001evening ladies and gentlemen this is a call to order to the equity diversity and inclusion committee the time is now 6 34 p.m and attendance we got in live attendance we've got committee member bobby brown joe sakalovic chairman of the board mr john wilden we've got uh students from park city magnet dr mcpherson on staff and online we have committee member erica castellio and board member albert bernagan first item on the agenda is the approval of minutes dated february 22 2022. do you have a motion to approve some more um is is christine also on betsy perez thank you mr baptiste perez is also online okay thank you uh any possible corrections errors or omissions hearing none all in favor aye aye aye oh motion carries minutes are approved now we got discussion impossible action
002on adding eid al fitia as a holiday bridgeport public schools um this was uh brought to me by students from park city magnet they feel familiar with me because my son used to go to that school and inception was a project for classroom teacher uh social studies teacher erica why is your name blocking that's eric johnson thank you i just introduced like seven seconds ago too and he'll tell us a little about it he'll introduce us and i'll just get a couple of the kickstarter uh distinguished members of the committee my name is eric johnson seventh ninth grade social science teacher at park city magnet school what you're about to see is room 101a's rendition of project citizen project citizen teaches our young men and women to become active members in a democratic society it
003teaches them how to perform research how to deliver that research to different bodies of government how to enforce an action plan to try and create real lasting change in our communities and so my homeroom brought this to me they brought this entire idea of making it outfitter a day off from school in the city of bridgeport and this came up before project citizen was even mentioned been hearing this from mice in this class since last year and so this is our opportunity to try and create a real change that we feel will bring more equity and greater inclusivity to the city of bridgeport so the problem that these students have presented is that eat outfitter is not a day off which is unfair to the students who are muslim in our british republic schools this
004problem is more widespread widespread than i think many people realize in terms of this problem we are hoping that it's a problem that could be handled by government because what currently happens under current policy is students who are muslim and take off the day for eid al fateer are marked absent missing a day of school there's no current policy in the city of bridgeport in dealing with such problems obviously we're here amongst the board of ed and the committee today hoping that we will have this motion passed or furthered so that we can try and create some real lasting change within the city students were very adept to notice that eid outfitter was marked on the city calendar but is the only day marked on the city calendar that is not granted as a day
005off for students and staff some groups that would be interested in such a problem mainly those students and families who are muslim within the city of bridgeport all muslim students whom we interviewed all muslim students said that eid should be a day off from school unanimously students are concerned because they do currently get marked absent while other people from other different religious persuasions are not on high holidays in their own fates and there are other folks in this in our presentation who could also be considered to be in opposition to the fact that it is a day off folks who would support us may be teachers teachers who feel it is wrong to mark students absent on a holiday such as this and any other members of our community who feel that really just equity
006and fairness is most important some advantages to having eat as a day off our community as a whole will recognize the importance of eid in addition it'll show respect and equality to our friends and classmates who are muslim and finally it will teach our students that eat is a day worth recognition and will help them to learn more about other cultures folks who may disagree with our policy or folks who may be against muslims having eat outfitter as a day off or perhaps folks worried about the city's budget as keeping a building heated for an additional day or keeping essential staff employed for a day could cost the district some money with regards to our data when we interviewed 99 people we found that 50 of them said they were familiar with what eat outfitter
007was 30 had not heard of eid alpha terp and 17 said that they had heard of it but weren't sure what it was this clearly shows a need for our students to be aware that this is an important day and we feel one of the goals or one of the the positives of our goal is to put it on the calendar as a day off so people know that it is a major event when we conducted a survey of fifth or eighth grade students at our school we found that in this survey 11 out of the 99 students surveyed were muslim the overwhelming majority were christian none of the people whom we interviewed in fifth through eighth grade were jewish along with the smattering of folks who would rather not reply to the to this
008question on our survey or report themselves as not religious or other purpose for this slide is to demonstrate that one out of every nine students whom we surveyed in our school is muslim and that this is a severe inequity that such a large percentage of the population be denied this important recognition of the 99 students whom we interviewed of all religious persuasions as you saw in the previous slide unanimously all 99 agreed that eid should be a day off from school i appreciate you allowing me to introduce this problem now i would like to call up our alternative policies various ways to solve the problem so i'd like to introduce right now and on come on up okay alternative policies the first policy we would like to talk about is ultimate assessment for our first
009policy we'd like to take the day before thanksgiving and make it a take the day before thanksgiving and make it a half day we can use a half day as a substitute for a day off so it doesn't you so it doesn't add on to the the school the disadvantages are that people are usually traveling on the day before thanksgiving they will only usually have a half day to travel if we promote this policy another advantage is that muslim students will have a day off to celebrate eat off and it does not affect the school like it's mine going to a recording it's not going to help with youtube actually yeah i don't know we could add an extra day at the end of the school year if we have a day off on eagle
010feet the disadvantages of using this policy is that it would cost about 1 million dollars in 65 cents since that's about the cost of one school day also people usually don't also people usually want to have summer vacation start early if this policy is adopted muslim students will be allowed to celebrate you don't think they're normally without being counted as absent or missing assignments the last alternative policy is we could remove a day from spring break if we have a day off on idol the disadvantages of this policy is that people who want to enjoy spring break or travel have one less day to do so if we do use this policy the school calendar would not be affected except for spring break if this policy is adopted muslim students would be allowed to celebrate
011adulthood normally without being counted as a percent or missing assignments the next slide is our policies our proposed policy we think that the best policy is to have a day off for iraq or for muslims since it doesn't violate the us constitution and it helps muslims celebrate their holiday the advantages of this holiday is that muslims get the day off just like other religions and they won't feel left left out or discriminated they won't be muslims won't be unfairly unmarked um marked absent sorry they won't miss any school days or fall behind on work muslim works missed personal days and um they won't get lowered their their pay won't get lowered for having that day off it won't it um respects various religions and it won't cause any debates or anger eid allows people to
012celebrate with family after fasting and have having nothing presenting them from enjoying it won't affect the numbers of school days either okay so disadvantages of yeah some this some might disagree with eat all furts being a holiday and may say other holidays are more important and eat all furts is not always on the same day or even in the same month each year if it lands on a weekend one year and then on a school day the following year it may be hard to track students might be absent for their religious holidays which might affect their attendance and might fall behind in their studies adjusting the school calendar by taking one day from another school day off might upset others for example's free kings day and italian italian heritage day might have and we might
013have might have some way of finding a loophole or a way around the policy depending on how good or bad the policy is okay what days should we take we had uh the seventh and eighth grade classes to take a vote where to place the extra day of school if eat alfred is declared a day off so there are 26 votes for wednesday before thanksgiving the half a day 32 votes for italian heritage day 14 votes for friday of presidents day weekend six votes for the end of the school year zero for the beginning of the school year and zero for the april break after agreeing that removing a cultural holiday wouldn't be the right thing to do we decided the day before thanksgiving would be the best option the action plan our action plan
014we will then we will bring our powerpoint consisting of data and appear from different residents to the committee meeting of education of diversity equity and inclusion for the city of bridgeport we will propose our problem in our policy for the best way to make idle a day off in bridgeport if we get the necessary votes from the committee members we will bring our presentation to the regular board of education meeting and propose our policy to the entire board who might oppose the idea parents some parents might have a demanding work schedule this means that if there is a day off they will have to take time off of work to provide child care or hire or find someone trustworthy cheap teachers some teachers might not want to miss a day of learning because they might
015they might be teaching an important unit our first step the information we gathered through interviews and other source analysis to create a presentation of data from our research and perspectives from the interviews our interviews were conducted with the bridgeford public school budget manager the principal at park city magnet school and a board of education member using our information and data we will convince the board of members or ed members to provide a day off on school step two is to attend a committee meeting in central magnet school to present our research after our presentation we will see if the committee's members vote in our policies favors if so we will move on to the next step if we do get the yes vote from three from the from the three board of ed members we
016will go on to the bridgewater board of education regular meeting we will present the same presentation with some revisions and uh and updated information to all board of members and we will try to convince the board members to declare eid outfitter as a day off if we do not succeed then we would reconstruct our presentation and improve it then we would propose our idea to the board of to the board of vet again or submit it to our re representatives in the connecticut general assembly for their consideration i said 8th graders are ready for your questions if you haven't uh yeah well first i'd like to make a question and observation and a couple of things as uh being raised as a christian i could put myself in the shoes of somebody from islam i
017can imagine if i was in a system where jewish holidays and muslim and islamic colonies were celebrated and they had the day off for their high holidays and i had to go on go to school on christmas or get a day off and possibly miss some learning if i had algebra class and they taught something algebra i would have to catch up the next day because of my religious beliefs and that's not fair there's three major major religions christianity islam and jesus i believe we've got probably in the city of bridgewater students probably outnumbered jewish students ten to one we all and we all got our holidays off and i think uh [Music] further i'd like to know where you got the number of one point something million dollars for the school day because i
018think it's going to be cost neutral because we're swiping one day out for another day up because if we have if we're in school for one day it doesn't matter if it's summer winter unless we got one more winter thing maybe it costs a little more to heat the bill so the students who pulled that information they're not here tonight they spoke with the district budget manager and that's where they receive the information what it costs for personnel full personnel on a regular day of school and uh and i like the um suggested days i have one uh i'll have one more suggested day possibly because i see we got four a four day week no one two three a five day weekend on president's day and the first day off for that one is
019thursday so making it thursday rather than friday would be able to still give a three-day weekend and also to note uh you brought up the wednesday before thanksgiving that just recently became a full day off for staff it used to be a half day for i don't know many hours long long time i don't know when they made it probably a couple of years ago it became a full day office store yeah that's all i got now i'll take questions from miss bobby brown um i know that you guys mentioned that um [Music] took my question i know that you guys mentioned that um you guys surveyed 99 students was this just in one school or across the district how many participated in your survey only one school at this time only one school okay
020that's it let's get there you might be on mute miss castillo if you're trying to talk oh sorry can you hear me yes okay i'm actually walking up the hallway now but for the sake of keeping the ball rolling here i know that you said that the day changes every year um so what what time of year is this typically observed the eid mubarak like season um it's a lunar calendar so it would just change every like few years uh at this time yeah it will for the next for the next few years it will be observed in the winter time or fall time he's behind you he's coming okay so my next question is um how would we go about determining and like each year when we when we establish the calendar year um
021would this have to be sort of factored into the conversation each year or do you have like a set day where the holiday should be observed it all depends on like the moon so it's on set for now but like it could be determined on like the last day of our fasting to the 30th day okay i've actually got a schedule that was sent to me from uh the islamic center i haven't verified it but they got they got a plot they kept they plotted it out until 2040. oh wow that should be hope to see enough i'll send this to everybody and and the same thing happens with the jewish holiday i believe uh some of those are silicon as well i think i don't want to speak ignorantly but i think it's the
022yom kippur or one i know one of the two files of lunar cycle as well and it's not over here and easter also fluctuates everywhere right got it um okay so um i agree with with you joe your recommendation about presidents day um i also think the day before thanksgiving is a good recommendation which is the um recommendation you guys made um i'm not sure about which which to choose to be honest um you know yeah so this has been an ongoing discussion going back into the fall there were other meetings held regarding this and um the district closing for yom kippur and rosh hashanah is driven by the number of staff members who are jewish who would take that day off which would cause a severe staffing shortage this goes back several decades and
023the same with the christmas holiday we took that week off because so many people would be taking that week off anyway and it would be pointless to have school recession when only very very few people staff included would actually show up um you mentioned something about um being marked absent to take the day off now i don't think this is the codified but it's been talked about and maybe this is what needs to be codified because we do have the holiday on the calendar but i think maybe we need to codify that students who take this day off with their families will not be marked absent and no critical work will be issued week leading up to and following that holiday so that nobody's going to be losing anything because until you took the day
024off the other issue i have issued thought is that there are other religions in the city there's hindu buddhists and others and if we make it a position to specifically get the district down for one religion's observances we would probably have to do the same for others they put their heads up and to do that to force um of the students to go home or a very small group of people who want to observe their high holiday i see that as problematic and in a really slippery slope as we move forward however if we note the holiday on the calendar and maybe come up with some level of policies to policy language that specifically says if you take this holiday you will not be marked absent and classes are not to have tests that day
025or have major assignments do that day or in that week so that there isn't the possibility he's gonna lose out because they took their holiday and then if you did that if other religious groups came to us that is something that we could apply to others without it affecting the district as a whole now the other thing i think of is that you know these there could be some collective bargaining matters that would need to be talked about with the teachers union i don't know what they are but i think to charge into this and try to wrap it up tonight would be a little disingenuous um i don't know if mr tastani has seen your arguments i think he would want to weigh in on on any of this um this is new stuff
026i've met that mrs brown and i met with a group and mr tastani it was mr lombard there too just you and i um i think it was just the three of us okay and a lot of these issues were brought up um but i think at the time we were kind of hesitant to make any kind of real movement to shut the district down and mr tastani instead created this and had it passed by the board in january but there's nothing really official i don't think that says if you get the day off you will not be penalized so i think we need to start having that kind of discussion with mr tastani and this is a really good presentation it's very well thought out you consider what you thought any resistance might be
027and how you would address it and i think that's really the thrust of this exercise go through this and make this kind of present but i just want you guys to understand that um there's a lot of thought that needs to go into this or i think it's important that we consider all of this and listen to it and really have an ongoing discussion but i don't know that it would be appropriate to make a hard and fast decision right here those are my thoughts now i'd like to address a couple of things he said first of all equity it's not easy but it's not easy to upset yeah i'll get like i got mr benham sorry equity is not easy uh we have set a precedent because three kings day hasn't been a holiday
028forever in british public schools we made an exception for christians this is the diversity equity inclusion committee we're not adding a school day it's suggestion that bridgeport public schools don't close for that day and swap it for another day instead goes on pause will lead to an additional learning loss for all our students our students have already lost enough learning time and so we'll learn just have no tests that day no big major assignments no lessons so we got the whole city got to take a pause just so we don't have to swap a day out to give students the day that they deserve i mean we make these allowance for teachers for contracts but who do we work for do we work for the teachers are we here for teachers to have jobs no
029we have a student we're here to educate students we're here to give students what they need and they're here very clearly telling us what they need and then i estimate about what maybe two three thousand students i don't know the whole district about two three thousand thousand students about ten percent of our student population and i don't know what percentage we could say follow the jewish religion and they get the holiday but not islamic students that's not equitable that's not fair we got to do what's hard and if the hindus do come to us and give us a presentation i don't think they'll have the big five not even five percent or three percent of the students will be in that place i think we need to address this issue now this is one of
030the areas of the board where our power is actually spelled out and improving the school calendar and i believe rather than give mr testani a day might be just give him the just give him the menu a days to choose from and he can pick which one's best for the district and that's the banana no tell me about the stuff right okay mrs good evening everyone especially students um i agree with mrs sakalovic when you come to decisions of equity is not the easiest thing um to do but i would be interested in certain facts to further strengthen your argument because i would like to know the percentage of bridgeport residents who are muslim the percentage of students in our public schools who are muslim and also i would like that juxtaposed to some of
031the other demographics what percentage of bridgeport public students are jewish i also find an equity issue with what was presented in terms of just the example yom kippur that was presented by john walden as it was practiced by the teachers i believe that there is an issue in bridgeport public schools reflecting the actual demographics of the population so even if the majority of teachers don't look like the students in bridgeport does not mean that they cannot res they are not obligated to respect some other religions or religious holidays and so i don't think that our lack of diversity in our teaching staff should be the end-all be-all for whether a holiday will be observed or not or granting a day off um i think pushing it aside for what it seems like this has been
032in front of the board for several years is in itself against being equitable um and i think that there needs to be serious consideration to giving a day off i'll just give you a quick antidote when i was in elementary school i had perfect attendance i wanted to go to school i didn't want to miss a day i didn't want to have a sick day i was very motivated and i knew if i missed a day i could fall behind and i was motivated when i was very young to want to go to an ivy league school and it was everything to me even in high school i had perfect attendance so i understand the apprehension of missing a day and with some of our schools performance a day means a lot it doesn't matter
033if it tess is being administered that day every day matters towards education and so i want to thank you guys for your presentation and hope that it does get pushed further along and that you make your arguments even stronger so it's reflective of the community at large because your voices do matter and i really appreciate the statistics that you provided for your school thank you mr chair um i agree exactly what you said before mr and miss christina so but my question for you guys is why what bring you to make this what was your reason to take that you know have that special day was you know muslim day what was the reason why you feel that you know and that before that i'm very proud of all of you you know i'm glad
034i give applause for that because you guys are the future for christmas school and i'm very happy that you're coming that's what we want our kids come and come to the committee and talk you know if kansas came to show you how to bring this and the board for the whole board i will support you guys 100 because you know you're the future and we i'm very excited to see you guys here but i just want to know in one word or something why do you guys bring you why the reason you bring this you know what was the reason come a little history what would happen your presentation was amazing i see it and you know you will process that for that thank you for the staff helping and stuff like that that's very
035very very good uh originally we had a whole bunch of problems and uh we had a a vote and we came down we had like like about 20 problems at first and we we dropped down to 10 and those were our 10 big problems and then eventually we dropped down to this problem because we thought it was unfair for a lot of the muslim students and yeah that that's originally what happened from swaney you went down ten ten and then to one oh so you could be the next superintendent of the school future that's great also um did you have a mom i know mom is proud of part of that she's far away if you can come here too close i want you to be close you'll you're a parent so be close to
036us i don't have to be who's mom's at you welcome i don't want you to stay so far away no more question mr thank you okay so i just um in contemplating the um different options that you all presented i wanted to i had to circle back and think about you know sort of the differences between equality or equitable uh representation and um equality right so i want to read a definition out loud to you all equality means that each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome so it's slightly different the difference between equity and equality i think that what i think the suggestion to um have a day
037off is sort of in the same vein of of seeking equality right because you have other religions who observe a day off and as mr weldon mentioned there's differences in terms of what that representation looks like throughout the student body at large so what we'd like to do is make sure that you guys have equitable representation when what i heard you say was that there was um is that you guys are being marked absent how may i help you sorry you're not on mute okay so what i heard you say is that you were concerned that you're being marked absent and that you're missing work for days that um where you're observing your religious holiday and so i think that's sort of the issue that needs to be addressed is not necessarily like the entire
038district needs a a school day off but rather how can we address you all not or maybe you all getting excused absences and additional support um for the work that's missed on the day of the school day so i don't know that that um it doesn't answer the question i just wanted to um provide a bit of clarity around the context of of what's being sought out here um i will say that i do think it's important to confirm the data with the district about what the numbers are so that we are able to provide an equitable solution to to your concern um is there a way to be able to circle back to either tessani or someone in the district that can confirm what the representation is in the district uh well we could
039assume that there's more muslim students than jewish students in the district that's if if i'm wrong i'll be glad to say so at a meeting but as far as your definition for equity and equality they're not seeking equality they're thinking actual equity there are three or four jewish holidays on the calendar four or five christian holidays on the calendar where they get the day off they're asking one-fifth of equality and for us not to go christmas new year's uh um what's the other one three kings day good friday easter all those holidays yom kippur now they're asking for one when a minority religion in this city gets two or three they're asking for one they're asking for one-third and not asking for equality asking for one-third of equality and you for all the other muslim
040holidays off basically for this one their high holiday and i think if this isn't equity diversity and inclusion i think we're wasting our time with this whole committee and so i i see what you're saying um i still think that it's an important point of confirmation because i i understand your your recollection of what you think the population might represent but i do think it's important to solidify that with data to show what the actual representation is throughout the district and again you know equity is not about giving everyone the same you know the same resources it's it's about giving everyone what they need to be able to in this case observe their their practice is it equitable then for then let's say 90 of students that are not going to be attending class that
041day for the lack of you know or that um you know the day before thanksgiving for example that for the past i don't know how many years the entire school district has been observing that day and that's you know being considered just quick point of information it's not the day before thanksgiving it's the wednesday before thanksgiving which has only been a holiday just recently it used to be a half day so putting that back to a half day will just back us up two years in time like decades sure half the districts in the city do not celebrate half the districts in connecticut do not deserve do not get that wednesday off and and and to be frank with you the my school district of where i work also doesn't get that wednesday left so
042it would pose no real hardship to have that happen like i said equity is not easy based on based on your personal recollection uh okay let's let's take it out of personal logo if we get this on a regular board agenda could these students mr johnson could you all have the data on bridgeport demographics of islamic studies in bridgeport public schools by monday seek it out and if you can i i'll pull it up myself yes this can i just just i said previously is that i don't think it's fair to try to cram something through tonight we've only just seen this presentation to clarify with respect to three kings day of our student body is hispanic and would observe that holiday and take that day off whether it was on the calendar or not
043so half the student body wouldn't show up and the district would continue operating the two jewish holidays those were things that the teachers union negotiated because they had at the time such a high number of teachers that would again take that day off irrespectively creating a staffing shortage so it's it's you kind of have to understand the background of some of these things i'm just saying we need to find out more information we need to be thoughtful about this uh is there some level of compromise that can be reached and i don't get the feeling tonight that compromise or thoughtfulness is being considered by everyone and i'm just saying that i think it should be and i think if you should reconvene this at the next meeting of this committee get this more information he
044does he can't even commit as to whether he would have it monday so i think it would be disingenuous to just try to rush it through tonight i'm not saying it should die but i think we should talk about this a little more i'm not saying we should die right um yes but i was also i'm also very proud of all of you who are participating today and allow your voices to be heard because i know some of you were shy i can just tell by the way you guys are up here talking about you know send loves of support to you i'm also on the stands of um strengthening your argument as well i think one thing that i that's why i asked the question like how many of the schools outside of your
045school did you survey just so that i can make more more of a appealing approach for the entire district because even though we are one school we want to make sure that that represents all schools and um 90 is not the whole entire district but i respect that you guys took that effort out to do that and just like miss christina said is you know strengthen your argument why you want that spread it abroad um to really make that approach because i do believe as young people deserve you know the right to be able to feel how you feel and to allow your voice to be heard um so i'm excited to see what you guys present um and also too how you guys move forward with this yeah if i could just piggyback on
046what she said i agree i think that you guys are presented so well and i'm proud of you for for coming here and for you know making a case and representing you know a larger population beyond the group that's being represented here today as a board we have to make decisions based on hard data and it's important that that we know um in a very matter-of-fact way what the representation is throughout the districts in order to provide what uh an equitable solution for you guys so i think the the point that bobby made about you know surveying but beyond just one school um is is important and again i also think that um knowing what the what the numbers are across the district is also important before really proceeding with finalizing on on making a
047decision tonight yeah before i get to uh mrs baptist for us i'm going to say something we've already long enough this is an institution these questions here are really bothersome to me but it goes to the ingrained institutional biases that are pandemic which is why this committee was created to resolve this is an issue not a facts and figures issue this is a religious issue there's no doubt that islam is the third biggest religion in the world there's no doubt that our calendar has christian holidays and jewish holidays on it that are celebrated there's was there a survey before they gave young capital to the teachers i think not was there a survey before we put christmas holiday off i think not because it was expected it was our privilege that we took that as
048myself as a caucasian and this came up to all these uh residual things and passed if we're not going to change now what we're going to put it off again and again it just doesn't make sense though just doesn't make sense to wait i mean we could get more facts and figures by the board meeting we could discuss it further we could table it there but i think this deserves to go to the full board for consideration and i'll take miss baptist perez um in the interest of kind of of promoting eid and moving it forward i do have some questions that were presented by john walden uh you mentioned 54 percent of the student population are hispanic and that was part of the driving factor for three kings when did three kings become a
049recognized day off in the bridgeport public schools and um yeah let's start with that first when did it become recognized in the public schools as a day off i do not know okay and then was there any kind of favorite survey or presentation because as to why three kings should be taken as a day off it's typically a holiday celebrated by catholics not amongst all christianities so uh um and with that being said is that it's not a generic christian holidays celebrated by every single christian and so i i would be interested in giving these students guidance as to how did it recently become a holiday and why um before just promoting that you kids just take the day off and once we feel that your number is significant amongst whoever's eyes that may deem
050it as significant then we'll recognize your holiday the next thing is just out of curiosity because uh i forgot which jewish holiday it was but how many teachers are still practicing that and what would be the risk of of no longer well no let me not say that because i already know what the risk is but how many teachers are still practicing particular jewish holidays in our system that would impact um staffing shortages i i think that we do need additional data as to how large the muslim population is in our schools but in the interest of equity lumping all christians as celebrating three kings doesn't that's well well i didn't say that i said well that that's a significant hispanic population excuse me i'm still speaking i understand that hold on some things i
051didn't say that he would raise the point of information that does not mean that they necessarily observe the holiday so i'm asking as an example of guidance did you survey was there a presentation how did that decision because it's a recent one by the sounds of it to have three kings of a hot become a day off in schools how did that happen so that way we can provide guidance to help these young students out as they're going for their position and then i i just find it out of curiosity because i don't think in general as a student former public school student or even in my short term as a teacher everybody's excited to get a day off just in general that is a generalization i am okay with saying most people are okay
052with having a day off but um when and how to move it forward and read three readers says three kings was implemented in the district over 20 years ago so over 20 years ago rita there was no school or was it recognized on the calendar because that's the distinguishing fact um but i want to be able to help you guys move your agenda forward and so there's other groups that have gotten their religious day recognized and how did they do that i think it's key um i am a little skeptical on relying on the teacher data because as i mentioned earlier it does not reflect our population and our students and the general constituents of bridgeport should not be penalized because of lack of diversity hiring in the school system would you like to make
053your classification i already did but next time please me um yes um like i said i think we've got all the information we need to make this decision as a board as i said one of our few powers is to approve a calendar and add to it or subtract to it and i think at this point i'll entertain a motion to move to the full board adding eid as a day off to the school and let mr testani choose from the four days previously mentioned in order to make it happen or add a day in the beginning or the end of the school year so we're not going to have them check and see with the district is that what we're not doing that that would just be it depends on how it depends if
054my notion is seconded and they could still they could they could still they could still bring the data to us one second they could still bring the data to us at the regular meeting and we could still have a discussion we could still postpone it at the regular meeting if we don't have the data in front of us that we need to make out to sit if we feel we don't have enough information to make the decision we just made a decision on putting masks on with two weeks worth of data i i just wanted to make sure yeah so so i would like to move it to the full board with the four day let me test on it pick the four day one of the four days previously mentioned and have it as
055a day off tonight um yeah give me a second is it seconded if it's not seconded my second day okay it's disgusting as long as we can yeah we did that this past monday trying to defer to the superintendent a decision as a matter of policy that is our responsibility to make so i don't think it's appropriate to take that path for this i do not think it's appropriate to push this discussion which is going to get a lot more robust to the full board before all these other questions have been answered typically it's this kind of nitty-gritty um information and discussion that add at the committee level to avoid it going to the full board that's why we have committees i mean if everything just gets thrown to the full board before a complete
056discussion with all the questions answered occurs at the committee level then there's no point in having any committees so i think it's again disingenuous to just throw this to the full board i think it's also disingenuous to the young people to give them the impression that this is how good government works they came here to make their case and we have questions and we want them to come back with some answers we want our superintendent to come back with some answers i don't think there's any anything wrong with coming back together in a month when all the data has been assembled and mr testani is sitting here to answer questions of how things came to be um i just i i don't think we should be forcing this in this manner as it is today
057the holiday is on the calendar it's there if we want to change some aspect of it for the coming school year this has already been passed by the full board if we want to change some element of it we're going forward there's no rush for that we're not going to do this again until january respectfully i i i think this should continue here at the committee level and the people who can give us the answers should be sitting here because we're talking about this there is nobody sitting at this table who can give us the answers to these questions it's inappropriate to just bypass them and say well they can answer them at the full board because then that board meeting is going to be at 10 o'clock at night because we're doing something there
058that should have been done at a committee level yeah yeah and speaking of contributing our committee military that's where ishira came instead of being in mr testani's office or wherever the people off the off the diversity equity inclusion committee with the exception of one met and discussed this and put it in at the non day wealth because had i noticed it was just an observation i would push for the equity then and there we would have those numbers but we don't because the meeting happened behind closed doors and that is not equity that is not how good government works that is how backdoor dealings work we're looking at good governance that should have been right here before no should have been that that wasn't a behind closed door yeah i understand but it was it
059was an equity decision this conversation has been happening if if everybody was so interested in getting the data you had when you sat down with the islamic community in december well they said after that when when when it wasn't gaining any traction they said that they would come to our next board meeting and bring it up in public comment and they never did right well so the impression was given that maybe it wasn't as maybe there wasn't as much energy behind it as they would have had us believe because they never brought it back up at the board level and now we're having this discussion and we did offer we in fact she sent an email saying please come to the board meeting and and and state your case and and nothing happened and so
060it's not they asked and that's the part that's part of the problem nothing nothing happened afterwards nobody raised it and nobody brought it on their side they did not on their right and nobody on our side brother said hey we got this right here's the people important oh i put it on the calendar it was always coming on my calendar i didn't know these i didn't know people met behind the scenes well then the superintendent put it on the student calendar absolutely and now nobody all right we could go around in circles but now i'm gonna say the students presented a lot of data they presented enough data for me to make my decision and there's an emotion on the table to put to the full board thank you and i think you can continue
061its work i i would like to make a motion to amend the motion what's your amendment my amendment is your amendment states that mr testani has four options to choose from is that correct actually even more you could do it before after this okay regardless i i don't think that that's an appropriate next step if it does go to board because there has to be discussion at the board level before any action what's your amendment please so i would suggest that that happens at the committee level in our next meeting and you're welcome to choose the date for when you think you know the next meeting should be however much time you feel is appropriate to give them or to give the district to to produce the information that we need we have one more
062meeting at the committee level to clarify the things that we're discussing and then at that point we decide that it goes to board so see your members to have one more meeting to clarify the the the doubts that um i think people still have before solidifying a decision that's actually a whole new motion because the motion is to bring it to the full board and give the superintendent always your motion is to put it back in committee and get the rest of the information before well uh was baptized for as you had your hand up i was gonna call on procedural matter that that's not an amendment to it also uh just let's see yeah it that's not an amendment to the motion that's a completely separate um motion in itself so you would have
063to see if it's going to carry amongst the three of you and then uh consider what miss castillo's offering i believe that's what the chair just said yeah well if he he was up so and then also i i did want to bring up that i as a point of order i don't find it appropriate to make a comparison to what was done in the decision for mass as a comparable to this uh for several meet reasons not to go in and drive this meeting longer um let's just focus at this particular matter at hand and handle it procedurally there's a motion on the floor it's been seconded and there's discussion is any further discussion got two alternatives here one is if people are in favor of what ms christine was proposing you know her
064intention um brown brought her second and the motion to fail or you could take a vote and vote it down those are your two options all in favor presenting to the full board as discussed i gonna withdraw my emotion because i do want to be able to find that the students are serving across the board um and i just want to make sure that their argument is just as strong because like i said you know and i don't even know if i'm supposed to be doing this but the point of the matter is that we met with the adults this is the first time i'm meeting with the students and i want their voice to be as important as any adult that presented that's my take on it um and they deserve that whatever they
065delivered on they didn't the students motion fails and i don't need the emotion of the motion to bring it back to the committee i'll put it back automatically i'll try to have one in maybe two weeks make themselves available thank you mr chair i'm i know i'm not part of this committee but as a bond member i'll i would like to see more information from them they do it night presentation and everything but i like to see more and get more information i know and then after that you as a change in the community will agree you know what's going to be the next step in the protocol and policy but you know for me here this is new i like it you know i'm very all of you but i would like to hear
066more information as a board member to see how it's going to be the next step i'm going to watch out to come back in maybe two weeks or so that's why i'm your teacher it's just not fair when the next meeting will be okay okay that's great and i'd like to take a five minute recess yeah okay thank you okay uh motion first i'm gonna reach us yeah are we gonna are we is that a motion to come back in two weeks did you uh no i could i could just schedule it okay and then grease motion for recess uh some moves thank you okay hey we're calling a meeting back to order it's now 6 14 p.m well members are currently here before are still here um next item on the agenda is the
067discussion on staff training proposal and peace perez here uh there's mr except with the exception of his baptist perez thank you yeah signed off um next item on the agenda is discussing discussion on staff training proposal from carolyn's professional services i do not see miss nah here oh uh what happened to us so i guess we'll table that for the time being okay and then uh move on to item number four the viewer discussion is student ap courses and participation rates and dr mcpherson i believe you're going to take that away where's my target okay you know i was looking do you want to bring it up on screen oh i thought he was going to yes okay um thanks on the screen the do you have it it's you yeah is it it's just
068part of the package you have the can you bring the packet down i'm sorry yeah if you can uh anything you want to present if you can make it a powerpoint it makes it easier there's just submit it as a powerpoint sorry about that i never told that powerpoint is it easier all christmas did you did you email me or you called her i texted her this morning oh this isn't back in the show that's fine it's just so i guess we can see it well it's going to show here just so we can see it okay yeah just keep keep going is that after the student package yeah okay next yes okay take it away all right good afternoon so the data tonight looks at the students who are enrolled in ap courses students
069in grades 11 and grades 12 are the students who basically distinct students who are basically enrolled in ap classes advanced placement classes the chart that we're looking at we have three sets of data four sets of data tonight this page here looks at the students who were enrolled in semester one courses broken down so that's the one ap courses broken down by gender whether they're spread l and also race hispanic black afro-american asian etc for grades 11 and grades 12. if we move to the next page again we're looking at the students enrolled in schools schools across the district in grades 11 and 12 semester two who are also enrolled in ap courses all right are there any questions about that if anybody has any questions about this data uh yeah i was like i
070just got to backtrack to where i saw something because when you look at the charts these are the second um semester that's not the second i'm sorry the the pie charts okay so is it go down please yeah go down to the pie charts so what the pie charts is basically looking at the students who are enrolled so let's look at semester one grade 11 students so out of the total students in the district who are enrolled in ap courses in grade 11 semester one broken down by race okay so this is the total number of students across the district who are enrolled 100 of the students who are enrolled in ap courses semester one broken down by race all right so for instance we have across the district semester one grade 11 there were
071238 students so this pie chart represents the 238 students who are enrolled in the who were enrolled in the 11th grade in ap courses broken down by race okay all right and is those those same students carry over into 12th grade too or not not necessarily no because we we run two there are two semesters in the high schools right you got semester one and semester two courses right so some courses are full year courses and some are uh some are distinctly just one semester courses okay all right and then if you move to the second slide this is again the students in semester one total students in 12th grade students who are enrolled in ap classes okay so looking at them as a whole 100 broken down by race all right so semester one
072you had across the district you had 137 students across the district who were enrolled in ap courses right so that's how it breaks down by race and if we move to the third slide the same thing but semester two and then the fourth slide is the senior class all right wow okay you know when you look at the top so again because i know that we wanted to see what it looked like right in terms of race right yes okay so that's what that looks like right overall district wider looks pretty good but we do have looks like we do got some trouble areas up in uh disaggregated data and uh let's see for instance the vma offer any bma yeah so are you talking which are you looking at semester one graded one grade
07311 semester one grade 11 they did not but if you look at semester two they did right and and looking at the percentages of our comprehensive high schools they trail our magnet schools significantly the highest um we got in uh comprehensive school is central and i'm pretty sure the component of the magnet school's in there as well so you're talking about the 84 the 21 percent poly percent rule we what semester you're looking at uh i'm looking at uh grade 11. grade 11 semester one is semester two uh semester one okay right so you had 20 uh 21 21 round it up to 22 of 11th graders who were enrolled in advanced placement courses right and 11th grade yeah and then you look at uh basic you got 8.4 harding you got 9.3 right but
074if you look at semester two for basic that percentage increased okay you had twenty percent students fifteen like three arrow okay and then you got a disc decrease in arrow but not buy or like t so how okay there's another piece of data i want to look at um male to female and um at bio what's the mess i'm sorry grade 11 so that's the one i'm sorry what are we looking at yeah actually it seems like in every every category except for [Music] well oh nothing that's not true and the most stark would be bio 33 females versus six males taking um what does this look like that's the end that one but if you go to that same school semester two you have 12 mils and 22 feet oh correct i'll keep looking
075at 12 grade 12 so mr holland i have a question too why we're looking at that um maybe we answered this we probably did and that i just went over my head um four i'm looking at the pie chart there's there's like literally uh the first the 11th grade and the 12th um the one ye well it doesn't matter which one okay um yeah i was wondering exactly what are the courses i remember you i believe you mentioned them before i believe or maybe not and so if you could just say what are they the ap courses that they are taking because i'm just curious to know what has their interests oh okay i would i don't have that segregated but it they range from ap english okay ap world history okay you know ap
076bio your your courses but at advanced okay the reason why i ask is because one thing that we were looking at um in our last couple meetings is what interests our students to even be enrolled in any ap courses and i just want to know like how we how can the district better support them okay um in these courses and if and if there is no more support then there isn't but i'm just curious to know um how they're doing and you know pretty much like what is the main course that everyone's signing up to do right right right right right and going back to what you mentioned about semester one and two on bio there's 33 females at six males in bio and semester one and semester two it's not as big of a
077gap but it's still 22 to 12 and it's almost double i can't speak to that piece you know because we don't have that that whole enrollment um but i think one of the things i so just correct me here but i think one of the things we want to know right in terms of the data is that our students are accessing right these advanced courses right do we have more students accessing ap courses and that's equitable to not right um [Music] yeah i understand your question but okay and then if you look at the chart if you look at the charts at the end it looks it looks like everything's equitable but when you get down into the granular data some of it is when you disaggregate to schools yeah there are good things there's
078so there's some perspectives there will be differences 3.7 hispanic grade 12. but i think i'm sorry to cut you but if you look for instance um so semester one if you look at basic and harden is it massive i think it was that's not semester one i'm sorry if you look at bma semester one put here 11 grade 11 i'm sorry right they offered no ap courses semester one but did i'm talking about um bma but by semester two they did offer their students the ap courses because obviously they're offering half year courses right which is fine they're ap courses you look at i'm sorry and only five students enrolled and great oh i'm sorry no i'm doing it i'm looking i'm sorry i'm looking at the grade 12 again uh okay so let me
07925 okay i apologize i was looking at very 12. yeah keep looking back and forth so there's 25 inquiry second semester are we offering enough courses for our students to take advantage of and stay in schools like um there so if you're if you're in the high schools you offer the courses students are invited to um to enroll in courses some students are recommended some students will request ap courses um it you get down to the point where even with support there are some students who will opt out right they will vote after all because they are extremely challenging courses all right when everything is done whether it's counselors um administrators whoever teaches to support the students it then becomes it's up to the student whether or not they're going to rise to that challenge
080but one of the things i can say is that you definitely have more students who are accessing these courses so there is not there are not gatekeepers saying oh no you can't take an ap course it's more like teacher recommendation student interest and so on and so on and how do we how do we gauge student interest um by their opting in into the process how how are the classes marketed to the how are they the children how are they marketed um presentations so obviously you start taking ap courses in your junior year so in your um in your sophomore year you are informed about these forces those notifications go to the parents apparently because parents are notified interested in saving money um you know counselors in most in most spaces do an extremely good
081job at informing students about their options because from the get-go where you know you're creating this college mindset you know so yeah i remember like being at hardin um i think it was my junior year i was recommended like i did um ap chemistry right like you know because i you know weird little that but i thought it was really good that the teacher even offered it they saw like my you know his experience it was you know offered i thought that was really good is this it seems like we just need a little do we have the same amount of offerings in our comprehensive high schools as we do in fairtail wheel and central magnet well it depends right because at fairchild for instance that's the 90s for instance you got the three distinct
082schools right at fairchild so they're focused so bma has a military focus right aerospace aero engineering focus it you know what i mean so um there's gonna the courses that they offer are gonna be more specialized even though they are gonna offer your your english your math those core courses which you need right um and then at the comprehensive high schools you're going to have more of an array of courses that are so they're more attract at one of the those schools they're more track specific yeah right based on the the focus the school's focus yeah i i think it would be helpful to have like a list of well and this is a list of all the courses in each school to make sure they're being adequately dispersed throughout the assistance so but can
083i ask this so um but with say for instance aero bma biotech and ip um so some of the courses that are going to be offered specif i would need to see them myself right but some of the courses that are going to be often specific to those schools are you saying you'd like to see those also across the other yes public schools and i'm wondering if it's uh if i t got one is is it specific to i.t or is people from bio could go in and take the it1 and vice versa oh why is the ap questions too that's oh you mean do they cross schools i don't know what they do it for your channel i know the regular courses no but uh as far as the ap i'm not sure and
084if we could get a breakdown by school just what courses are offered and i just want to make sure we've got equitable distribution equitable access so you request that yes of course and all all data when you talk to that it's like talking um any questions one more thing if we can um whenever we present just to have the demographics in the city just for easy reference just side by side this way you can see if the blue is smaller yellow is bigger or whatever i think uh erica oh nothing i just was going to say that i i felt that um the pie charts were um pretty representative of the the student body at large it's like a like a smaller sampling of the right districts so that's good um and then um i
085agree with mr zukulovic about seeing um just seeing the the ap courses by school and make sure that those um offerings are equitable um but other than that i feel that these numbers look pretty good okay overall thank you very much uh yeah i think that's it it takes a moment to adjourn yeah second paula hi hi hi hey you you