001that provide less than willing able and professional leadership experience in the classroom in administration and in the cultures of the community we invite all bridgeport citizens to join as a partner with the naacp in our purpose to secure all civil rights all civil rights due to citizens of bridgeport freedom of discrimination and the best educational efforts made on behalf of the youth of the community and and of the community join us at the table for listening and talking in the future continuing in the struggle president reverend d stanley lord greater bridge for naacp thank you doctor gladys walker jones today marks a new school year chairman weldon and elected board of ed members on behalf of the greater bridgeford naacp education committee we repeat the urging for the immediate establishment of a standing and productive
002health and safety committee in light of global and national health and safety issues affecting our schools our scholars our staff no credible or reasonable local board of education will be without a proactive standing health and safety committee and speaking of credible and reasonable it is our expectation that the process to replace michael j tessani will be that coupled with transparency and we will not accept any side or backdoor shenanigans our interim and permanent superintendent needs to be reflective of our community needs to be a highly qualified and certified superintendent or school leader preferably with superintendent experience one again who mirrors and looks like the composition of our scholar body and city one who demonstrates moral ethical integrity one with who knows bridgeport and would not push back on calling her their home thank you thank
003you man joanne kennedy good evening everyone the scripture says suffer their little children to come unto me and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of heaven and i'm a god-believing person i believe in god and i believe how you're supposed to treat each other and especially our most vulnerable which are our children here of the city of bridgeport born and raised here in the city of bridgeport i am 62 years old proud of these children here i was born and raised here went to all the public schools okay and today i see here i am fighting for our children here in the city of bridgeport now i'm just going to say some quick things and i really need you guys to think about it because at the end of the day at the
004end of your life each individual you're gonna have to answer to god for your decisions the children of the city of bridgeport deserve the best because they are amongst the best and continually the decision of adults here in the city of bridgeport the powers that be whoever you are i don't have to name you you know who you are because you have god in you just like i have in me and you're gonna have to answer to him your decisions have been deplorable to say the least again i don't have to call a name you know who you are when you go down on your knees and pray to god whatever god you pray to he'll answer you and let you know whether you're doing right or wrong so in this stage that we are
005now me personally i'm seeing a lot of things that are not correct for our children mrs baldwin i do not know you but this is controversial her hiring and again with the transparency people we need to have transparent hires personnel whoever they are wherever they come from no offense to anybody everybody has a right to make money but the fact of the matter is we want continued excellence because our children are excellent i'm sure going over to fairfield you're going to find excellence also we care about all children so let's make that perfectly clear okay so the excellence that you want here i'm sure you want next door because children are innocent they're minors we have to uh answer for how we treat all children okay one or two more things and i'm done board
006of education we need a qualified superintendent we need qualified leaders over our children which are mainly black and brown and other 70 other nationalities here in the city of bridgeport that reflect them again no shade on anybody else but we have to look out for our children okay because as the adults go as they've been here they're not making the right decisions point blank period okay and leadership here in front of me mr weldon and the rest of you guys come on the majority of my words go to you remember at the end you're gonna have to answer to him you need to answer to the community right now but at the end of your life i hope you wake up where you want to wake up because you need to treat our children correctly
007thank you ms kennedy welcome maria ramos hola tardes foreign jason ayala good evening members of the board my name is jason ayala i am a lifelong bridgeport resident a proud member of faith acts for education uh product of the bishopric public schools and an uncle to many nieces and nephews that currently attended bristol public schools it's unfortunate that we are beginning the school year with a search for a new superintendent but i'm sure we can all agree that it is a very pressing matter that cannot be rushed so choosing a competent leader for this district that is truly invested in this community is so important therefore face tax is demanding an open transparent selection process that takes into account the voices of the students parents educators and other stakeholders we need a culturally competent superintendent
008who has invested in engaging with community partners such as faith acts and many others that work towards getting our children the education that they deserve one that lives in bridgeport or agrees to before the end of the initial contract one that will have a willingness to fight for more money for education from a variety of sources we need a superintendent that has a plan to support the district's basic needs such as school nurses in every school support staff such as social workers therapists that will support with trauma for kids a leader that will take action on top priorities of the community especially expanding before and after school programs and tutoring and turnaround schools and lastly a superintendent that can demonstrate a dedication to data informed decision making and regular reporting out to the boe and
009the community superintendent sasani i wish you all the best thing in future endeavors god bless you all thank you mr aisle pastor elaine thompson ward okay this is i'm gonna butcher this name and i apologize to to this individual uh and yes state the name's record my name is thank you um residents since 2001 here in bridgeport alumni of local schools including colby sacred heart university bridgeport and as you can see organizing with faith tax education but i wear many caps i'm also a proud member of jen now as well as a board member for pt partners um as stated that these various roles i've had it's allowed me to be in this community and see the various aspects of our community community that have stake in this process um it's unfortunate that we are
010having to make another change uh prior to the start of the school year however recognizing that things happen it is our duty as a community and as a board to make sure that the process that we have in selecting our next superintendent is one in which the community is truly engaged that is giving opportunity for all the voices and stakeholders to be um to be recognized and to be able to go on to record on what they would like to have in this process um we would love to have something similar to what we've seen outlined and what fairfield did in looking for their soup right we want to make sure there's an opportunity for student voices to be heard parents teachers we want the unions to have a chance to give to give their
011say and we want it to be done in a way in which that all these voices are able to really highlight what are the priorities that we all are agreement we need to focus on we know that there's always issues on funding we know there's always issues in staff retention so what is it that we can do in this time to make sure that the leadership we're choosing is able to be cognizant of all of those things and be able to work out a plan that works to the benefit of the students in this community in in such a way that everyone in that is a stakeholder feels satisfied in this process um so echoing some of my colleagues that may have spoken earlier we do want a superintendent that is able to have investment
012in engaging with community partners um we want them to live in our communities it is that's a simple thing in terms of what it looks like for our students they they should be able to have the opportunity to go to grocery store and run into their super and be able to have a casual conversation they should be able to have the opportunity to um know that the people who are ultimately in charge of making the decisions about their lives are um are truly invested by living there and being affected by the decisions being made so we are looking for a super that has yes a dedication to data informed decision making that makes it easy to report out both to the board and to the community so that way there's a wide area of transparency
013we want to make sure that top priorities the districts turn around schools the schools that are the schools have been identified are having the most issues are receiving the resources because we do know the pandemic has exacerbated the issues that already existed and therefore our turnaround schools would be the most at risk we want to make sure that again we are focusing on basic needs we do need to invest more into our social workers like psychologists and our therapists because the kids are now in multiple years of extended trauma that they need to recover from in order for them to be succeeding in schools and finally we want to be able to have a superintendent who is going to continue the fight for more resources from other sources outside of what we know we currently
014have knowing that there's a there's a way to collaborate with community partners and state partners to find out ways to fully fund our district so thank you for your time thank you joe grits thompson um i'm a longtime resident of bridgeport and also a parent of um two children that you know go to public schools in bridgeport and um i'm gonna be honest i i came here because i know this is uh probably gonna be the last time uh me and tustani in the same room together and i just wanted to say off to rick i i think you're a coward i think you're a sucker and i wanted to be able to say that um we went back and forth with you for almost a year about plenty of issues and for you to
015just now just switch and and go to another town it's like a waste you should have been you should have been left we've been wanting to leave anyway so now that we got this this little time to figure out who will be the next superintendent and like a few people before me said i would hope that we choose somebody from bridgeport or a parent from bridgeport that that see what we should be going through um we have schools like cross that have more substitute teachers than real teachers so it's a lot of issues going and um you know like i said i just wanted to put that out there you know i'm right now um i don't have anxiety but i'm kind of like shaking right now because i'm mad i'm pissed you know for
016my kids to go to school today and we don't have a superintendent some of them got teachers and it's just made him already you know the kids need to stop going through that you know i'm a product of bridgeport schooling and even then it was pretty horrible too going through central doing crossword puzzles senior year in high school you know for and that was like that was a project so something needs to change and it need a change now and we're just going to keep making noise and doing what we got to do you know people on the board don't be afraid of people on the board stand up if you got to separate yourself do that and even if you got to lose your position do that because we're going to stand and rock
017and rock with you and y'all know who i'm talking about and that's all i got to say salute thank you mr tony barr joshua spell good evening my name is dasha spell i am a bridgeport alum of the bridgewater public school system i'm a parent i am also a leader in this community i'm here tonight first of all congratulations mr tastani on your new chapter and i'm also here to say that with that in mind let's take this like a business when someone's leaving we make the moves right away right no offense to anybody but instead of waiting let's make september 1st the last day we have our deputy superintendent let them step in and start the process for the search now i did go through the bylaws for the board of education this afternoon
018as well as the city charter ironically there is no kind of stipulation or policy or format about a situation like this so right now it really is a blank slate for the board to decide how you want to move forward for example you had candidates previously that were qualified that made it to the last round that you could look at and invite to come back to the table for a conversation you could start a new search with the company and the reason why i said move the end date up is because we're paying in a nice of chunk of money and you have to pay money for these searches right so we have to save somewhere because we're always hearing we don't have any money these are just suggestions and ideas that i thought i
019could bring to the table in addition moving forward i'm kind of interested in this board's vision for the school district for this year let's take it year by year what is your vision what is your plan thank you and have a good night thank you miss spell tony barr thank you guys so i i guess we had a crossroad with uh with not doing anything for our kids um very disappointed in you gave you everything in the world and you couldn't even be true to these kids and as a friend because we went to school we walked to notre dame halls together and you couldn't even fit me and nothing with you as well as a friend to a friend but that's the word you would like to use but what i will say that
020you guys on this board it's all your fault else is not going to sit here and beat him up you know he didn't do anything he did what what you guys allowed him to do and that was take advantage the chair knew his right hand he rolled the way you're supposed to be against anything and everything that's right but you know what i do hope now i have to hope this i hope god hold everybody accountable for like he said he would for all the dirt and garbage that's in our city we have me i'm a convicted felon spent 21 years in federal penitentiary i can't even get work in the city of bridgeport but joe adam the mayor can hire all white boys that then robbed and stole police officers that what all we
021got we got these white boy officers i'm not getting off the topic but just to show you that we've taken ourselves latinos and blacks have put themselves underneath white folks and you don't even believe that as a person the worst white person in the city of bridgeport is better than the best black or brown person and we prove that every day then live generations in the city of bridgeport and all you can do is elevate a white person to be your leader i guess that's jesus because that's what we believe in right but i'd also don't believe you should be allowed to state to november i think that's an even bigger kick in the face to the people of the city of bridgeport i think you should service your ties thank the people if you
022want to if you don't you don't have to and and just move on so that way we can start now seriously searching for somebody that really want to be in the city of bridgeport god bless y'all and thank you thank you mr barr that concludes public comment excellent mr chair oh i'm sorry mr ford ralph ford thank you very much mr chairman good evening board members uh my name is dr ralph ford i'm a lifestyle corrector dr ford okay i'm a licensed clinical psychologist and i've been here in the city of bridgeport practicing for over 40 years and i've been before this board many times to address issues first of all i like to say uh mike i wish you well fairfield personally we had a good relationship but our kids are right back in
023the same situation we've been in time and time again and like others have said as a board that's your vote it's your fault so i'm not here to beat up on the superintendent i'm here to beat up on you guys okay and i know all you all are politicians okay but you don't have to play politics to be on this board and to fight for our kids all you got to do is be real understand connect with folks in the community understand what our kids needs and then you can you're all intelligent folk you can make the best decision and we know in the past how it's done you go in the back room you meet with the mail or the town chair or whatever and that's how you make the decisions and the community's
024always left out don't do that this time you have time really to find a good leader a good leader one's not only invested in the kids in the system the system itself but also invested in the city you got to have both can't have a superintendent who's just cares about the system but doesn't care about the city because our kids live here in this city their parents are here in this city they work here in this city and you can't have a successful system without somebody running the school system that's not invested in the city so as you do your search and you should do it expeditionary as a matter of fact as others have said you've had some very good candidates in the last search so you may not have to spend a whole
025lot of time and money maybe you just need to go back and look at some of them folks that you had before you before you make a decision to lead the city but lastly i want to say what do you need in terms of the superintendent you need not only a person who's well educated well qualified to lead the system not only the system the leader system that's been in crisis for many years you need someone that's invested in the kids invested in the community invested in the teachers we should not have people kids graduating from our system getting a high school diploma and can't read so you need to have a superintendent that is committed to not having any kid graduating can't read you need a superintendent that is invested in our teachers no
026teachers should start the school year and don't have books supplies and things they need to work with their kids so you need an investment there so again and lastly you need a leader that's going to make sure that hey we have a school system with largely black and brown kids and we have kids that go in our system that have substitute teachers for an entire year sometimes two years so we need a leader with creative ideas about how to attract good quality teachers in our system and that's your job and that's what we elected you to do so as we let's say for keep those things in mind and get us a good superintendent thank you dr mr chair let's get to you i just wanted to provide a quick translation for miss maria ramos
027who spoke earlier she's shared in spanish and i felt like it you know it just was bugging me i felt like it wasn't equitable that she wasn't hurt so for those in the room that speak english in a brief summary she's a mother here in the district and she was really really emphasizing the importance of parent input in the superintendent in the search process for the new superintendent [Applause] all right next on the agenda is approval of minutes we've got nine of them we can do them all at once or we can do them individually what's your preference yeah pastor elaine is here traffic but she is you sorry everyone my dear my question is [Music] as a superintendent's actions should be at the top of his top priority of our community and that our
028children living in pacific areas or certain schools how come these children don't have the efficient tutors how come in the roundabout schools that's supposed to be dedicated to informing us with the data that we need i was speaking with my niece a little earlier and she informed me of some disturbing news she was at barnum school over the summer dealing with children in the classroom that have no air conditioning students special needs students students that are dealing with asthma and other health issues how come schools like barnum and columbus and reed and chopsy hill the children are having they don't have air conditioning in their classrooms how come the teachers are having to deal with bringing their own fans into the classrooms so that these children don't have to deal with the heat it's been
029yes over the summer 80 and 90 degrees outside heat waves and the kids have not had to deal with too much of that but it's still hot outside we need to have someone that has the time to be considerate about our students if our superintendent that we pick does not have the needs of our children then who does my question who does and the community us are asking these questions what about our children we have teachers my niece that i talked to was a teacher's aide she's a para and if these are her concerns i can imagine what the teachers are feeling she walked into a dirty classroom today kids are having to eat nasty sandwiches like grilled cheese from the government cheese that's not even melted in the sandwiches or french toast cookies is
030that what you want your kids to eat in the morning that's full with sugar what's happening what's where's the money going for our kids what happened to the funds we need someone that's going to be concerned about our children here in bridgeport what's going on people that's our purpose for being here tonight we want to know what's going on where are the funds going that's been sent down they're going to westport they're going to navigate they're going up to bloomfield but what about our kids here in bridgeport and i can speak honestly because i used to be a foster grandparent that was in the school i got grandkids that's still in the school system so i know what goes on does anyone care about our children i even tried to get a hold of you
031i didn't even hear anything back from you miss bobby can someone help us out here that's our purpose here tonight we're trying to find out what's going on give us somebody that cares for our children and their well-being thank you pastor uh approval of board minutes again do you want to do them all at once or one at a time okay first one is may 23rd 2022 regular meeting is there a motion to approve some will move by mr is there a second second second by ms allen note for the record ms allen has joined the meeting uh is there any discussion or edits all in favor all right the opposed mr scala vic abstains i abstain he has met his perez abstains as well okay june 9th 2022 special meeting is there a motion
032to approve any abstentions okay mr kalavik abstains same baptiste perez abstains as well june 16 2022 special meeting motion to approve moved by ms allen seconded by ms castillo any discussion or edits all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions aye mr sikovic and ms baptist perez abstain june 21 2022 special meeting is there a motion to approve i i would like to make a i'm sorry i would like to make an edit are we on june we need a motion to approve okay is there a motion to approve so moved moved by ms castillo is there a second second by ms allen this is june 30th correct sorry is this june 30th june 21 oh never mind i'm sorry i haven't ended for june 30th but i'll wait so any edits for june 21
033all in favor aye aye aye any opposed any abstentions i'm saying is baptiste ms baptiste perez abstains june 28 2022 special meeting there's a motion to approve the move moved by mr benahan is there a second second by ms allen any edits all in favor all right all right any abstentions okay june 30 2022 special meeting is there a motion to approve but there's allen is there a second second second by mr lombard any edits i have one edit on page 49 of the packet i'm referred to as mr castillo i just want that to reflect my that i identify as a female she her hers thank you all right so the motion is to approve with edits is that agreed all in favor all right are you opposed any abstentions stay leftist july 5
0342022 special meeting to approve mr benehad second second seconded by ms castillo any edits all in favor aye opposed any abstentions stay july 6 2022 special meeting emotional proof moved by ms allen is there a second second second any edits all in favor aye aye aye are you any opposed any abstentions it's colin vic abstains and miss baptist perez abstains and last july 11 2022 special meeting motion to approve so moved moved by ms castillo is there a second second one any edits yes mr chair our edit for the july 11 2022 and i know it's a special meeting and we really talk all about this but i want to put a short for the record when we do the vote that i was confused and i was not understand because i wasn't online and
035everything that i know that i wrote just for the votes but i know for the record you told me in the email i cannot do nothing but i want to be showing the record because i know a lot of people ask me and tell me about this so be sure for the record my vote for that day was no so i just want to put that for the record please okay please note that mr mcleod okay all in favor aye are you opposed any abstentions state this baptist prayers abstains you too and mr cicala chairman's report i have nothing to report committee reports and referrals we i don't think any committees have met all summer so we want to go down this or do we want to dispense with it until the next meeting you
036bet did you okay all right well then we'll go down the list uh ad hoc district-wide branding initiative we didn't meet during the summer but we plan to um i plan to host a meeting on september 14th the third wednesday of the month at six o'clock p.m okay ad hoc district-wide calendar committee we met twice over the summer and we're meeting again september 12th and we're for this for this upcoming meeting we're talking about one of the two suggests one of the two real suggestions we'll talk about that one at this meeting and the one at the next meeting another one placement okay contracts committee has not met taking referrals for committees you want a referral okay yeah i'd like to make a referral to the district-wide calendar committee that when is notice going out
037to the community regarding the content of what's going to be discussed that it's clear the notice saying nuclear option if i'm new to the district or a parent i don't know what you're talking about so it needs to be spelled out to be compliant that what that option is and what's going to be done on that particular day so my referral to the committee is on any notice for that upcoming meeting is clearly identifying what's going to be discussed so any new parent any parent in the district can easily identify it and be able to come to that meeting and know what's going to be absolutely correct because news adoption i don't know if you're talking about hiroshima or some kind of issue okay thank you very much contracts committee uh we have not met
038over the summer but we'll be meeting on wednesday at 6 30 at central high school to receive the bids for nutritional items food bids for the coming school year and we have proposals that were received for special education auditing services so we'll be discussing those items any referrals wednesday 6 30 central high school library educational diversity equity and inclusion ms castillo we do not have a meeting on the calendar yet but we will shortly okay any referrals no facilities committee we did not meet but we will be meeting in the near term i need to schedule with the committee members we have one item that needs to be addressed which is the fee schedule for facilities usage by outside individuals so we'll update that any referrals yes mr chair i will refer and really spoke
039about this and i'm gonna set it again and i will send information again it's about security i know we have something but it was not something i expect it was not something that the public and parents and people community want to know you know how safety our kids and staff and parents we are in the school so i would like to have an invite and said it again to have a security information our lieutenant greg as always very professional he can us let them know what's going on you know safety or kids so i will email you one-on-one again thank you okay finance committee who's baptist perez um we don't have a scheduled meeting yet but there's a few things i do want to refer to committee first i need the budget variance report for
040the end of the last school year i need to identify any and all facility costs that happen during this summer and any upcoming expected cost that's going to come to finance also it's our that feedback is real also pursuant to the statute uh as the finance committee chair we need the line item budget for where all the money is going for the school year i haven't seen or review that as well as where the money for our sr funds are going to be applied uh let's see what else do i need for that yeah most important is the budget variance report also any and all pending contracts that are supposed to be executed by you mr testani i want that identified with the costs as well as with the previous budget what was projected and
041what's the actual cost so that way i know with the committee we're actually going to be on track and so we can actually see where the money goes i think that's been a big concern with the members in the audience any referrals do you need that typed up or are you gonna get that down for the meeting i think this is uh no this is okay i just want to make sure you're setting you're setting your agenda yeah i would suggest you you know put reduce this to writing i mean it's also our superintendent so i just make sure he's taking notes on what i'm asking yeah so i would reduce that to writing send it to mr tistani and ms siegel governance we have a couple of policies to wrap up we have the
042field trip policy to finish as i recall i thought we wrapped it up i thought we needed to do one final that was my recollection all right double check it's been a while so maybe maybe i'm wrong and miss castillo has referred an ethics policy to governance as well any further referrals yes i have a referral for governance with the chair and i know you told me this at the time i told you an inform you then i really read it and everything is about the board education under the bylaws i believe we have us as a board member sit down and review what's going on with the bylaws it's a lot of thing i would like to see it in some change i will email you what is on you know what i'm talking
043about because we have a lot of people they really read the bylaws um we have the board education i read it and it's a lot of things they have to be updated and change so i'll email you what i'm talking about please okay thank you personnel committee has not met uh but as i understand there's a couple of positions that we're going to need to interview are those ready not yet okay do you know what they are um blackrock principal that's right the the blackrock and fairchild principles and director of special uh education director especially okay students and families so the family of the first meeting we're going to have september 15th 2020 um that's a thursday it's going to be central high school at 6 p.m okay any referrals okay teaching and learning was
044baptist press that means to be scheduled as well but just for the record i'm going to make another referral to my committee that i want to see a report of the num if there's any vacancies the numbers of teacher positions that we have available the numbers of certified teachers on staff and i want a status report on the special education audit before mr testani leaves so preferably by the next teacher and running meeting any referrals okay special at all status hasn't begun yet the special ed audit has not begun the contract has not been approved by the contracts committee or the full board that's the status update once once approved when would you anticipate that work to start it will start immediately and it will take several months okay okay superintendent's report sir um i
045really actually wasn't going to say much but there's a few items i'd like to clarify because i think there's um information that is out there that just isn't being found first all the financial reports for the entire district including a line by line budget is on our website it's on their financial reports it's available to the public and it's updated um regularly as we're required to by law so that is all available on the website for anyone to view if they like to it's a line-by-line budget uh all our financial reports that were required to by law so that that's first and foremost a couple of things were mentioned this evening that we presented at the latter part of the year in a board meeting uh increase of social workers we increased our social work
046staffing last year by 10. we increased our school counselor staffing last year by 10 we also created a student support team at the district level to go in and help schools that were having difficulties and may need additional support to help students we created at nine schools we brought in effective school solutions which was approved by this board to have therapeutic support personnel at those schools that had the highest need to help address mental health concerns uh we partnered with ryosat mcdonald's here to bring in restorative practice interventionists at additional schools we eliminated in-school suspension so students didn't sit in a classroom all day doing nothing they work with our restorative practice folks and get right back into the classroom so they can be educated we are short whatever you talk about right now don't
047make sense if they still don't have teachers that's it that's that we are short teachers we have the least amount of vacancies of all the large school districts in the state we have we have created partnerships with every college and university in the area to increase our teaching recruitment we also created a special education fellowship to get teachers cross-endorsed who are in the classrooms this year as they begin their higher ed training in the areas of special ed coming out of other classrooms we've come created a cross-endorsement program for our english language learner teachers as miss ramos would attest to we opened the welcome center last year for the first time in our district where families from outside of the country that come to bridgeport have a place to go be welcome be registered get
048all services prior to entering a school building we collaborated with uh karibe youth leaders on a number of programs throughout so you know i just want to highlight some of them we integrated for our pre-k and up to kindergarten this year uh literacy program that did not exist prior where kids read over 50 million words since december prior to entering kindergarten for the first time today so there's a lot happening we implored over 200 teacher leaders to support and mentor younger teachers and teachers that may be struggling in the classroom who went through extensive training at the teacher leader institute this past summer um we can go on and on and on we hired 40 uh 44 easy teachers last year these are additional uh elementary teachers at every school to provide small group support
049for students that are struggling post pandemic and many of the things that i've just mentioned will go away correct when the arp ester money funds go so in terms of advocacy um try to present legislation through the cea through the alliance districts to try to recruit and in conjunction with the bea to give incentives to folks to stay in bridgeport and come teach in bridgeport met with the speaker of the house in his office in hartford with three other districts to try to advocate for additional funding through ecs met with the head of the st the senate uh martin looney met three times personally with the governor of the state of connecticut and at all of that we did not receive additional funding i can't do this alone no superintendent can do this alone these
050are lawmakers this is a collective voice from this community from communities like bridgeport to say enough is enough at that point at this point i'm going to say these are just a few of the items but listen we're going to work hard whatever the last day is i gave 23 years of my career here in bridgeport to say someone doesn't care you know that's just i guess somebody's opinion um in terms of residency for my buddy out there joe grits lived over 40 years in this city so i'm not an outsider so let's let's all walk away here um i'm proud of what we've done i'm proud of the staff i'm proud of the community the parent the the parents that support kids every day not not come here and throw rocks thank you okay
051i appreciate that i appreciate it say that like that all right he said i appreciate it mr tustin okay there are some tensions in this room there are some tensions in this one guys you can't do this there are some tensions in this room we had public comment but just walk away from this and just move forward with the future okay that's why i'm calling this sucker okay okay again let's just move forward move forward next item on the agenda okay i guess next going back to mr bennehan's referral for uh security i don't know if everybody remembers right way back to the school shooting when security was so urgent we were supposed to have a community forum with the public with lieutenant greg i'd like to know what happened to that and while we're
052on security as well i'd like to know why we have a police officer in the building are we paying for the police officer it seems like every time we get a tense meeting we got to have a police here if we're afraid of the community that we're governing in we should not be governing i think this is a waste of money we have so many things to spend money on and i just would like to note that for the record but back to the security thing when are we going to have our security forum to address that chief chief garcia could not make the forum dates that i had provided for her i'm still waiting for an opportunity to collaborate with their on a community forum on um school safety and security and in terms
053of sergeant parks we are not paying sergeant parks to be you may ask who requested a presence i know it was mentioned regarding reaching out to hartford and the community for funding um for the funds that we did received with the arps or funds did you meet with community organizations to get their feedback as to what should be done with the money including faith acts i did not meet specifically with faith hacks we had community forums that were welcome to everyone to attend and also um surveys that were available and continue to be available online did you meet with any of the community organizations individually not bridgeport i did not single out any community organization individually did not were you invited by any community organization i was i was not available on june 7th to
054attend that meeting i believe we had a meeting scheduled um i don't know if it was a committee meeting or a board meet i believe it was a committee meeting that evening is that it is a chair it's ben thank you mr chair um um i just want to ask a question i know the pastor she's talking about how our kids is suffering this staff in the room when it's so hot i know there had to be a budget or something on a grant to help all these students and teachers they're suffering so bad i really have experience to go to visit some school and the office is very cool but when you take the step and the hallway is hell it's so badly the people have asthma people sometimes short of breath sometimes they
055have to take the steps the room is it's terrible you cannot concentrate stuff that cannot be constructed in your home you know little kids especially they have to be something because something is always a budget or something is a money around there but something is not and we don't need it or it's not necessary i don't know you can do whatever you have to do before you leave and everything i would like to be thick advice on fan or ac something i know some school duh they put it ac is very difficult because the vote you know the the power i understand but at least offend something in case they can breathe fresh air um other thing is that i me and you we go back and forth in the email that i know you
056send an email about the policy about the board members of each of the school and i want to say this again and you know this and board members and everybody know this i'm not here to tell the staff or any principal what they have to do that's not my job that's not my role i don't want to be show that in the record because whatever your information is wrong and you know exactly for almost three years i'm sitting down here as a board member and you'll be as a superintendent school you're doing a lot of amazing job before why they acting like i'm doing something bad and i'm doing something i'm supposed to be doing when it's it's it's it's incorrect it's wrong or they're lying to you you really know and you really give
057me the permission and you say what's okay when i go to visit the pack or btso yes if i see a staff i see a principal i'm not going to turn around you know i got probably i can say hi good afternoon how you doing and i'm here to support you i introduce myself that's it whatever is out of my role that's not my job that's not my protocol and you really know that so i want to be sure for the record and all your staff from business school if i go to school it's for help pack or ptso and anything they need i'll be here to help them i don't want this division because farmers they separate and i'm not i'm not that person i believe we are not that person so far we
058have on the board we now have to work with staff and very professional and i want to stop believing us trust us that are we here to help them not to make a division or make a trouble or let's have a no i'm not here for that and i believe one of us we're not here for that we working as a team i want to work as a team like we are because all of us here including parents everyone we care about the students of bridgeport i'm tired about before they talk so negative about bridgeport and we cannot have that we cannot have that another thing i want to tell you something i cannot and also if you really know the reason i visited the school because i sent you the picture the reason because
059this is not good and it's not safe for the kids because we care about the same thing everyone is in that building we're not here to get trouble for nobody no that's not my job and no i already no one's here the other thing i want to tell you and i cannot shut up my mouth and i'm going to be shocked what are you doing for our beer sports school you know i'm a shock while you're doing for our kids parents staff and everything i trust you i trust you and this is not i'm against you i understand you got another opportunity to get a job that's fine i understand that but the way you did it i not appreciate that and i believe not only me not only me and i'm supposed to working
060together as a team you know i put my head for you i've got people against you and i really say it i put in my facebook live and i keep saying you know you was doing an amazing job but the way you treat us the way you it's like you take a knife and you scroll straight in my heart that's the way i feel it hurt me a lot because you will do an amazing job here in brisbane school the oly dion can tell you it's me michael testani i wish you the best and remember that god is watching everything thank you mr chair thank you mr chair on the um i know that we're starting the new school year and i know you sent out a notice concerning monkey pops i just want to
061know like how how is the for the parents and then the community leaders how is the district preparing itself for either covey coming back or monkey pots like what should the parents be prepared for as their students are getting back into the school we did send out two notices and posted them on the top header of the website um and that came from the department of health in conjunction with liza hurley our nursing supervisor mr chair tuscany can you please um just let us know if you can do something to about the room the heat you can buy some fan or we have a budget or something we can help this athlete i would appreciate that so we talked about this today the teachers union and i we do have two schools wilber cross and
062columbus school that are scheduled for air conditioning next year that was that was supposed to happen this past summer but because of a number of delays some of the preliminary work will be done during school vacations throughout the year whatever can get done that won't disrupt those buildings for opening after vacations but columbus and cross will get air conditioning it's been specked out bids are going to go out the whole nine yards in terms of as you know with basic high school being built there's nothing we can do at this time when basic is built basic and bma will be under one roof in an air-conditioned building which will then allow classical studies classical annex to move into a air-conditioned bridgeport military academy so um those are six schools we're not going to invest in
063air conditioning in buildings that are extremely old hall and edison for example uh park city magnet skein john winthrop these are all schools that in conjunction we started the preliminary conversations with the city of bridgeport before covet and then things have gone sideways we need to re re-establish with the city a master plan on how to get those buildings either renovated as new or new schools built but that's going to be a huge undertaking that's going to involve the city of bridgeport not just the board of education and also whatever the state construction office will allow in terms of approved projects for reimbursement i i really understand by those i see the power i understand but at least fan something you know at least they can have a fresh air so they can rotate you
064know the room so anticipation of the the remaining hopefully the this week according to the weather it should break over the weekend uh we have sent out notification we'll go on and a half day schedule the rest of the week to provide relief to students and staff thank you okay i i have another question and comment for superintendent tessani first i want to wish you the best shared a lot of sarcastic laughs um your bike's a little close it's hard to a lot of sarcastic laughs um for the work that you did do with the district i voted no with the renewal because it was a material breach of contract that you live in here i'm originally from brownsville brooklyn new york and i haven't lived there in 10 years and i'm born and raised
065there and even though i'm born and raised there i'm an outsider now i don't remember what it's like to live there i go visit my family in philly i'm definitely an outsider and so i i want to be vocal to the rest of the board that i think it is imperative especially in this situation now that the pie is all over our face as board members that we choose a superintendent that's actually going to live in the district and reside in the district and be about it not to undermine it because that material breach of contract as an attorney in the long run it saved us money by you resigning um but i do have a question but to piggyback off of miss brown is why is there such a delay with establishing a community
066health committee uh why especially we have can cover 19's not necessarily done although most the majority of the population has been vaccinated i was like we have monkey pops we're amongst the beginning of the flu season what is the big delay i realized that we we were really quick to create a calendar committee with no side concern from the community but when our community's health is at risk why why can't we as the board of education is there something from you or is it something from the board it be that what's prevented it from us actually just having a state to have a discussion so there's actual committee there is a health and safety committee that's in conjunction with the city of bridgeport that meets regularly so can shouldn't everyone with the board of education
067or shouldn't they be reporting to us what's going on so that way we know how we should interact and implement policies that impact our kids establish we can establish a committee okay what would be the goals and the objectives that you'd like in the committee i mean there's a you named it we have a bunch of social workers new people in our buildings because of social emotional health issues we're still in pandemic sickness so we can put that on the next agenda and establish it so place it on the gender should just be a motion for the creation of a community health committee in front of the board because if so so moved you need to put it on the agenda so i'll put it on the agenda for the next meeting so we'll establish
068we'll establish it at that point and assign members okay so in two weeks we'll have a motion it'll be on the agenda it'll be anything else okay no old business to be transacted new business establishment of personnel search committee to fill the position of superintendent of schools so this is the first step in the road that we go down to find our next superintendent um we have with us tonight patrice mccarthy who is the executive director of the connecticut association of boards of education and she's here to give us a little bit of a tutorial on what the normal process would be i've been through it three times but i think most of us have never been through it so i want to have everybody get an understanding of the typical process that we would
069follow mccarthy if you would good evening and i wish all of the students and staff in bridgeport a wonderful successful school year as a board of education you are about to embark on the most important process you will undertake as a board choosing your next educational leader for your school districts we strongly recommend that a board of education appoint themselves as the executive level personnel search committee that enables you to conduct this process in a way that will maximize the pool of candidates that you receive individuals serving as superintendents who have a positive relationship with their boards of education are very reluctant to engage in a process that is fully public in terms of their identity from the beginning of the process because that inevitably chills the relationship they have with their current board so
070you want a highly qualified broad pool of candidates and you will get that you will have the best chance of success if you appoint yourselves as the personnel search committee and i've heard many comments about transparency tonight and there are ways that that you as a personal search committee can address that first we strongly recommend that you hire a search consultant that first of that means that there will be an expert who it's fortunately you have a chairman who has been through this process before i imagine that not all of you have been that gives you an expert who has been through many superintendent searches that understands the process that knows how to recruit candidates and knows how to sell the district because an important part of this process is not just you are looking
071for a superintendent but superintendent candidates are looking to see is this a good match for them because that is the most important thing it has to be a good match between the board and the superintendent so there are terrific superintendents that if they're um relationship if their leadership style doesn't work with the board of education then that's not going to be a successful relationship the uh the booklet that i gave you gives you a number of questions that you would want to pose to search consultants when you interview them i'm not going to go through all of those that's that's for you to um work out among among yourselves before you start that interview process my experience is that you will obviously need to appoint an interim superintendent because a good thorough search process takes
072four to six months and that's what you owe the students in bridgeport i'm happy to take questions at the discretion of the chair sure yeah feel free to ask questions as she goes along yes so i have a question um you mentioned the entrance superintendent my concern and i want to know if this is possible does the board create the the processes for this for example last time i wasn't a part of it until i actually got on the board but the interim superintendent could not apply for the superintendent's position it after the period was done they would have to exclude themselves from the process for us to be able to identify qualified candidates because they can come from within our district by itself some of our own staff are qualified to possibly take this
073role my question is would could we be able to remove that from that process so that if they are interim and they do well instead of searching far and wide if we can secure them then they can be our superintendent versus knocking people out of the bracket who they won't apply for the position because they know only interim is going to get them so far that is completely up to the board of education you can say i would recommend that you just make that decision before you select an interim that you not change midstream because that creates concerns about transparency in the process um but you can it's up to the board to make the decision can i know that what he's done most of the time is the connecticut association of public school superintendents
074caps they have a roster of retired superintendents so they are not going to apply for anything they they will come in they will guide you through a six or eight month period and then there's no conflict of whether or not they may or may not apply because they're retired they're already collecting their pension but that's what i'm saying so that keeps it well what i'm saying is that for example the last pool of candidates that pursue this position one was out of town one was from our city neither of them were near retirement but the goal of it they realized that that little small period window period would disqualify them from actually being the superintendent and they were both good candidates so what i'm saying is i don't want us to go back in that
075situation say we have one of our own staff that decides they would want that is there any cushion if they don't if they can't stay do they go back to their normal job i would rather if it's someone who's qualified and is going to stay then to in the process we find nobody in our interim superintendent is the one then let's go with the want you could do that you know what i'm just saying i just i didn't like the process no yeah and that's why i'm saying that that that's why a lot of a lot of districts just go to caps and they get resumes and they pick one and they know that this isn't even going to be an issue yeah so we can we can explore that as we go along directly
076but we had a superintendent service interim that was retired and then the superintendent's search process that was stalled for two years what was that i believe it was uh dr reynolds she was retired we pulled her up for that very purpose yeah he's talking about one of the benefits and we wanted to keep her on yeah there's one of those people that's one of the pitfalls of that's right so if we keep the process open i mean it doesn't make sense to have an exclusion made that we could always just overturn later on if we like the person which did not go over well this time when we came out of a back room and just said we got to be superintendent that we put in the contract so i think we should avoid the
077same pitfalls we fell into last one sorry that's fine that's fine i i'm i am at your disposal um the another important thing for you to do as a board is to identify there was discussion tonight about the vision what to to make sure that you are clear about your vision and that you communicate that during your search process to identify what the strengths that you are seeking in a new superintendent and what the expectations of the board are i heard discussion about a number of upcoming school construction projects um thinking about do you want to make sure the individual has experience in that area because that could be very important you need to look at the current job description and make sure that it is actually up to date because very often and particularly
078during the covert years uh some responsibilities got moved around maybe those responsibilities are going to come back to the superintendent maybe they're going to stay delegated where they might be effective in the current structure the interview process is extremely important and the consultant will guide you through that we'll i help work with you to identify questions that are legally appropriate and help prepare you to conduct an effective interview but before you get to the interview process one of the important roles for the search consultant is to conduct focus groups in the community that's where you're going to be able to get meaningful input from parents teachers students the community at large that is a key component that you really want to have and it's very important to have someone who takes a broad perspective has
079seen a number of searches has conducted focus groups before uh to have those individuals conducting your your focus groups thank you um you just touched on a big need for transparency and input from the community from everyone in the community teachers parents uh maybe some students would speak up but but you also spoke about the importance for confidentiality for the candidate's sake for especially for someone who might be very experienced because they're currently serving as a superintendent so that's balancing the two what do you see if any are pro the pros of conducting the interviews completely in the open where the candidate's identity is known i frankly don't see any pros you may create a perception of transparency but if you're ending up with a less than robust applicant pool because you're doing that completely
080in the open then you are not providing the best opportunity for the students in bridgeport now certainly a search consultant can work with you to provide regular reports to the community communication uh to the community about the stages of the process without revealing individual candidate names that's where you really diminish your applicant pool and we've seen we've had applicants for superintendency who were one of three finalists we've had them withdraw when their name was going to become public because they had a great relationship with their current school district and if they were not going to be the finalists they didn't want to damage that relationship thank you mr question um so can we have parents involved to interview the superintendent or they can do a forum whoever is running because it's very important parents and
081community ask questions to them because we want to know how important is for the person who's running you know how for you know with the kids so they um they can be part of an interview or they can do a forum you know what the candidate was running so the community parents they get asked questions normally what happens so the focus group is before um you even start down narrowing down the uh candidates that you will interview as a board generally what happens is the finalist is brought to the school district for a day there are meetings with all constituencies in the school community before the board actually takes final action i just want to add to what um mr lumbar said that puts us in a very tough situation because if we are if
082we are the board and their cl in the community is claiming transparency how do we provide that if the process can possibly eliminate a candidate from not falling through with the process when as our roles here is to be able to show them and they bring them a part of the process so they understand who are the candidates who's going to participate so are you saying when you get to the last final three we reveal who they are or in the very beginning i'm just it just puts the community in a real in a real on a real blind spot because they don't know what to expect and their that community forum that you were talking about gives them an opportunity to vet their own candidate before we make a final decision as well without
083them having to take the process but give them an opportunity to say what they feel or what they think for who's going to come into their district i get it that that's you know the way it's been done over the years but i think it just puts the community and the board at odds with that word my response to that is that you have been elected by the community they have ins tr entrusted you as board members to make these important decisions for the children in bridgeport that is a sacred responsibility and you fulfill the will of the community by conducting this process in a way that gets you the most robust pool of candidates possible it really isn't a matter of you you listen to the community you know their priorities you know their
084expectations you need to come together as a board to take all of that into consideration when you are identifying the vision the expectations the strengths that you're looking for so you're you you are the voice of the community thank you did i ask a question there have been educators who have expressed an interest in being a part of this process and lending their professional expertise toward it is it appropriate that administrators and or teachers be a part of the actual selection committee or is it more appropriate that they participate at some other level our recommendation for best practice is that you get that input through a variety of mechanisms including the focus groups that i've talked about um you can certainly communicate with leadership of of the various unions in the education system but that
085you that you are the the decision-making body i have a question could you explain again the process or maybe i was just confused with a superintendent that is retired in connecticut is there any kind of delay or is it up to the board as we developed the this is what we're looking for standards and criteria uh i'm not quite sure you said delay you're getting really bad feedback um no just explain the process okay with uh retired superintendents in this state um and also just i guess it's a bit of a concern because just from today's commun uh public comment a superintendent that reflects the community i get the implication that is referring to racial and ethnic background so if we're looking at retired superintendents more likely they're not going to reflect that very background
086um i'm going to separate the issue of the interim superintendent from your search process for a permanent person in the position okay because i do think they are very different um the connecticut association of public school superintendents keeps a list of those generally recently retired superintendents who are interested in serving in the interim role they do not want to come back to work full-time in any district but they they actually welcome the chance to help a board through a transition period you are absolutely right that the pool of retired individuals in connecticut does not reflect the diversity of of this community but remember that they are serving an interim role so the qualities that you're going to look for in them would be how do you ensure stability for your your schools your staff your
087students in the next um four to six months uh what's their experience what are your major projects that need to be continue to move through the pipeline what are their experiences in addressing those types of issues so i i understand the dilemma but um these are experienced individuals that can literally hit the ground running because they know how to run a school district did i answer but you broke it down into two questions yeah no i forgot the second part i'm like wait a minute that was for interim retired superintendent great first time i didn't write down my question i forget it i'll think of it again okay i i mean that's really the outline of the process so um it is a labor-intensive process that's why you want a professional that will guide you
088through that process um it's an amazing opportunity for a board of education we have seen many cases where it helps a board become stronger as a body because you have to have those conversations about what your priorities are and how you what the characteristics of an individual are that will best meet the needs of this district anyone else okay so does someone want to make a motion in the chair before sorry i'm trying to press this button yeah um whoever is going to run for superintendent school had to live in bridgeport or oh it's not necessarily live in bridgeport that again is a decision of the board of education um you should think about that decision um carefully it i i i'm not a real estate agent so i won't talk about the current housing
089market i understand and my last question is and uh i don't know mr show you can ask me that i'll meet you to study know that we are going to have a process to find out exactly who cannot be superintendent of the school i know we have amazing three executive director here they cannot be one of them in charge and so we are exactly who can be the person the superintendent's school you know you could do that but then you face the dilemma of what their current job is is not what they're doing anymore so you create a vacancy somewhere else yeah so that could be an issue i think that's why you to the to the extent you can you want to use an outsider you know we we have some people in our
090ranks who have the 093 their principles if you pull that guy out of his school to be the superintendent now you got to find a principal so i think i think you know that would be like a last resort if you just couldn't find it anywhere else all right thank you i just want to know thank you for the information okay so i would seek a motion to establish a personnel search committee to fill the position of superintendent of schools with the members being the full board of education second olivet seconded by mr bennigan further discussion all in favor of vote the opposed i vote in favor i said roll paul vote you want to roll yeah sorry about that put your mics on when you vote sorry so so far uh john weldon bobby
091brown civil island christine baptist perez voted in favor albert benaham yes erica castillo hi uh michael mcarone yes yes and joseph lambard yes is there a motion to adjourn [Music] all in favor of the apostles time is noted as 802 pm thank you thank you you