they both agree on what development the teachers would best like to work with next slide please I'm sahana Smith I'm the principal at Reed school and I'm just going to talk with you briefly about the portion that pertains to the administrators so the administrators must develop two student learning indicators that focus on one of the these one or or several of these four areas social and emotional learning ensuring equity academic achievement and or developing approaches to implement social and emotional learning and culturally responsive practices again these goals are also mutually agreed upon and they're demonstrated by implementing district-wide or individual strategies we could go
182to the next slide please this is just a breakdown of the indicators uh so on one side you have the teacher practice on the other side the leadership practice so the teacher practice is broken up um into the following you have a component that makes up 45 and that's the student learning indicator the next component is observation of performance and practice that is 40 percent you then have stakeholder feedback which is comprised of the parent survey that's given in the fall and the spring and then you have the whole school student learning indicators which is five percent and so if you total that that's 100 percent and then on the leadership side you have development of student learning indicators which is 45 observation of leadership performance and practice stakeholder feedback which is comprised of the
183parent survey as well as the teacher survey the certified staff survey and which is 10 and then teacher Effectiveness outcomes five percent and again that equates to 100 percent is there any questions I have a question to chat um you said teachers I'm outside parents how much for the percent I'm sorry uh the parents falls in the stakeholder feedback so that's uh that comprises 10 of the total okay yeah yeah these are the yeah these are taken from the state guidance cool I have a question what are the two that was mentioned that needs to be selected and the third one was optional that Mr Bautista mentioned so all all teachers have to write a goal and then what they have is they get to choose um they get to choose from those indicators how
184they are basically going to meet their goal does that explain that to you I also have with me rpdac one of our co-chairs for teachers I I can also just add that it's a collaborative process so it would mutually agreed upon the teacher and the administrator works together and then the administrator and the executive director also work together to agree on what these goals will be how these goals will be monitored through the school year there's a mid-year check-in that we do and then there's an end of year evaluation at the end of year evaluation kind of sums up the whole year a reflection piece that the teachers are right as well and that will drive their uh and the teacher will collect evidence in the form of documents and it could be um student
185work samples it could be um observations they'll collect this bring it together um and usually when I greet my evidence I have like um I guess it's like at least is evidence and I wheel it down the hall to the principal's office all wrapped up with evidence I guess my confusion is just like with the indicators why wouldn't a teacher just choose the stakeholder feedback and what was the last one for like five percent I guess everybody everyone you choose that all of them are are a part of it that's why it equals 100 so at the end of the year I thought you know just like choose two of those indicators no that that whole um well the slide's not showing but but all of those indicators comprise the total overall rating for the
186teacher or the administrator the SLO piece is 45 so if you go back in the slide you would see that that's just one component of the whole 100 percent so it this always reminds me of when I did it of like taking a college class you have the year to do it you have to gather evidence it's a rigorous process and it's the same process used throughout the state of Connecticut it's just been modified prior to this it was two slos now there's one but it's it's nothing easy and like again teachers um in Stratford are doing the same type of evaluation as we are and and prior to this it was focused on academic achievement and now social and emotional learning is a part of it Equity culturally responsiveness as well as academic achievement
187okay thank you what else so is there a motion to approve extending the 2122 flexibilities for implementing the Connecticut second by Ms Brown second by Ms Castillo roll call vote Bobby Brown yeah say it again okay officially Sybil Allen ask Christine Baptist Perez yes Albert bennahan yes Erica Castillo absolutely yes Michael macaron oh yes Don Weldon yes Joe Lombard yes Sybil Allen yes that's everybody right unanimous okay unanimous thank you okay oh you have it all right so now we've gotten our staff business out of the way we're going to segue back to Old business discussion possible action on selection of superintendent search consultant just to get the discussion going is there someone who wants to make a motion to pick one or the other search Consultants Mr chair hang on I asked for a
188motion right and I'm getting a motion to table this item until after we discuss the items of the items because we were done to discuss this talk a second all right I am going to make a motion that we select CES search Consultants is there second by Ms Allen now let's talk so I have a comment um greater City schools had a very similar um what to do when searching for a superintendent and they had indicated about five Urban related search firms that do Nationwide searches that cater to demographics one is not too far away right in New York City and um let's see if I can had it open probably closer towards oh I'm going like five hours in meetings right now straight we're doing good Mr Lombard um I'll lose weight this way
189there we go um and I and um the same packet had also introduced I think what we should consider as Clara strategies before selecting um I'd like to share that with all the board members before going forward to select one but I know it was mentioned in the last meeting that if there are um other search options that we do our due diligence to look into them and whether they exist like perhaps perhaps one that was used in Chicago that was also mentioned and the greater City School study was hya uh which is like Hazard young and a Bia and Associates there was another there were actually a bunch but um I haven't had a chance to share it and um I'll be happy to share it because part of it is um just to
190consider what else is available aside from the typical Connecticut so we could find someone that's going to um cater into our particular needs in our district that's more of a discussion for if this discussion falls apart and we don't pick from one of these two and then we will by default be forced into an RFP situation this is about the merits of CES over k to be clear the last meeting there was a misimpression given uh that CES was not going to conduct a nationwide search but they are crystal clear in their proposal that their search would be Nationwide for my own part I like that they're in our backyard and they know our local needs um we'll still talk with them about them to clarify them but they're not coming into this cold being
191completely unaware of what our local needs are and that have clearly been articulated by the public this is not a phenomenal amount of money picking one will allow us to move forward and commence this process as opposed to for lack of a better terms stagnating it there was talk of scheduling and in reality we don't want a superintendent to be starting in September superintendent school year starts at the end of June when he's winding down the old year and and doing all the startup work that needs to be done over the summer so that kids and teachers can show up on September 1st and I think CES is ideally positioned to be able to do that with us they will move at our own pace and there's a concern about moving too fast but they
192will only move as fast as we want them to um I think we do our district a disservice if you know Mr testani turned in his resignation four weeks ago and we haven't taken any substantive action forward finding um his replacement and we're a third of the way through his 90-day period and we owe it to our staff and the public to get the process started that doesn't mean we need to be like a bowl in a china shop CES but we can sit with them if they're reasonably priced and they will guide us and that's another thing you know we need to be able to trust in the process that they provide us with and we really need I feel to move this forward yes Mr chair this is an emergency of your own
193creation four weeks ago I put in a notice for a special meeting with the following agenda items that we could have been moving forward with forward products you chose not to I'm speaking I have the you're not talking about a search firm I am talking about so we should not choose to search for because this was tabled at the last meeting and we were supposed to have a special meeting in the interim that you did not call with the other agenda items that were and I couldn't call it which would make this move we could have went on to see discussion of possible action on solicitation of an internal superintendent we would have choices open to us by hiring an internal candidate give it 21 days but internal candidates come out we would also have
194a choice of going for a retired superintendent and then doing a RFP for Department of superintendent which is not a time-sensitive pressure thing I am not happy with CES CS has no experience placing Urban superintendents they got some experience of taking a nervous superintendent and placing him at Fairfield and he placed New Britain and New Britain is a little difficult but um what's the problem with selecting an internal superintendent from Visa Within or from the retirees there's no time Miss Christina I think if I could just Express what I think to be a point of hesitation um for me is is that I'm wondering do you think it would be possible to invite a representative from CES and a representative from cave I know we heard from cave more from the advising perspective and they
195advised us on what the traditional processes are for a superintendent search but not necessarily from the search firm side would it be possible to maybe invite a representative from cave and a representative from CES to come and address the board and give us an overview of what their processes are like and then um maybe from there we can vote is that something that anyone is interested in well here's here's the issue is that when two proposals are in active competition with one another you typically do not have them come together and basically defend against one another their proposals um we had the search committee meet a few weeks ago for the purpose of being able to review the proposals and to talk to either of the proposers individually um and only CES was CES was
196the only one that anyone had any questions on so they were called into the meeting those of you who attended the meeting heard what CES had to say and the questions they answered so it would be inappropriate for them to be making competing presentations in the open like that we have their proposals um we talked with one of them because one of them is we had questions about so right and and Joe I don't you weren't present for that meeting correct correct but I did read the proposals face to page but you didn't hear answers to questions right neither did the public and the public was upset and that's which is why which is why okay excuse me you cut me off I had a question that's the conflict right you can't have two competing
197proposals going like this we shouldn't only have two competing proposals on the table right here and now maybe because we could we could just vote no now we can always pick it back up we could always vote Yes tomorrow all I'm asking is that we vote no for this get through the rest of this maybe we find common ground on the rest of this because right now we're just going what we're just using one option chosen by Mr chair John Wilton 99 member Board of Education we were elected by the city to represent their interest and even though I don't go upstairs you did come downstairs and you heard the people loud and clear what they were looking let's give it to them and if you don't want to vote for CES you can vote
198no no Perez uh Mr chair just I share the same kind of frustration that Mr sokolovic has because it was ignored by procedure that after 10 days or 14 days for a request for a special meeting regarding topics that are on here it was not ignored I sent him an email and he acknowledged that there was exciting it was it was four of us that submitted that request your issue was with him because he presumed to speak for the four of you yeah and I'm clarifying because you're speaking an untruth he said it was okay I challenged the chair to failure to comply with Robert's Rules with procedure you don't have a say on that because you did that we had an obligation to have a special meeting we had a special meeting over a
199field trip before we could go over what we had was supposed to have a special meeting about superintendent and then instead of going over to superintendent so we can actually have a plan it's delayed for four weeks and then you still want to force feed and shove us down our throat the same two options that you selected the last time but then when we do do our due diligence and find urban just Urban search firms oh CES because they're not they're National and that's who I said from the start so take it it is it you're wasting our time and this was a tactical diversion because I could already see that this meeting was going to be extremely late so then the three organizations that we still have here still waiting the parents could leave
200the parents not are not watching this live their children are asleep the children that came in that cared about the superintendent search firm had to leave and go to sleep so they can be here live to watch us fail if we rubber stamp a decision tonight and this is why I'm getting frustrated because we could have discussed this at this point Miss Kennedy has come during public comment and said the same speech three times and I forgot the date at this point but 10 days after that special meeting we should have addressed the points below that was moved below possible action to vote huh all the questions vote on this this is vote roll call vote okay so what was the second did so it was it was a second so okay what what's the
201vote again please I I have a question before we vote um if if this is voted down right now are we uh are we forced into an RFP is that what I understood earlier no no that but that's the next logical discussion so everybody has to be quiet which takes two-thirds of us so discussion could potentially go on all night so do you want to call the question I did okay so so this is this is voting yes is voting to use CES as the search firm voting no is not to okay you got a vote to call the question so and then if it's if it's passed can I skip that whole step all right so we're calling the question to see if we're gonna take the vote now correct so to take the
202vote now so Sybil Allen yes Christine Baptiste Perez pass Albert bennahan aye Bobby Brown Erica Castillo I've seen Michael macaron yes Joseph sakolovic no John Weldon yes Joseph Lombard yes Sybil Allen yes Christine Baptiste Perez no Albert bennahan no motion fails okay keep talking keep talking so I'm gonna reclaim my time I don't know Maxine said it said it so um you know the the point is we could have had a game plan two weeks ago we could have had a clear this uh discussion two weeks ago we could have vented through the options and and moved forward the way this agenda was put together and scheduled it was designed for us to be here all night and and Not only was it designed it puts us in a point of I feel sorry I
203should ask for two cups of coffee for those of us that was here during a committee meeting just before this one to be here about five hours and to feel tired and forced into making a decision and instead of allowing us please don't do that uh instead of allowing us to have that meeting two weeks ago we're forced back into where we were that last meeting and that it and that's what's frustrating because I heard Miss Castillo when she was like where's the due diligence so I put in the due diligence because I know we're associated with greater City schools and so I feel like we're ignored again and we're presented with your two options again because a special meeting that was agreed by four of us was ignored thank you you can read my
204mind that's pretty good um and so you know it's Beyond infuriating but you can go ahead Miss Casino I just wanted to express my frustration with this process thank you yeah so we do have some uh I I wish that this that the previous item was um positioned differently and I understand Joe you know you wanting to table it um until we've had other conversations because there there are more pressing matters that we should discuss first you know and and so the next agenda item is about the interim search I believe solicitation of the interim superintendent um and uh and even even the other agenda items that that are left for discussion tonight you know um I think could be fruitful conversations if we move forward with the agenda so starting we're based off Miss
205Castillo's comment I make a motion sorry to the floor what's the motion on the floor select CES AR second that why um Mr chair just uh as far as discussion purposes we could vote no on this and pick it up later by making a motion to reconsider so just voting no right now doesn't automatically that's toss this out because one of the people who vote no if they are not happy with the next procedures they could always make a motion to reconsider and if we're not happy with that I'll support that motion to reconsider actually the only people who can support emotion to reconsider are on the winning part of The Winning Side which is the winning side should be no are you saying now you'd like to take a vote yeah if the motion
206is on the floor motion is on the floor currently we can always pick it back up later the motion on the floor currently is to select CES if we're ready we can just take a vote and see where it goes I thought that's what we just voted for no we voted to call the question which would lead to a vote but the motion to call the question failed which kept it Up For Debate so if we're all agreed that there's nothing left to talk about and we just want to take a vote on this item and see where it goes we can do that okay roll call let's do it okay here we go motion is to select CES search not one or the other it's just this if you don't want to use them
207okay here we go Sybil Allen because Christine Baptiste Perez absolute no to CES at this time it's disrespectful to the district Albert bennahan all right Bobby Brown Erica Castillo Epstein Michael macaron yeah yes yes okay Joseph kolovic no John Weldon yes Joe Lombard no Sybil Allen yes who's that Albert no no and is there anyone left oh Erica who stays that's right all right so now the next item on the agenda is discussion possible action for solicitation of interim superintendent how would you like to go about doing that I posed the question last week we can reach out to the State Association and have them contact the list of retired superintendents and see who comes back saying they're interested we can interview them the benefit I see to doing that is if you do at
208the very least pick a retired superintendent you know they're not going to be in the mix for the permanent job and everybody else is going to know that too and they're not going to be afraid that you know why bother applying you've already got you know someone who's an internal candidate or someone who is eligible to be in the pool of applicants so why bother he must already have the job lined up so that's the benefit I see uh you can see what comes back if nobody's interested that's a whole other conversation but before we go looking at other pools potentially I think we should see who comes back from the state association yes Mr chair um I'm not I'm not totally opposed to that but I do believe we owe it to our current
209staff to offer them the interim position first if they so if they so desire it and set it maybe a time period of maybe two weeks three weeks for them to apply and then reach out to the interim superintendent I'm an internship so um alternately yeah the uh alternately ultimately then reach out to the retired superintendents they have to alternately you could just reach out to both right whoever comes in I don't think it needs to be two weeks you either want this or you don't submit your resume by the end of the week will sift through them and see who we want to sit and talk to so I'm talking simultaneously uh receiving all right retirees and any internal candidate who may be interested I mean we're just speaking of the interim codes let
210me ask the question how is it done or Mr testani was it open we did the last time was we published a basically a help wanted ad it was all over the place it was a two-month process I'm saying that's why I'm saying so it's kind of sort of like what's being option now is keep it open to both we'll keep it okay no it was like in Statewide associations it was all over the place I'm saying in this scenario we keep it limited to the retirees and within our own internals that's it that don't advertise it it's if there's anybody I don't want to lose the opportunity for our internal staff to have the chance no I'm I'm not saying you're saying that I'm saying what I'm saying now because that opportunity was presented
211and to a certain degree we have to have some kind of consistency with the district so as long as our internal candidates who are qualified to be superintendents who are interested have the chance to apply for the interim moral I think it's and and all honesty it's it's fair because I want to uh just think about like well the opportunities that were afforded previously well I don't think I don't want to I don't want it to look like we're backtracking it anyway so if any internal candidate is interested in applying I want to open that chance the only the only thing that I would just throw into this this is not to say this is a con of that oh sorry the only thing I want to throw into this is not to say that
212it's that it's a negative of doing that just to keep in mind is I think we given what we went through the last time I think that if we opened it internally or basically to anyone other than the retired people that we know aren't going to go for the job we have to make it clear that that person would be eligible to be permanent or not and if they would be eligible to be permanent we need to be careful that our selection process doesn't turn into the selection process for the permanent you know the whole rubric and the community forums and the focus groups and the big selection process because we're not looking for the permanent so it just is something we need to be aware of if it is stated that this interim it's
213not one of the retired people that's a set contract could apply for the permanent that we don't fall into the Trap of turning into a big you know selection process and that's the other thing is that if we keep it limited to just the retirees any internal person who really wants it is going to be applying for the full-time job and my concern is if you place them in the interim role there may be some rock star candidate out there who says oh look Dr benihan of course the inside guy he's got the job why bother applying and we could really limit ourselves in the pool of candidates who come forward for the full-time job the permanent job if we do that that's my only reason for wanting to try to keep it to people
214who are known to be retirees they're never going to come into the mix they're already collecting their pension it's never going to be a question and then if Dr bennahan wants to enter the full-time thing the permanent thing he can do that and he can know that he's got as good a shot as anybody and he's not competing against an interim who maybe has an inside track that's my primary go ahead um I I wanted to say that um I I do my inclination is more towards leaving it open for for two weeks this is an interim superintendent rule I imagine there's a great deal of preparation if it's somebody that is currently in the in the district chances are they probably have a nine to five maybe they have a family you know you
215might want to give them a reasonable amount of time to prepare um their resume for such a position so I feel like one week is is too tight a timeline I think I'm only I'm only suggesting one week if we're only going to the retiree pool because they've got their resume on file with caps so they'll just flip it over but if you are considering other people who haven't given this a thought and need time to update resumes that's a whole other story yeah so I and I am inclined to open the pool up um to um current people in the district that might be uh interested in in applying for the interim spot and I do also agree that um we should probably stipulate that the interim um cannot apply for the permanent position
216I don't know that you can in retrospect now I don't know that you can legally do that that starts to I don't I don't know you may want to get a legal opinion on that but yeah may I I like what Mr lumbar had said just open it up to both that's pretty much what what you said right it is and I was just also pointing out the the we need to not fall into a trap of turning the interview and selection process for the interim into a full-blown process that we would do for the permanent of course got it yep I like that yes thank you um yeah I got I got a couple of caveats I think we should look at um with the with actually both both sides with the staff we
217of course won a was it 0.93 to apply and with the interim I think we want to link any interim candidate two serving till year end whether we find a permanent superintendent or not because this past situation when we selected and interim who was from the retirees they ended up here two years plus two years plus and they're getting a pension and uh full super basically almost a full superintendent salary which is a basically a disincentive to leave so it creates the possibility of leaving on and if by chance we do not select one by Year's End we go back to caps and get a second one this way we don't create a incentive to hold on it's a joke are you saying if it's someone from Caps or you're saying any enter the only
218restriction I would put on ours is that they have the internal candidate they have a 0.93 yeah it's already certified okay the term has to have an old 93 had to apply to Connecticut State Department of Ed the commissioner would have to Grant permission um and that's a much more difficult process we got into we got interim has to happen all night interim card only of acting is somebody with an 092 that you would solicit the state department of Ed for permission from the commissioner and you don't have time for that because that's not going to happen in a quick process and and today I think maybe we should have at least just one Community Forum where we could listen to the people in uh means in the meanwhile while we're waiting for people to
219put their resumes in just just so we could hear them out what they're looking for in the interim no not for the interim just so we could hear that just to hear the community out I mean not not a long drawn out process one process what we want to see in the interim is well we would rather have somebody internally rather have somebody external we've lost somebody who ever been an experience with blah blah blah and we just just so they heard [Music] just one Community Forum I don't want to lock them out totally I I understand what Mr Lombard said about making the process long and drawn out but I I think just one just one just Community form just to hear people out on the process and then it's not going to slow
220the process that's not anything while we're waiting for the resumes yes for their just just one I don't know if that makes sense to anybody else but me and it makes us I I hear what you're saying Mr sokolovic I I am kind of heeding the warning from Mr Lombard regarding convoluting the process um the interim is interim the idea is to get them out before uh I think the last time we had talked about the timeline and the worst case scenario with the RFP was still by the end of the school year we should have someone signing a contract moving to Bridgeport by July so then they could start the process or start as our full-time superintendent I think having a community forum for the interim um it's not necessary especially if we're entertaining
221candidates that already work in our community um I I think the community forum and the real guts of the community Forum they want to be involved with who's going to be the head honcho and it may give off the impression that the interim may be the head honcho and I don't think that's necessary I think um if we just listen closely to what's been echoed in public comment as well as reaching out to community stakeholders whether it's parent groups that want to talk to board members or if they write to us actually read their letters as to what they want well they've been talking about what they want in a superintendent not even an interim they're like just find an interim because we need to put our time and effort into a regular and so
222it's like the thought of a community forum for interim I I feel like if I'm listening to the community they want to be involved with the superintendent search not the interim superintendent search I can see it on that point so I think the point just goes back to I agree with what you say and I'm heeding your warning of the process so I I would present a motion to the board um to open the search for interim superintendent for internal qualified candidates as well as open it up simultaneously can you clarify what you mean by qualified IE an 093 IE 093 superintendent certification certification you have a gold star on it the the legal requirements to be an interim superintendent uh to all internal candidates that are qualified to legally meet the requirements simultaneously with
223the retired superintendent list for the board okay on further discussion yeah good point I don't know if it needs to be Amendment or not but it needs to be clear that no application reach out to any board member in reference to the posting okay so how for the internal candidates would you like me to find out who is interested microphone oh sorry it's right there Bobby would you like me to reach out to the handful of folks with an 0.93 ask them if they'd be interested with the list from caps and then provide you with those resumes I would like to see it like at least go up on Apple the track internally that's our internal yes we can do that internally and then the list from caps as well we would have to reach
224out to those folks and see who is interested we can make those phone calls and check off who's interested the list from caps is not long probably got about 30 names some of those folks would probably not be interested so we could easily make those 30 phone calls that's acceptable yeah I just want to make the point that I think it should be I can tell you there's there's a few right off the bat that already would probably not be interested based on commute in the winter um not having to travel down during poor weather but we'll call everyone on the list if they say yay we'll get their resume and so we'll put them all together as maybe as an amendment do we need to specify a timeline time period for this oh yeah
225yeah that's that is what would that be the two weeks two weeks to do what from when they respond to proceed to receive their resumes like so we whenever we give it down like what's two weeks from today Mr chair can we make it two weeks from the posting to us from the posting I think yeah that makes sense yeah and hopefully we reach out to gaps at the same time as the posting goes out Okay so I just have a question because it's just logistic it are you going to interview 20 people get any resumes and then say nope you never dealt with this environment nope right we have to automatically interview your short list as you need to as needed as needed yeah well we should see every resume she's not saying that
226right we're not going to line 20. just asking because two weeks is a long time I don't think you need two weeks and your time it goes two weeks then say you do have 20 people you want to interview people it's going to take you a while all right yeah go ahead thank you I understand me to the study and you say we're not gonna have to two weeks but what is the rush we need to try to find somebody what is the rush I'll tell you the rush time is right time's taking there's there's a rush okay I mean this is sunny let me let me tell you this and please I'll be honest with you and everyone I know you say it's a rush but look at what we're going through because your
227resonation so that guy's saying I'm gonna repeat it again be trying to find somebody they will qualify the way it's supposed to be we're not going back and forth our community our parents and start to be sure they're happy you know because they have to deal with the or whatever is going to be the superintendent of the school we don't want to go crazy got something and then after one or two months bone surprise something happened and we find out something and you know before people um apply before you now we know a lot of people they give a surprise imagine if it was here we won't go through a lot of things so we just want to be sure to have everything correct the way supposed to be I know we have to rush
228we got um time is running but why we had to go crazy and then we're gonna be sorry I think it's his point that's my not necessarily that we rush but that we not take time that we don't necessarily no we're not going to try to know so many more months it takes two weeks we can get it done in a week we should take a week go ahead I'm not I'm gonna finish him I don't know why people interrupt me but like I said I I really I know as we but we have to be sitting down and be sure if we read exactly what we need for our visual school that's the only thing okay not because oh he got zero nine three he's everything oh yes yes yes no be sure we
229search the way it's supposed to be to be correct okay one week I'm fine but we got to work hard not because he's nice because he's beautiful because he has 093 you know because any person they can put anything in a resume I can make my resume like I'm a doctor and I can't do a lot of things but we have to search that person be sure they have the passion and they care for principal school is the only thing I care no more questions I just wanted to say that whatever it will be one week or two week that's not how much time we have to decide it's how much time they have to apply yes from when it's posted so if if one week's enough we'll mix it up I don't I don't
230know the answer to that but it's it's not on us then to make that decision it's after those two weeks are in or one week is in then we'll have the resumes and then we'll go through our own selection process so it's not putting a rush on us for that so miss Castillo has her hand up tried to recognize yourself sorry um I was going to say you know I'm comfortable with just Move Motion that's on the table that way I mean who knows if we put out this um you know if we post it and we get 20 resumes in in a day you know we don't want to delay our own selves from reviewing those 20 resumes just because the two-week window hasn't passed yet you know I mean stand up what I
231was going to say is that in terms of internal candidates if they need time to get their resume together they're going to know already if this is something they have any interested in it's not going to be something they're going to deliberate about as far as the retirees their resumes are already on file with caps and they will just say yes here you go so you know take two weeks take one week you know [Music] so if we're going to specify it we could with an amendment we have to decide so maybe one week then because um because we are on a time constraint for intro but you just said Miss casino that one week may not be enough I maybe it's just fair to open it up for applicants uh for the two weeks
232as mentioned by Mr Lombard I always mentioned by me originally but okay I I at this point is it is almost 11 o'clock and my defense is almost 11 o'clock so then um before I make the amendment I also was wondering because it's very clear for anyone that this is just for internal current employees it's not for the public we're not advertising it to the public and the retirees that's why I'm telling you you don't need a lot of time there's probably six people in the district that have that can apply and if you call the retirees if they say yes the resume is on file in a week you'll have everybody's stuff to go through this it's not like there's 50 people that have to think about it in the district so I was
233like a half a dozen I'm gonna I'm gonna make it the best make a motion on method that we specify you ready for this everybody yes um that resumes have to be received within 10 days of the posting days we love it that's good is that business days no I don't think so it's 10 calendar days yeah that's my amendment I make a motion I know second second all right all in favor all right back to the main motion back to the main motion what's the main motion we're going to solicit from the pool of qualified interim candidates internally and from the caps list okay and that was Amendment amended to be that they will submit their resumes if interested within 10 calendar days okay all in favor any opposed no stop it roll call
234discussion of possible action on issuance of an RFP or search Consultants yeah Mr chair we've got a car we've got a old RFP that was approved by board it was just maybe never used I don't think it was even approved yeah it's still it's still in draft format it looks okay as a starting point I believe we could use this like just clean up we've got to clean up the dates the number of students whether we're the largest District or not and maybe under the service that deliverables we'll be talking about um Community stakeholders and gaining and they they would um be responsible for the community stakeholders and discuss I mean they could just we could just approve to go out with the RFP and have Mr Pirates clean this up and bring it back
235to us now it's not it's not an emergency situation we can bring it back at the next board meeting since this is for the permanent superintendent which is not necessary until July July 1 I believe or or Target or sooner depending on how how soon we find them um May I comment I think it's very helpful if there's an RFP where we don't have to recreate the wheel again uh for search maybe that the echo's coming from Miss Castillo Mr macaron's microphone not sure which one um if we don't have to reinvent the wheel again it'll help us be efficient in it and where we can um look into uh Urban search firms um I think that is extremely helpful and streamlined in the process where we can keep it somewhat fast and so that's
236that's my comment so what you're going to need to do is sit with Mr pyrres as a group go through the document you're going to need to establish evaluation protocols based on the qualifications that you want to stipulate it's not something that's going to come back in two weeks ready to go you're going to need to sit and have literally a working meeting with Mr pyres to go through the document and establish all those things so if that's what you want to do I can be coordinated with Mr Pirates um and it will subsequently need to go through the city purchasing department for their approvals to the attorney yada yada it's not it's not a turnkey operation but the key thing you're going to need to do if you're talking about Urban experience as a
237as a as a factor to be evaluated among others that you're going to need to establish that and apply some weights to that criteria and any other that you put into it so you should be prepared to do that Miss Castillo yep go ahead um the RFP to solicit search Consultants is for just to be clear for the permanent superintendent yes yes okay so for that issue we do have more time than we do with with the interim of course um if we decide to go the route of um of issuing an R RFP um typically does it happen where um you issue an RFP for a period of time because that that for me is more my my concern I don't want to be waiting for six months for somebody to reach out to
238us that has urban experience you know what I mean is it is is that typically the way it works is if you issue an rsf Pizza solicit search Consultants that it's done within a certain period of time it's any RFP that's issued you need to provide a minimum a six week period for them to submit their proposals afterwards it doesn't matter what the search firm it's whatever you're going out for six weeks for them to submit proposals there's a subsequently after you receive them you're going to rank them the proposals based on the criteria I just mentioned that you would need to determine you would then have a stage where you would call them in individually to give oral presentations q a and then you would finalize your scores and you would pick one so
239the typical submission time would be a six week period after you put it out on the street okay and and when they come to speak with us I assume they're not coming to speak with the board they're coming to speak with the the search committee you would need to you would need to establish a selection committee because now you're selecting a firm so that again takes you out of the and in this scenario that's where it gets a little dicey because you know the statute doesn't call for um RFP selection committees to interview firms privately you you would basically be operating in the public eye and again the conflict of proposals being discussed openly um to get around that you may make a joint staff and board selection committee so that you maybe you only
240have four board members on the selection committee for staff members whenever you guys get together there's never a quorum with the board and then that group would make a recommendation to the board to pick the search firm right okay that's that's um [Music] yeah and even further a lot of times it's frowned upon for board members to be on a selection committee when the board is going to be making the final decision so you might defer it all to staff but at the very least you could have just a handful of board members not enough to comprise a quorum and a couple of Staff people we're looking at it from uh professional educator point of view you could do it that way okay um that would not need an action of the board Tony Perez
241could establish it's going to be four board members you pick and it's going to be four staff members he picks okay that's definitely helpful I wasn't aware that that there would be a a new um committee formed if we went the RFP route and that's why I asked the question about whether or not you know this is going to be through the search committee or the board because I basically wanted to know is this something that is has to be done in private or is it something that can be done publicly um because if we're operating as a search committee then we're not subject to um being a quorum and and subject to the bylaws which seems to be a constant misunderstanding um so thank you for sharing um and that's all questions yeah Mr
242chair um yeah I understand your points however um no there are regulations correct a Ford correct sitting publicly cannot with all its members I understand a selection committee you can have a couple of participants but have the full board be a selection committee for an RFP process rfps before and we don't we we will be voting on it of course yes but um no I'm talking about sort of like I'm talking about can you let me finish the sentence [Music] absolutely I honest I understand the voting process can we do it somewhat like the textbook selection process where they pair it down to the final three search firms and then we meet as a board because I'm uncomfortable with having three or four board members sitting there I would rather have a couple of Staff
243members the top three yeah you could just leave it level yes selection committee and they make a recommendation and they would provide the ranking correct they would need to justify numerically why company a is tops and Company B is not and they would have to list them they wouldn't come back with just a single recommendation they'd say am I willing to do that absolutely yeah they get a paycheck for that yeah yes they do there are staff who are with their time and willingness they do our other rfps oh okay yeah let's program it for textbooks and things so so that I think I'll make a motion to issue an RFP what was to issue an RFP and we'll work out the details after the issue an RFP for the permanent superintendent search firm second
244okay I'm gonna make a recommendation you may want to reverse gears and recast this to make a motion to work with these School business manager to develop an RFP okay okay uh first yeah is that an amendment um like to make a recommendation to engage your to get an RFP to engage a search firm through the business to develop to develop the scope of work for an RFP for search services with the school business manager what he said scope of work so moved I'll move seconds roll no no all in favor search committee meetings public we got five minutes left John search committee under statute functions the way it does I spoke with the attorney about this it is the way it is if you want to operate publicly operate as the full Board of
245Ed and when you're functioning in a manner where you need some privacy you function as the search committee and the search committee when it gets to a point where it feels it wants to release something it's it's reached a milestone they can they can they can they can come to consensus that people they're not going to get kicked out okay that's a misnomer that's a Tickler okay so that's that's the way it would work so if you get to a point in the search committee where you feel there's something you've reached a milestone you want to issue a report that's why on our agenda there's a search committee report whenever the group feels it's ready to go public with something they can and they do it through the board which is the appropriate if you're
246not if you're going to make the search committee public you're not going to be able to pick and choose which meetings are public and which are not but Mr chair for the sensitive topic the only sensitive topic I see in the search committee is the microphone only sensitive traffic actually in the search committee is uh interviewing Personnel interviewing candidates every everything else is pretty much much more than that there's there is taking the information that's been that's been developed through the um public forums and coming up with a candidate profile there's a lot of back and forth work that um you can release it but when you're doing that kind of sensitive work I don't think you want to be doing that under the in the public view because if that's the case just get
247rid of the whole search committee to begin with just do it all as the Board of Ed see I I think either one or the other but the the search committee is designed to give you the ability to operate privately when you feel it's appropriate and then when you want to operate publicly you do that as the Board of Ed so you alternate between these two structures to be able to do what you need to do and if you feel that you want to do you know public interviews you make that recommendation to the board and then the Board of Education conducts public interviews Mr chairs one or the other guys you have something to say yeah I have a question um if we go the route of um exploring rfps would um CES and
248Cave be able to um submit proposals that way of course and and do you imagine they likely will I don't know okay but they could okay so take that for what it's worth I I the way this is being presented it seems like the Best of Both Worlds that's the way presenting it we have the total freedom to bring it to the full board and say we want this to be done publicly and the board votes and and it happens publicly or if we want to have things discussed uh uh with some sense of we want to have the conversations in that in that venue we have that option too it gives us the best of both worlds I really don't see a downside to it you know there has to be some sense of
249surrender to the board that we can we can operate we can do the job and I Surrender I mean you know For Better or For Worse every one of every one of us up here was elected into this position and there's that we we are called upon to do certain duties and I feel like some of those things require discretion it's better that way and other things don't and I think we are we are able to make that determination to our votes that's how I feel about it I oh search committee public meetings I mean I think again just from what I've heard and read from that letter from multiple organizations and the feeling of the public being ignored when it was that expect a secret meeting because that's the way it's been portrayed and
250that's the way it's felt like I almost feel like we could just bypass that and also uh the idea of secret meetings if we just hold special meetings and put it into executive session where we're talking about candidates that's right that way the public knows you could just scrap the search committee and then hold a series of public meetings whether the regular meetings special meetings and do stuff in executive sessions but we'll still be the search committee but if we need to break out into executive session and then the content in this executive session we can't discuss with the public no you can't the the search committee by its nature under the statute is exempt from foi laws and if you're going to voluntarily relinquish that it's all or not and if you're doing that
251there's no point in having the search committee just operate as the Board of Education hold special meetings do things in regular meetings I I was just a comment about this uh my my hesitation is with the idea that given the way it's designed that it's not held to foi it's not held to happen to have a quorum it's not held to you know out to lots of things it's problematic that we're not notifying the public that we're meeting to even conduct the work of the search committee um and for that reason it may be beneficial to scrap the search committee altogether and then just call into executive session that that may make sense to not because you can't have both apparently so it would it's one or the other so and it's here's there's a
252benefit to having the search committee if you guys are in conflict of whether you're going to go into executive session or not that could be a problem down the road that's what's the benefit of the search committee is that you are exempt from all of that it's totally uncomplicated when you want to be private to discuss things that need a level of discretion this tool gives you the ability to do that and when you don't want to do that and you want to be public you have this here that you can choose to utilize as your tool Mr chair I think on the executive sessions and voting onset existence dream minority in the group that will probably vote against executive session for Canada interviews and sticking point I will commit to voting yes for up
253until the final two or three candidates to get that job you realize when he gets to the final two or three if they're currently employed they're going to drop out it doesn't matter if they're the phone well actually Mike you don't want it guys see now we're getting into a discussion we should be having with the search firm right so do you want a search committee or not as you're entitled to have one under the law for the protections it gives you under the law or do you want to just throw that all out of the window and just from this point forward operate as the public Board of Education you know uh when you don't when at this point you don't even have a search firm no so yeah it's Mr chair may I
254be recognizes the fact that we don't understand our legal rights and because we don't what I'm saying is legal right if the search committee isn't even going to do anything until we have a search firm why are we having this discussion you know what what's not clear is that it does not appear that we understand all of our legal rights subject to foia I feel like this is something that the board can truly benefit with the school attorney explaining how it works in process that's how it is in our bylaws it's set up that when we are confused and maybe we're skeptical presentation about it and we are skeptical of each other that let the lawyer explain how foia laws work and how it's supposed to be done this is the statute this is how
255it works this is the process and the procedure and then that way once it's clear to us how it works we can make a decision it just feels like at this time it's like a constant back and forth and I don't trust anyone that's not a lawyer to tell me what's the law and that's no offense to anybody um it's just realizing where my apprehension comes from and that's why I was like well just hold a special meeting go into session but that's something that we can just request the school attorney to explain what our rights are as a board member so it's just clear because I don't think it's clear my perception is that it's not clear Mr chair I'd like to make a motion to disband the search committee and operate the search
256for the superintendent through a series of special meetings um all in favor no can we do a roll call please you seriously want to do that yeah who said no I said no anybody else no yeah all right roll call vote to disband the so the search committee serious especially well that's just the way it is get rid of this this is what you're left with you [Music] okay all right civil Allen Christine I can't hear you speak up sorry disband this group suspend the search the third truth I'm sorry that's all right um Christine Baptiste Perez pass Albert beneham Bobby Brown yes Erica Castillo yes Michael macaron pass Joseph sakalovic yes John Weldon no uh Joe Lombard abstain who was left Christine Baptiste Perez I'm not obscene Albert bennahan yes yes is it did
257I miss anybody that's everybody who counted so we had yes staying yes yes yes and then um Michael what about what did Michael say Michael Michael back around fast speaking Mike we can't hear you sleeping he said you got five minutes you're living so he's done all right foreign if you're talking we can't hear you okay I lost I lost internet for a minute I'm sorry okay so where was I what are we doing again your past so we were yeah you passed so and now we're back around okay okay okay okay okay so a vote of yes is to disband the search committee vote of no is not to [Music] sorry it went out again no it's my vote no okay okay so we had I'm so tired I can't even think straight right
258now I'm sorry yes that passed okay we had enough guesses four yeses two abstains two no's okay that's it that's only eight [Music] I think I think it was five to two yeah I know so certainly you said yeah all right so with these actions having been taken I think these last two items by default fall off this agenda motions it they're a motion to adjourn some of them [Music]