001so this is a call to order of the second regular meeting for march 2022 with the bridgeport board of education today's date is monday march 28th 2022 the time is noted as being 6 34 p.m we rise for the pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice problem [Applause] i'm going to call the role myself john weldon present bobby brown joseph lombard civil allen here christine baptist perez president albert benahan president erica castillo president [Applause] next is student representative reports do any of you have do we have any student reps online yeah okay all right uh do you have anything to report if you do we'll start on the end please state
002your name for the record my name is ruth cruz i'm from basic and i currently don't have a student report okay my name is avery fleckner i'm from fairchild wheeler i.t all i have to report is we had a spring fling dance on friday went as a success okay thank you my name is angel serrano from bridgeport military academy um i don't have much uh but this saturday the njrotc team freshman color guard won first play at pacific high school up in new jersey for a drill competition as well as the expedition team freshman one third place okay thank you um who do we have online from for student reps central high school yeah and the sexual high um representative so what's been going on at central is that since uh women history month have
003been coming to an end the girl leadership club have been you know present having presentation and with highlights and really educate the else in our school about women history and just you know making every like woman empowerment basically and then they've also been highlighting our women teacher and really empowering them really empowering them also and then um march 23rd we had our sat test online which went well yes we did have like a few hiccups but that's normal it's online but overall it went well and then we had seo projects where you know words of affirmation basically was put up all over the school to really encourage encourage and empower students as they go throughout the regular school day and yeah that's all thank you okay thank you who else do we have good evening
004i'm sherman elliott from guarding high school you have anything go ahead students participated in the pre-sat rally the students versus teachers basketball game where announcements were made to acknowledge seniors who had gotten into schools and the scholarships that you were on wednesday march 23rd a great number of students and now the student council is is working together to create spring spirit event thank you is there one more um hi my name is daniel marseille i'm from bostic high school and since ruth didn't say much um what's been going on in the classic is that we have our mentors um we have mentors coming to work with our students and seniors are working towards completing fafsa and we still have the my pa program um going on with the reading and math initiative during period three
005and we have the nasa funded stem competition in a few weeks few weeks that is coming up yes thank you okay thank you are there any others i can't see very well up there that's it okay okay [Applause] next on the agenda is public comment we have 15 speakers this evening first one being katie smuckler everyone is allowed fif uh two minutes uh an alarm bell will go off when you've reached your your time limit so go ahead miss mukhler my name is i'm here tonight to discuss our science distribution at thomas helper as well as the dozens of other vacations as well the district we have not had a science teacher at thomas hooker for two years which means that our 8th graders current 8th graders have not had a science instruction from a
006trained certified teacher since they were in 6th grade which was a school year cut short when we shut down in march 2020 our current 8th graders do not have the science education or knowledge necessary for them to be prepared for the high school the high school classes in some cases students are not even eligible to apply for certain high schools because they didn't receive the proper science education in middle school this is negatively affecting the future of our children it's highly unfair it's highly inequitable there are dozens of these vacancies across the district and across the state we know there's a huge teacher shortage and we're not here today to talk about you know creating a teacher out of thin air but we do need to start talking about this schools are missing science teachers
007math teachers language arts teachers across the district as well as other important personnel the teacher shortage is real widespread and significantly impacting our students and we need the boe to be aware of this situation and we need to continue to speak out about the situation which is why we're here we need to be vocal and loud about the fact that our children are not receiving the education that they're entitled to thousands of students across bridgeport are not receiving state mandated education yet they are still expected to perform on state mandate mandated standardized tests something has to change i don't know what the best solution is i know that people have been working on this problem i do know that we can't stay quiet about it we need to start fighting for it more aggressively we
008need to be talking about this as a district uh and we are here today reaching out to our elected board of ed members to help us take a stand and fight for what our students deserve thank you [Applause] alina russell hi my name is elena russell and i'm a seventh grade student at thomas sugar school we don't have a science teacher at a school and this is a problem because students can get a proper education in science and i'm wondering what will happen when i'm in eighth grade will i have a science teacher and will i be prepared for high school science will i be prepared to take ngss in eighth grade i want to be able to have a science education that my peers in other districts have thank you mr russell coach jamar
009brown uh peace and blessings to you all i'm be short and sweet uh coach clayton wilson back back there told me to come and just speak on some information he was able to test scores uh students not having teachers for two years um i told him you know i've been around for almost 20 years so i'm i'm i'm used to it so i'm i'm talking more of the stigma that prep and college coaches have for bridgeport they don't recruit our kids because they automatically assume their grades are not even good so i want to know how can we get the the process of student athlete actually being student athlete because it says every day every kid every kid every day we got to start showing that so if if it takes me to come into
010school and volunteer to maybe give them some type of inspiration i'm not a teacher but if that's going to help the learning process then we need to do that and also for the parents that's here i want to let you know this parents you are the first teachers they're only the aid that helps with your teaching and your parents we are the first teachers we have to remember that so i'll end by saying um i'm in a different spirit when i first came in so i want to send everybody blessings obviously as you know you know you're going to always see me but mr clayton wilson definitely is on a mission and i support him 110 thank you mr brown thank you wendy martindale good evening i'm a thomas hooker parent my son in eighth
011grade and also one in six as well my cousin is him my eighth grader approaching high school with no science how he felt with other students there that's coming into it with a sex science background and how they were fair doing state tests for science and i've got my nose but my main concern is how they fear into their peers with science and how they fear and testing in the science department because the state testing is very important and we need a teacher for our kids and here's my son and morty to speak on his experience about science my name is amarya martindale i'm in eighth grade in thomas hooke's school and currently i'm pretty worried to go to high school for two years and one of those years i had a science teacher was
012quite short due to covet i have not had a science teacher in two years me and my peers are pretty worried to go to high school like i said before as science is not elective it's a core subject need to learn but we have to have science but most of us don't even have any basic skills those in science at all one of my friends who transferred to a different school for a science teacher talk about how they have a science teacher and they're learning a lot of new things that most of us haven't even heard of once in our lives throughout the lack of a science teacher at a school i'm pretty worried for the newer kids because it doesn't see at the rate things have been going this whole year we were kids
013we teachers have been promising we might get a science teacher but we're currently in the almost not the third quarter and no one has had one my little brother who's in sixth grade having us who's going to have a science class next year we won't have a teacher and we'll be struggling with science as we haven't known teacher at all for subject [Applause] alexis moreska hi everyone thank you for your time my name is alexis moreska i'm a food court service member in the city of bridgeport and i'm here to support my colleagues at thomas hooker and advocating for science teacher for the community i teach a lot of science related classes with my students we do food nutrition gardening bees natural systems etc and they're super super excited and super super passionate about it
014they want to learn more and i personally don't have the knowledge to teach them more nor do a lot of the teachers at thomas hooker who are not science-specific teachers um the teachers at thomas are incredibly overwhelmed and overworked as every teacher is and they don't have the time to develop as in-depth science lessons as a designated science teacher would and it's our job as i'm sure you know to support our students and create a school space in which students can thrive in every single subject and that's just not the case right now and it's just really not okay students are missing out on vital learning experiences and we need to do something about it thank you very much for your time eric thomas good evening mr testani and members of the board my name
015is eric thomas i'm a social studies teacher at the information technology and software engineering high school at the fairchild wheeler magnet campus i've been asked by my colleagues several of whom are with me here today to address the board on their behalf on monday march 14th the faculty at our school walked in and found that our principal beth fennari was not present at the end of the day we were informally notified that our principal would not be on campus for the week this notification came at the end of the day from mrs sean smith who is acting as substitute principal she informed the faculty through email that she was asked by superintendent testani to cover the duties of miss fernare for the week of march 14th to march 18th no reason was given this notification
016came late in the day after miss smith had been seen by many faculty and students coming into classrooms to observe goings-on causing confusions and questions to arrays arise as to who she was and what she was doing on campus aside from that single end-of-day email from ms smith there has been no further communication formal or informal in regards to the status of our administrative team at the information technology school as of today there has still been no communication and we still have substitute principles on our campus several of our faculty members have expressed confusion and discomfort with the complete lack of communication and the uncertainty of what's going on with this situation our students as well have begun to show concern and confusion due to their due to her lack of presence on campus the
017inability of faculty to provide the students with any type of explanation for her continued absence has led to speculation and rumor to spread among students causing anxiety among many i would not be exaggerating to say that miss beth fernari is an extraordinary leader whom all members of our faculty and all our students respect it is her passion and drive for our students and their education that encourages and motivates us to be the best educators we can be it is our hope that she will be brought back into her duties at the i.t high school without delay [Applause] clayton wilson how you doing i'm clayton wilson i run a student athlete here in student athlete program here in bridgeport connecticut as a lot of parents stated standardized scores below average all right um tostani he was
018my basketball coach sister principal you took education serious then i don't understand what's happening now i got players coaches looking at them can't even go can't even send them a transfer of course we got eighth grade players told me they took a test last week coach i know i'm failing i know i'm gonna fail this test not prepared we haven't had a math teacher all year my last question to you is what are the academic requirements for the student athletes in the city because eighth grade you can have all s and play i couldn't do that in eighth grade when you was a coach let's get on this cuz i'll be back cody parker [Music] clyde nichols by nichols joseph zikolovic good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is jose carlovic i'm a member of
019the board of education but i'm also a parent and a taxpayer and on march 21st 2022 for the first time in four and a half years i felt embarrassed to be a board member and that's saying a lot given our history at the educational diversity committee we had children come before us to advocate for the holiday eid alpha tier as a day off from school they conducted a survey of the fifth to eighth grade in their school and found that islam was celebrated by 11 of the almost 100 students surveyed second only to christianity they pointed out that their religion is the only one of the three major worldwide religions that does not have its high holy day celebrated with a day off students gave a very professional fact data leading presentation and not only
020brought us a problem but a method and a solution to solve that problem seemed to me a no-brainer that the equitable solution would be to bring this to the full board for approval seemed the committee had other ideas and some roadblocks were in the path to equity members ask students if they support if they surveyed more than their own school and has to find more data it should not be up to the students to seek the data which even the u.s census does not collect we as a district should already have been collecting that data inequity for christians and jewish religions was that staff members would take off okay some of the rationalizations was christian and jewish religions staff members would take off but for islam they would not our motto is every kid every
021day not every teacher every day we have we are here for the students not the teachers uh it was suggested that schools allow muslim students to have the day off while the remainder of the district classrooms ensure that nothing of appointments is taught no tests given so instead of providing equity to the followers of islam on a parody with christian and judeo religions and given a day off it was suggested that all students that suffer from learning loss is submitted enough there were other comments that if we give the holiday to one group in the name of equity and force 90 percent of our students to go home that don't celebrate the holiday other groups that poke their head up will be given the same news flash the number of students who do not observe
022judaism likely suppressed is that 90 mark and so what if other groups demand equity other districts observe both eid and diwali we do not finally the calendar is one of the powers we have jurisdiction and can direct the superintendent to follow our wishes it would not be inappropriate for us to direct the superintendent to add it to the calendar and we can make that happen and one of the most concerning things that was brought up is the definition between equity and equality was brought up to support not everybody being equal and it was improperly brought up equity is for those who do not have not for those who already have and i seek inequality the secret equity they're seeking one day while others got three thank you [Applause] kayla robinson hi i'm shayla robinson i
023am a pac president at halen school but i also have a child at central and today i came here because um i sat in on several ppts parents reached out to me via facebook for support because i've been you know involved i've ran for the board of education and they just needed guidance one of these ppts literally brought me to tears it was for a child who is in the fourth grade who has a math level of a first grader that's not the sad part the sad part is the school is not doing anything to get him on level instead they are giving him work on his level he sits in a fourth grade classroom with his children his age and there are 28 students in the class while 27 kids are doing fourth grade
024math he is given packets on a first grade level that is not fair we are failing that child and then i come here today and i am completely overwhelmed hearing that this school does not have a science teacher but we will wait until the city council meeting and you will ask us parents to fight for you to get money from the state but we have to sit here and allow our kids to fail in the fourth grade to go through seventh and eighth grade without a science teacher to have faculty without a principal we are failing our kids and when they get to this age and we want them to study for the sats we want them to go off to a1 colleges we already failed them at the fourth grade level we have to
025do better thank you apologize if i don't get this name i'm having a little difficulty reading it gene algierglio please correct me if i'm wrong close um okay thank you so much you can hear me um i'm here as a parent of a fairchild wheeler senior to tell you how beth fennari has changed my son's life i met her three summers ago when i brought my formerly bullied school-avoidant son to tor fairchild as a second chance for him it was summertime yet she took two hours to put all my mom and bear worries at ease she then gave him a tour of the school showing him all the amazing things especially that all the the black room and everything else that he would get and show ensuring him that she would be with him every
026single step of the way um she has done that these past three years and his life has changed immensely within a month she had him involved in her kindness club giving tours at open house and giving presentations something he would have avoided in the past gone was his school avoidance and was replaced with a true love of his new home she gave him confidence when he had none and provided the support he needed to feel safe wanted respected and appreciated he is just one of her quote kids that she loves as her own she always wants the best for the kids and works endlessly to obtain grants to fund new classes and programs she started the genius bar there my son was one of the first students of the class he was able to take
027cyber security because of her grant instead of spending her his last few months with his favorite administrator he was left in the dark about her absence there hasn't been any communication at all to students or parents leaving us to wonder what happened the only way i knew she was out was because my son wondering what happened to her and the lack of her special friday night lights that she always sends wonder from many ways she shows her pride in her kids he has been blessed to be part of fairchild and beth's impact will be will never be forgotten he'll be graduating a few months and moving on to college something we were afraid might never happen we owe tremendous gratitude to beth for changing my son's life and she needs to return to her kids
028immediately thank you [Applause] wyatt bloom i'm a student from fairchild wheeler it magnet school um i'm here to address the concern that we have as students that we're not told any reason we have not had a principal for the past week i have most students didn't even see a full announcement have heard through other students that she's been absent for this week we've just seen the principal roaming the halls no like i said no reason has been told for not having the principal we have all just had to carry on with the day-to-day with the substitute principle that has not really shown more than other just popping into classrooms and dr black um superintendent walking around supervising and taking part of her role thank you [Applause] [Music] this individual only identified themselves with the nickname
029shooty uh hello everyone thank you for your time my name is shooty and today i'll be talking to you guys about why islamic holidays should be an official school holiday i often wonder why we celebrate other religious holidays like christmas and many other holidays but not any islamic holidays as a muslim it makes me feel ignored left out and unheard and it's really hard for me because you have to decide whether or not you want to go to school because if i don't go to school i'll have fun and i'll be with my friends and celebrating but if i do then i'll be like doing my work and whatnot but then if i don't i'll be behind on my schoolwork so it's really hard for me and we have like exams and a lot of
030things now and i know that we have tests coming up and it's really really hard for me um islam another reason why islamic holiday should be an official holiday is because it would increase my peers curiosity because i actually have a lot of people coming up to me and they ask me oh what's eid or whatever and i tell them so it would increase my my peers curiosity about my religion and i think that diversity equity and inclusion should be something that we should celebrate and embrace for all students and thank you for listening thank you [Applause] 15th and final speaker is gladys walker jones thank you i know it's uh we're coming to the end of the um of the march month for women in history but female board of it i'm elected officials
031i want to appeal to you we need your leadership we have parents out here as well as staff members who are clamoring for more support we need your leadership chairman weldon i want to thank you for responding to the naacp with regards to the gender equity requests to have women female elected board of ed members cheering that and um at least three of the standing committees at present there are zero female board of ed members cheering any of the standing committees that is just unacceptable so women we need you to stand up we voted for you many of us have voted for you you're here now and we need your leadership and for the men who are on this board i want to share a quote from archbishop um desmond tutu it is standing up
032for the rights of girls and women that we truly measure up as men so do not take this as a slight but we need to do something a lot different because it's not working thank you [Applause] ms allen notes that you were her fourth grade student she remembers you well okay all right that concludes public comment we're going to move on to the approval of board minutes there's only one to approve march 14th regular public meeting is there a motion to approve someone some more by ms allen is there a second second second by mr benahan are there any comments edits to be had for these minutes i have some baptist press go ahead i i want to take credit for the questions i did ask regarding the covet mandate saw on page nine of
033the notes the second full paragraph in response to question by miss baptiste perez in the third full paragraph in response to question by miss baptiste perez in response to the last paragraph on page nine uh it's uh the last paragraph on page nine is in response to question by ms baptiste perez on page 10 every again first full paragraph in response to question by miss baptiste perez second paragraph in response to question by ms baptiste perez third paragraph in response to question by ms baptiste perez fifth paragraph in response to the question by miss baptiste perez page 11 last paragraph in response to question by miss baptiste perez let the record reflect who was asking questions pertaining to that meeting thank you okay did you get all that mr mcleod thank you are there any
034further edits okay is there a motion to approve with the edits as noted by ms baptiste perez moved by mr benahan second by ms allen all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions chairman's report um i'm going to remark uh on the testimony of ms gladys walker jones um i've taken her comments to heart and i want to explain some things that i actually conveyed to the naacp to clarify at the beginning of every cycle i have at least reached out to board members about what committees they want to serve on and if they have interest in chairing any committees and i rely on them to tell me what it is that they feel comfortable doing based on a number of factors how new they are what their outside activity workload looks like if they
035feel they have the capacity to do certain things and the like so i do not unilaterally just on my own appoint committee chairs or committee members i solicit everyone's input and i try to place everybody um as close to what their requests are this past cycle the only woman who indicated she wanted to chair a committee was miss brown but since this past december a couple of days ago i've inquired of ms castillo and miss baptiste perez miss baptist perez has indicated she has an interest in chairing the teaching and learning committee so uh effective immediately i'm going to uh remove mr sokolovic as chair he's in agreement with that and we're going to place ms baptiste perez as the chair of that committee uh mr sokolovic i would hope you would kind of coordinate
036with miss baptiste perez on um the nuances of sharing like how far in advance you submit a notice and all that stuff the little things like that and then this baptist perez will carry on that assignment for the balance of the year um and i would ask that if any other people here male or female has an interest in sharing something in particular it doesn't matter that we're two three months into the year please let me know i'm happy to make an accommodation if somebody feels they're willing to do that so that assignment has been made do you have any questions are you good no i don't have any questions um i would like to say that when it came to selecting committees it was not clear to me whether the committees that i selected
037that i would be on i had to initially disclose i wanted to share it and so but now i know and it's on the record well if you look back at the email the original email it is stated i'll check okay committee reports and referrals ad hoc district-wide branding initiative um thank you mr chair on we met last month and we had an opportunity to review our we had not a lot of agenda items but one was reviewing um the the togetherness of our district logo that we're working on um and we also had an opportunity to see our leap logo um our elite billboards that were presented so i want to give a huge shout out to ms carly reyes and her team and then also to our team that's helping us construct our
038district wide logo for our school our next i mean not for the school for the district our next meeting will be april 13th at 6 30 p.m and i believe we're going to be on teams um so yeah that will be our next meeting okay any referrals contracts committee has not met in the interim are there any referrals i have something to chair okay and i don't know it's um belong in you know contract committee the video had that update uh the board education bylaws plus the bylaws the way we have they have to be it's in your committee or it's another committee that's another committee sorry that's governance governance okay so i'm gonna put it away for our governance educational diversity equity and inclusion mr skalovic yes the educational diversity and inclusion committee met
039on the 21st and we discussed um adding eid outfits here to the calendar and try to push it to the full board the motion failed we did in fact uh have we're gonna have the students come back next week the next meeting will be on monday and hopefully they can plug any holes that were found and we could get this to the full board for approval and give us students equity thank you any referrals um may i ask you if um if you have had a conversation mr sokolovic if you've had a conversation with mr testani about producing numbers because that that wasn't necessarily asked of the students it was asked that the district come back with numbers to support so i just want to ensure that mr tastani has been briefed and that he'll
040be attending that meeting is that correct good thank you and i asked him to make sure he got attended to the committee facilities did not meet in the interim are there any uh referrals for facilities yeah i have something referred i mean the chair um i don't know we talked about this but i just want to know when we're gonna have to sell it to meeting because i'm still waiting for the some update of the security security you're supposed to give me an email with a list of the things you're going to know and also i said last time about edison whole school to talk about that so i just want to be sure it's still there okay you can only do so many things in the night and there were other things we had
041to get done but it's still there we'll pick that up in the next because i know we have a long time we don't come in you know we don't meet in facilities so i wanna i don't wanna leave everything in the end that's all okay finance finance made on march 26th uh we had a bit of a community information session about the budget and the shortfalls and problems we did learn a few lessons that we could tighten up for the next meeting which will be on thursday march 31st at 6 30. it's going to be at um black home school and i hope everybody could come out because a lot of the things i heard here today directly tied back into the budget we have a hard problem recruiting teachers the science teachers because it's
042a shortage area and every district is fighting for the teachers now everybody knows me i'm the biggest pusher for science in the district as a board member my son loves it so i'm a passionate and passionate about it to hear that one of our schools hasn't had a science teacher in two years it goes directly to funding because everybody's fighting for the same science teachers and when they can make twenty thousand dollars more down the road it's hard to recruit so i don't need the parents to come out just during budget season we need to have parents and everybody contacting our city councilors and elected officials to give us the funding so we can close that gap before it comes to a critical junction where we got classrooms that we can't put teachers into so
043that's thursday black come 6 30 p.m and there will be three more after that one which will be online for everybody to watch if they can't make the other ones thank you okay any referrals governance did not meet the interim are there any referrals for governance yes i haven't met the chair like you said a governance about the update for the bylaws of the board you know more education you know we asked me two years as on the board we'd like to review a few things that have to be updated have to be changed you know stuff like that i don't know you want to do uh bring it to the community special meeting i don't know you're the chair of that committee so i'd like to though they get an update few things in
044the by-laws of the education well the bylaws are a 30-page document so it will take a while so we can start with a review of them and if you have any questions or thoughts about it we could talk about that but it's not something that would happen like that it would involve many meetings and many discussions so it's not a simple task but i have a motion a referral to committee referral a review of the application and enforcement of the student athletic requirements i looked at the i think it's the 5000 series it hasn't been updated in over 10 years athletic requirements yes the student athletic requirements to participate i'm not sure if it's necessarily the governance committee but we should also take a look into enforcement pursuant to public comment that student athletes may
045be participating in sports that are not meeting the student portion first i would think that would be more appropriate at students and families because it's a student-focused policy oh no well the referral to committee also should take a look at the grades if our student athletes are performing with a c minus average then probably not going to have a good chance to get into college so we should probably still discuss the content within it as far as the enforcement level of it we could refer that portion to student families what other portion do you want the portion of it actually being enforced and implemented in our schools we had two coaches come up and speak stating that the students were failing and still playing sports so you want to split where these go yes if
046based on your suggestion the application and looking at the policy so we can ensure that our students are actually being prepared for college and just being prepared for school first their student athletes should go to governance and then i'll just make the referrals of students and families looking into the actual enforcement if we have schools that are not enforcing our policies yeah um so my opinion that would probably be better towards teaching and learning because it's so intertwined with grades and such and if if the grading policy is too weak for coaching it could be adjusted there and if it's not being enforced it could also be addressed there i i think it's probably best on teaching i learned but that's just my opinion i don't know if you agree with that it's her referral
047so right gonna defer to her i will refer to teaching and learning all of it or uh the enforcement portion the enforcement and the actual policy it's the actual requirements yeah the review of the ten-year-old requirements should go to governance to change the language okay so i'll believe it mr chair i know you were um telling me about though something i didn't understand very clear the only thing i heard was the 30 page in your finger something about the math is difficult for me to understand about the bylaws are an extensive 30-page document that have legal ramifications if you're going to go through this document it's not something that's going to happen in one meeting you should anticipate that this may take many many many meetings but we can do that and i just don't
048want you to have unreasonable expectations no no i understand that i i really understand that but you know me and me there here almost two years as a board i believe they need to some review that's all okay thank you i'm also going to refer to governance um a review of our field trip policies i think those need to be tightened up based on some recent activity personnel did not meet in the interim are there any referrals for personnel students and families thank you mr chair we um meet on march 17th we discuss our discussion uh forming we're trying me mr testani talk about try to make a committee district parent handbook um we talk about how the parent leaders are spending the money in part pta so how to educate in trying to i'm
049trying to work with them with the vendors um i suggest to my community to talk about i know years back we used a title one book that's me title one book any pack of 80 so they have it from exactly one year so every month they know what they do what kind of workshops or how to spend the money and who comes the speaker um we took our discussion so many things that our next meet up and thank you for the honda girls leading you know it was there they do amazing presentation i appreciate that all of the team our next meeting is going to be april 20th 6 pm in central high school at six in my library thank you okay any referrals teaching and learning your final report teaching and learning met on
050tuesday march 16th 2022 we've got one item coming up on the agenda for approval and into this district discovery magnet operation plan and we also reviewed the latest assessment data and of course we down a little from uh covert but we're working through that and hopefully bring our students performance up to par uh we also had a discussion and preliminary exploration of changing school start times we decided there's a lot of work to do and we should be taking a tiered approach and i will refer that to the new chair of teaching and learning to continue that approach and that's all i have and this meeting date is up to the new chat any referrals referral to teaching and learning a review of the enforcement of the student athletic policy at the middle school and
051high school levels okay superintendent's report i will address a couple of the items that were just mentioned but before that um saturday we had our spring community event uh 250 students and families received a number of resources we had several vendors there uh thank miss bobby brown for her attendance i know it was in conflict with um the budget forum that or the finance committee meeting at harding but um it was well attended and we continue to try to do as much as we can throughout the year whether it's toy drives coat drives food drives to support uh families in need we are up to 22 home visitors with our lee program that are making connections and re-engaging students and families as a result the chronic absentee rate last month dropped by almost five percent
052and we continue to outperform um exponentially our counterparts in other large cities in the state as we get to april we have another round of restorative practice training for staff across the district and they'll also be another diversity equity inclusion session with dr derrick gay in our administration also for parents the sel survey through panorama will be going out so for all parents please be on the lookout it's important that that survey is filled out it gives us important data to make decisions that impact students and and throughout the district we just mentioned middle school basketball playoffs start this weekend and we will have playoff games at harding and central high school last wednesday we had grade 8 through 11 participated in psa tsat across the district students also held college and career awareness activities
053and celebrations um and to the point that was brought up let's start by number one um requirements to play any uh athletics at the high school uh are all governed by the ciac so it is true students have to pass four classes to be academically eligible to participate and enter scholastic sports in the state of connecticut we did um 10 years ago a little bit longer we did try to increase those requirements here in the city of bridgeport um i believe what we called it four core to score you have to be passing your four core academic courses not just for any four courses as we did that there was pushback from the community and the board that we were unfairly uh excluding students from participation in um athletics so that was not enforced um
054but as a former coach as you heard clayton wilson at the middle school and at the high school level one of the barriers once being recruited and to to play in college could be sat scores it could be grade point average there are different levels of participation based on what those deficiencies could be um to say that our students are not receiving opportunities to play in college because of our policy is not it's in line with the rest of the state i think is false i don't know where the basis of that is or the data to support that is my fear is if that we try to raise the car too quickly we will then have student athletes not engaged in school and we saw what the effects were many years ago but i
055do think that we can revisit we do provide tutoring on saturdays for student athletes s.a.t prep and other opportunities um today for example at central high school we did a first of a program that will provide mentoring and tutoring for student athletes uh across the district this is our second such informational event these folks meet every week to help provide support to student athletes so we try to imple put in place all the support possible but i do think that we need to look at the information that was was present presented tonight and make sure that it's accurate um outside of the fact you can be failing courses yes you can ciac does not require anything more than four courses to be passed in the prior marking period before the season um that is the
056state rule so i just wanted to make sure that we we discussed that and in terms of the great presentation and speech by one of our our young ladies at park city magnet the islamic holiday will be re-examined for the next school year because i think it's important that students have spoken in this instance and not um not adults and in terms of i i would like to you know miss ultra dixon our hr director had left but um we have tried high and low searching for a science teacher for thomas hilker's school for the past two years as mr sokolovic mentioned it is a shortage area we've come up empty on several instances we are looking to provide different incentives for teachers to come to bridgeport as we've talked about in the past we
057do not have a competitive salary schedule compared to neighboring districts which makes it difficult cannot just simply reassign a teacher from the high school to the middle school i think that's going to be very productive in retention many of our science teachers would prefer teaching at the high school level than than the middle school level which also becomes challenging but we continue to look we've searched every outlet we have student teachers in the district many of which we would like to hire for the position but are holding out for a high school position so we'll continue and we will have a science teacher in place at thomas hooker school for next school year regardless of if we have to reassign someone from another school building and reduce the fte at that build and that concludes
058the report today questions next item is discussion and possible approval of healthy food certifications for school years 22 23. this is mr garrity director of food nutrition services thank you good evening um this is an annual uh vote that takes place with the board of education as required by state statute and it pertains to healthy food certification healthy food certification centers around the department in the district meeting connecticut nutrition standards in our a la carte sales in the high schools and it also pertains to uh exemptions for the sale of food at sporting events and fundraising events so the board is required by law to uh take this annual vote and this is for the 2223 school year and my recommendation we've been with the healthy food certification for the last 10 years and there's
059three votes required if we vote yes and the first vote would be to determine um if the district is going to be voting yes to participate in healthy food certification and as it's required to read into the minutes for this meeting the exact language as outlined in the letter that was submitted and the approved minutes then get submitted to the state for final approval so which three motions because i see four here so the first vote would be whether the board wants to approve healthy food certification for the bridgeport school district if the vote is yes then there's two other votes for exemptions one for food exemptions and the other for beverage exemptions and what's the fourth one you could just do one for food and beverage exemptions you could combine the food and the
060beverage vote if you uh would like to proceed in that fashion instead of three yes yeah okay does anyone have any questions for mr garrity okay i will seek a motion this is the vote to adopt the healthy food option so the first motion i'm going to seek is that pursuant to connecticut general statutes 10-215-f the board of education the city of bridgeport certifies that all food items offered for sale to students in the schools under its jurisdiction and not exempted from the connecticut nutrition standards published by the connecticut state department of education will comply with the connecticut nutrition standards during the period of july 1 2022 through june 30 2023 the certification shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimbursable meals at all times and from all sources including but
061not limited to school stores vending machines school cafeterias culinary programs and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or non-school organizations and groups is there a motion some will move by mr benant is there a second second mrs castillo any further discussion or questions all in favor all right okay and we'll go with the combined motion for the exemptions i'll seek a motion that the board of education the city of bridgeport or governing authority will allow the sale to students of food items that do not meet the connecticut nutrition standards and beverages not listed in section 10-221 of the connecticut general statutes provided that the following conditions are met one the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend two
062that the sale is at the location of the event and three the food and beverage items are not sold from a vending machine or school store a quote-unquote event is an occurrence that involves more than more than just a regularly scheduled practice meeting or extracurricular activity for example soccer games school plays and interscholastic debates are events but soccer practices play rehearsals and debate team meetings are not the quote regular school day unquote is the period from midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the official school day quote location unquote means where the event is being held somebody want to make that motion some will move second by ms allen all in favor aye aye aye any opposed okay you're set for another year and uh there needs to be a vote on the
063beverage we combined them we combined to the food and they did come by okay i'm sorry i missed that that's okay thank you very much thank you it's a chair for the record do you recognize mr mike michael when he was here i believe i did but if i didn't i know nobody say that but he was here for a long time discussion and possible approval of this discovery inter-district magnet operation plan who's here for this miss bella principal ms bella [Music] good evening my name is bella the principal at discovery magnet school today i want to present to you our operations plan that we have been working for the last year and a half every 10-year magnet plans need to be resubmitted and so we've been working with kelly merrow at the state department
064so uh we've been working on the state provided template that asked for specifics that include but it's not limited to school design school enrollment composition and capacity academic programs student support school culture and climate organizational structure program effectiveness and community partnership to name a few so discovery magnet as you know is a pre-k through eight inter-district uh public magnet school i do have copies of the plan in its entirety i did present it to teaching and learning i can leave it for you guys so if you want to see that so again it is a pre-k through eight into district public school we discovery students population is comprised of urban and suburban students as you know with diverse background bridgeport comprises of 70 of population and suburban districts of students residing in the surrounding towns
065of easton fairfield milford monroe shelton stratford and trumbull accounts for 30 of the population so academic and sel program uh in addition to the common core state standards and ngss our philosophy is to educate the whole child uh our long-term educational goal is to promote and create an environment that encourages students to take risks and become self-motivated lifelong learners our motto is discovery school where ideas matter it is to promote our stem education of course you know we are talking about ruler restorative practices and this year we have been implementing move this world of to build school culture and climate just wanted to give you a little highlight of what is happening at discovery in the last 10 years of course the biggest thing is we have built community partners that support our students to
066have not only educational experiences including field trips but also hands-on learning experiences partners such as the adventure park beardsley zoo discovery museum now shu science center fairfield audubon society the maritime aquarium sacred heart university to name a few student programs activities and events in addition to academics and sel we do have lighthouse we do before and after school program extracurricular activities includes cooking nature club gardening math and debate team spelling bee writing newspaper and robotics student organizations such as student council and national junior honor society is established at discovery as well with a stem theme we are a big proponent of science fair all our students in pre-k through eight participate in some kind of science activity three five and seven uh grades they participate in science fair and in two four six and eight
067they participate in connecticut invention convention parent engagement is big part of discovery family is huge and the community we have built up relationship parents have provided numerous opportunities to be part of the school and their child's education discoveries school governance council is comprised of teachers community members and parents and we do have a big pac presence and even after the pandemic we do have a big support from the families so today what i'm looking for is for the board to approve the discovery's plan in its entirety as presented to you today does anyone have any questions from his bella our question mr chair mr bennett how many years is going to be the plan the plan so what happens is uh in the last 10 years the plan is for the next 10 years but
068every five years we do they'll ask for a little revision but not the plan itself they might ask for a little piece of it the operations you know they can ask for academics if there are any changes but every 10 years you have to do the plan in its entirety thank you no my question anyone else is there a motion to approve the plan as presented by ms bella it's a move by mr benahan second second by ms allen all in favor aye aye aye opposed any abstentions thank you ms bella thank you have a good evening second read discussion and possible approval of revised policy regarding public comment this is the second read it is the same as was presented at last meeting two weeks ago um are there any questions or revisions i
069have a you revision section two a subsection six sorry say it again section two a so public address a regular meeting sub section six uh the last paragraph of that first page states the board will not permit abusive remarks from any member of the public common nor will the board receive any demands for specific disciplinary actions to be taken against any named personnel anyone who has a complaint or grievance regarding specific a specific employee may take the matter up with superintendents so that the proper and applicable procedures may be followed i like to amend that sentence that the board will not permit abusive remarks or any member of the public the remainder of that sentence i like it to be striped at the common nor and then the following sentence to be deleted so the
070amendment is to stop and say it says the board will not permit any abusive remarks from any member of the public if anyone violates this policy the privilege to address the board of education may be suspended [Music] can you clarify exactly we want to do you have this in front of you mr macaron i do i do towards the bottom of the first page it says let me finish towards the bottom of the first page number six do you see that oh yeah so you want the comment you want it to end with a period at the board will not permit abusive remarks from any member of the public period yes and then you want it to continue with just if anyone violates this policy their privilege to address the board of education may be
071suspended and you want to completely strike nor will the board receive any demands for specific disciplinary actions to be taken against any named personnel anyone who has a complaint or grievance regarding a specific employee may take the matter up with the superintendent so that the proper applicable procedures may be followed you want that removed that block removed yes what does anyone think of that um so joe seconded her proposed revision so we're discussing it now yeah uh could you give it miss baptist bros could you give you a rationale behind your suggestion and so i consulted with the connecticut board of the connecticut association of boards of education um regarding this particular language as well as a specific example we as a board faced i think issues that occur even if it's on the school
072level parents will need an outlet to exercise their beliefs it was in a previous meeting regarding a football coach at hardin where we had students former students alum come out and talk about that particular principle i think based off of my conversation with kate other school districts permit this time this type of speech regarding personnel and to keep them we are obligated i believe as a board of education to listen to concerns and to be impart investigators looking into what's happening and what impacts our students i think that this um this language being taken out restricts the language of the largest district in bridgeport for particular areas that will actually bring people out to a board meeting and provide them with the opportunity to meet with board members i i think we need to have
073it in a manner that is respectful and non-threatening we will still have dependent on the content of it we will still have to refer them because that's our obligation to the proper channels but knowledge of what's happening on the school even to a local level we as a board should probably know what's going on and if we reduce if we include this type of speech in our bylaws then we have we run the risk of reducing speech for our for our public and that includes students and i don't want to restrict the students on how they actually may feel about a particular topic absolutely yeah i i agree mostly especially when it comes to advocating for a teacher or staff member may be facing discipline but i disagree a bit about calling for terminations and
074giving us facts and information we may not have and it may not prove to be true when we later have to go sit down and face an arbitration or face a disciplinary where we in fact have to sometimes the decision comes down to us to terminate an employee and if we have information that's not part of the package that's presented to us we may have to abstain and send ourselves from said hearing and that that was what some of the discussion was at that level have you ever was that addressed the team on that aspect of taking ourselves out of the here's a thought why don't we because because cave does provide policy services why don't we give them this and explain to them what we're trying to achieve and see if they have some
075alternate language that assuages some of your concerns but also make sure that we don't get ourselves into the business of receiving demands of you need to fire this person or you need to suspend that person see if they can come up with something that's that kind of handles both we don't have to pass this tonight they can see what they respond with and we see what we think i i have a i have a i have a comment to make um isn't it the superintendent's our responsibility to handle operations and we as a board are responsible for policy okay so so where am i where what would this particular change do for it would be taking the operations responsibility away from the superintendent so i i think i think what we're grappling with is that
076you know if somebody has uh an issue with the school you want to hear that and for a lot of people this is the only forum that they get to voice their concerns about something going on at the school level and there's nothing wrong but we don't want to cross the line to where um people are specifically demanding that a particular action disciplinary action be taken against an employee they can let us know about a problem that's going on and then we can direct the superintendent to look into that and if he thinks some disciplinary action is needed he can handle it accordingly so i think that's what we're those are the two pieces that were i was just going to add i think asking cabe in conjunction with some of the collective bargaining agreements
077might be helpful because there is language in the teachers and in the administrators contracts that's negotiated with the board there are specific protections that are afforded um when it comes to the public and disparaging remarks and things like that so you might need to give cabe the excerpts from the contracts as well as the language you're trying to accomplish so that the two can be married together that would just be my suggestion okay mr yeah if my suggestions baptiste perez would drew us on motion and i would draw my second and we could make a new motion to table this until we get further guidance from cave agreeable i could just motion to table my amendment until further um there's another procedural way to do it but we could do it that way yeah and
078if you want to do it again the next go around you can always do it again motion is withdrawn i will draw my second and so now is the motion for a referral to cape for guidance in particular to this this particular to section two a six is there a second second by mr bennahan all in favor aye are you opposed okay last item on the agenda second read discussion and possible approval of revised policy regarding high school magnet entrance and performance expectations are there any revisions to this since the last go-round the only changes that we've made um and we'll read again is entry entrance requirements for eighth grade students to central magnet um i'll just read the changes that the policy has been amended to a final grade of c plus or better
079and core academic subjects on grade seventh and eighth grade report cards student handbook and attendance must be aligned with bridgeport public school policy s back scores within a minimum of two in reading and two in math or an average score above the 25th percentile in reading and math on the district benchmark assessment administrated in grade 8 for the magnet students who score in the top 10 percentile in the district assessment for the magnet will automatically be accepted to central magnet principal recommendation and then please note all grade eight students in tag and in bridgeport public school magnet elementary schools including classical studies in geraldine claytor may automatically enter central magnet if they have met the minimum entrance requirements stated above and then as you drop down all ninth and tenth grade students must enroll in
080four courses which include two or academic courses they're english math science social studies and world language inclusive inclusive of four credits each of english math science history and three credits of the same world language students must pass a minimum of three courses per semester or placed on academic probation or reassigned to district school students who fail two academic courses by the end of the school year will be deselected that concludes the changes to the central magnet entrance requirements questions or comments i have a question uh it's a bit of a silly question but core academic subjects in grade 7 8 that includes science right your question again that's going to include science uh my concern and i'll just get to the point of it is we just had speakers in public comment discuss that for
081two years students at thomas hooker school didn't have a science teacher and if i want my child to go to central magnet the fact that they don't is a you know it's a double-edged sword they don't have science can they attend central magnet that that's my thing i'm putting myself in the shoes of a parent at a child at hooker school can my child get into central knowing that for two years they haven't had signs well that's why in lieu of some of the things that you mentioned the principal recommendation has been added so that principal recommendation will be able to um override any hardships um regardless of in this situation it happens to be a science teacher um but the s back scores are in reading and math uh but you know if the
082student has experiences trauma in any of their seventh or eighth grade years that may cause a dip in grades or performance that principal recommendation will be able to over override that so that's why it was important to have the the principal recommendation included when we talk about these things simply just grades and test scores do not tell the whole story anything else i just want to make sure you know that opportunity is available especially for hooker school after hearing that from public comment okay anyone else okay is there a motion to approve do you have your hand up or are you okay is there a motion to approve this policy as uh in its second read version moved by mr benahan is there a second second second by ms allen all in favor you got
083a magnet policy okay is there a motion to adjourn some move second move by all seconded by one all in favor aye are you opposed time is noted