001[Applause] okay this is a call to order of the second regular meeting for february 2022 of the bridgeport board of education today's date is monday february 28th 2022 the times notice being 6 32 pm lumbar contacted me he won't be here tonight so i'm going to do the roll john weldon present bobby brown joseph lombard sybil allen here christine baptiste perez albert benahan president erica castillo president michael mcarone president okay get all right with 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 for all okay if you're not wearing a mask i need you to put a mask on master required in our buildings till at least march 30th okay um in
002memoriam antoinette carpenter uh mr sokolovic you brought this to my attention i don't know if you know more about her than i do but it's my understanding that she was a bridgeport public schools graduate went on to become a teacher and was an ap at central high school is there any other information that you're aware of mr testani focus carpenter was a dedicated bridgeport educator leader she also was the principal of the high school summer school program for many years prior to her retirement and again also the um aunt of miss diana soares of principal edwards for military academy so a moment of silence uh her respect for the passing of miss antoinette carpenter is in order okay so i'll ask for a moment of silence in uh memory of miss carpenter okay thank you
003as we customarily do somebody make a motion to lower flags to half staff for the balance of the week in memory of ms carpenter second moved by ms castillo second by ms allen all in favor any opposed okay next is student representative reports we have four five representatives here tonight um if you introduce yourselves i'll start with you on the end i can't hear you oh sorry my name is laila wilson i'm a senior at the biotechnology and zoological science school at their child wheeler today was the kickoff of our black history month skills day celebration um so this event was solely student planned and led we have been met over the course of about like two weeks and today was the first day like i said and it went really well um the day
004consisted of activities that were either created or inspired by black creators or thinkers um and it's overall like a good time um students had a great time we did a bunch of activities ranging from basketball to dance which i was in charge of which i had a great time doing um and bracelet making we made a beautiful poster which is going to be put up in our school hopefully afterwards we have student volunteers walking around taking pictures so we will have those put on the website or wherever they need to go or whatever um so it was just great and we are awesome excited for the next two days of celebration and just happy that we got the opportunity to do this in addition i have an accomplishment this year um our own miss crudel
005from bio was awarded the beard excellence award for the 2021 and 2022 academic year thank you okay thank you i'm latonya ferguson and i am the central high school student representative so what's going on at central now is that we're trying we're going to have an assembly tomorrow to really empathize that you know black history month doesn't end on february 28th but the history still goes on and this is still being made um and then for this upcoming march for women's history month we also have a lot of activities playing there and then for because the sats on the 23rd of march in our school we're really pushing um s.a.t prep and what we mean by this is not we're not just like telling the students to do sat prep what's happening is that we're
006actually being given time during classes to do sat prep which i find is really helpful yeah okay thank you um my name is elena khan i'm aerospace representative um so like leo said we just did the aerospace day for the black history month celebration which went really well um recently we also held a door decorating contest um that was thematic to black history um and i was there for like prospect like students and parents to see and on friday we will hold a basketball tournament which will be between teachers and students and basically children are paying to sign up their teams and then whichever team is winning they will get to donate the money to a charity of their choice so we're holding that this friday um but yeah that's what we've done okay thank
007you hi i'm avery fleckner at the infotech school we have a list of things we did um so going off the black history month we everybody got a program what's going on so explains that and then so we also have several accomplishments so to start we got the magnet school of america school distinct um our one of our favorite teachers mrs aquindo got the magnet school of america teacher of the year and then i myself won the 2022 national certificate of distinction of the ncwit award for aspirations and computing and then two teams from it competed in the math competition over the weekend and we're waiting on the my results is nyla from bridgeport military um some events that happened in the past month of february where the annual naval jr jrotc program inspection is
008taking place on friday march 4th sat tutoring is taking place in order to prepare the junior class for their big test next month bma second teacher student volleyball game is being planned for march the njrocc program will be attending a drill competition in new jersey next march okay thank you all right that concludes student representative reports are there any online excuse me do we have any student reps online oh yes okay i can't see you you're behind yes we do so go ahead i'm sherman elliott from harding high school and um this past thursday we had an assembly for black history month where students express themselves through art music um they had showcases and speeches um in honor of black history month uh where bobby brown actually made an appearance there thank you for her
009and we're doing a back out tomorrow to honor black history month and over the weekend we uh me and my classmates actually got a respondent response from that we were admitted where we're actually doing ece classes thank you okay thank you are there any others online it's hard for my ankles me ruth yes hi my name is ruth cruz and i'm from basic high school um a couple of the things that we did at bastic were we are celebrating black history month where we had an assembly where students represented represented black artists where they where there was a mix of monologues poems and music from the basic jazz club seniors have also done their fafsa where the inc rate has increased by 50 percent and students have begun to use my path for about 20
010to 25 minutes during third period that's all i had thank you any others uh yeah uh my name is michael hemmings i'm from i.t at highway um next month we have our sat march 27 in school and then um today tomorrow which is tuesday and wednesday we have a black history month uh activity set for the whole school uh today arrow participated in theirs tomorrow would be bio and wednesday would be i.t okay thank you is it one more what's schools have been represented okay all right before we continue i want to acknowledge that uh ms baptiste perez has joined the meeting next on the agenda is public comment four speakers the first of which is dasha's spell no that's not required can you hit the mic i don't think it was ever turned on
011can you hear me okay good evening my name is dasha aka good trouble spell i am here this evening on two pertinent issues that i have or concerns the first one is is that last wednesday and i just want to put this out there now the board of ed members superintendent testani city council members as well as the mayor was invited to a town hall meeting to discuss little liberia a little bit of history as well as basic high school and why people have concerns thank you miss castillo for coming out to the actual town hall meeting we had a great discussion and with that in mind okay i can't believe can i take this off real quick okay with that in mind i am asking that we put basic high school on the agenda
012moving forward until it's actually built and the doors are open because this needs to be an open discussion in regards to what's going on there are students and i love that we have a basket student online as well as stakeholders who are interested on the daily activities and actually want to see the school be built in a successful timely manner which is why we're also asking for the board to agree with the idea of having an environmental impact study so that we can ensure that the actual location which is the south end of bridgeport little liberia aka flood zone is not only appropriate but how does it impact what is going to happen as basic is being built and as resilient bridgeport is working on addressing the flooding my second concern and issue is is
013that as a parent whether it's one ten a hundred a thousand a million when a parent comes to this podium and has concerns and issues it's important that you not only hear me but actually follow up with me i act specifically in december after the organizational meeting two pertinent items be put on a facilities list for discussion area the first one being in regards to what is the protocol what is the steps when it comes to active shooter and bomb threats because at that particular time we were having it throughout the state and fyi i know for a fact one of the charter schools in bridgeport did have an active shooter threat and had to be shut down so these issues and concerns i'm not coming to you with just problems i'm coming with solutions
014i want to work with y'all the last concern issue i have is the board of ed budget i know y'all already voted on it 8.5 million but i've been at these meetings for the past 10 plus years and a lot of y'all do know that i know for a fact every year that y'all have put in a budget it's 10 million or more we only get funded 2 million if you do for example and students help me out the math 10 million times seven what do you get 70 million we have not gotten 70 million from the city of bridgeport this year's an election next year is an election students if you are 17 and a half you can vote this year you can vote next year we need money in the school system because
015realistically i'm asking city council to give us 2 million because our kids deserve it and they have every right to have the current services they have as well as services reinstated so i'm asking you to help me help you we have to work together it is 2022 we are coming out of covet yes i do not agree with some of the decisions that are made but as a parent i do not sit here and take anything likely my child is in the school district she's a middle schooler she's about to be a high schooler right now my concern is is that when she gets to high school what is that gonna look like if we don't get the money so i'm asking this board that we come out together these meetings are important sort of
016city council meetings they're starting to budget hearings we can come together and we can do this all y'all that were elected guess what you have a following those people who sign the petitions those people that support you you need to have them coming out to these meetings so that they can be heard thank you and have a good evening thank you joanne kennedy good evening i'm just coming in reference to um the town hall meeting that they had i did attend it was very good it was very informative they all went even went all the way back to 1800s when someone wrote um a letter to the newspaper or to someone in reference to the flood zone it's a fema has its flood zone and the town hall meeting was very good the all the
017information that we got was very detailed the details do make the difference and people need to pay attention to that yes we want the school built but we wanted it to be built as safely as possible for our students we don't want them to be in danger just like you wouldn't want to be in danger of a flood zone you should really think about it rethink it things can always change the weather is changing as we know um with the climate change so on and so forth and we will be having more flooding um so i am all for them doing their due diligence before they build the school in that flood zone and it's not recommended on the state level um federal level that you do that build a school if that's the last
018place that's your only resort that's the last resort and then you should still keep looking to find something better for the students because they deserve it the other issue i was coming up here to speak about was um the bathrooms that come to my attention through two parents and a student one at harding how the bathrooms were closed and locked she had a the student had a experience where she was she had to go to the ladies room but pretty much all day she couldn't get there for timing or whatever doors lock whatever the situation may have been another term a parent told me they had that same situation happen at fairchild wheeler um they are gonna both of them have to work today so they could not come to this meeting um but i
019do try planning on getting them to write a letter and send that to you so that needs to be also addressed and i spoke to mrs sakalovic about it so thank you guys have a good one thank you gladys walker jones good evening first of all i want to commend the actions of the board of ed during the meeting on 13th and for starters i want you to know that i'm acting on behalf of the greater bridgeport um end of naacp as i am the education chair so again i want to commend the actions of the board of dead on february 15th when you voted to extend the mass mandate in all bridgeport public schools until march 31st it is my um expectation that in addition to the current um standing committees that you have
020that you will at minimum have an ad hoc committee for health and safety not only addressing the safety of our scholars but also addressing the safety of our staff it is also the expectation that this mass mandate will not just be looking at the trends which is stated in the letter that was sent out to parents on february 16th the date of february 16 but that you'll be looking at the science so again the last time that um the board of ed had a health committee where an acting health professional was on this on the committee was back in 2013 that's just unacceptable so please reinstate a proper health committee that's going to address the health and safety needs of not only our scholars but our staff so not only um specific to the mass
021mandate but overall safety whether it's an injured worker who needs reasonable accommodations in order to continue to do what it is that they are passionate about so again um please reinstate a health committee thank you julie mar ortiz good evening everyone my name is julie mar ortiz i'm a proud basic alumni um class of 2011 we're actually having an 11 year reunion this year so i send you greetings on their behalf but i'm actually here just as a community member as someone who's very concerned about the environmental crisis and that we're facing in bridgeport and just across the globe and how that pertains to the building of basic high school in the south end uh the basic community from the west side to the south end all the way up to the hollow and pt
022where i currently work always gets the short end of the stick when it comes to resources and attentions and policies from this board and as we move forward in the process of building a much needed school for our community i do fear that the voices of our parents and students and members of the community are being outweighed by various political entities who seem to have already made up their minds so my questions for this board is have you considered both the environmental and historical impacts of the basic building to little libraria and the south end's coastal resiliency plan which residents in that community have been working on for years now to address flooding have you engaged and informed teachers as well as parents and staff in this process and students and if not is there
023a plan to as you move forward with approving these plans will it cost our education budget in the long run to build a school in an area that may need additional maintenance due to its proximity to the ocean and finally have you been properly briefed on how the basket project has been pushed through the state approval because it was unique and if you have i'm sure you would have more questions and concerns than what's previous uh currently being highlighted in the public conversation so i appreciate your time i hope you'll make a sincere efforts to ensure that this project is supported uh by the community and supportive of the community thank you thank you that concludes public comment next on the agenda is approval of board minutes first one being february 15th 2022 special meeting
024is there a motion to approve numeral second move by mr benahan second bomb is alan are there any discussion or edits to be made all in favor aye opposed any opposed any abstentions february 15 2022 regular public meeting is there a motion to approve some move second moved by mr bennehan second by ms allen is there any discussion or edits to be made i have a discussion for them between the chair you do have two yes it's page 14 when i was talking about mr sunny when i when i said um he had you know the staff he and you know he believed in the stats here for him i remember when i say i want you mr tostani be for the staff too so i don't see that in the in the records i
025want to be sure that being the record is that it yeah that's it okay um is there a motion to amend the motion to include the edits as noted by mr benahant moved by ms baptist perez seconded by mr sakalovic all in favor of the amendment i any abstentions all in favor on the main motion as amended all right okay are you opposed okay motion carries for the chairman's report i actually uh let's talk a little bit about basic it's been a point of um interest over the past week so i'm just going to clarify some things the state office of school construction grants and review the scgr approved moving forward with construction of the new basic high school in the summer of 2021 based on a design submitted that places the school 18 feet
026above grade and is well above the 500 year flood plan as part of the scgr's review of the site the city provided environmental site assessments phases one and two these assessments found no material on the site that required remediation therefore a full environmental impact evaluation or an environmental impact study was not required as part of this process the state department of energy and environmental protection determined that the project is consistent with all applicable standards and criteria established under state statute and inclusive of the regulations on connecticut state agencies to further clarify there is no issue regarding stormwater runoff as the design does not increase the amount of impervious material from which is currently on the site in addition concerning sewer runoff the basic project is designed to tie into a wpca project which addresses this
027very issue the basic project is also designed to tie into the resilient bridgeport project whenever that project comes online for construction there has also been some media coverage about demolition contracting across the state related to school projects the city of bridgeport's school construction office utilized this same contract which had four contractors on it what is problematic in other areas of the state is allegations that certain state level staff members directed school employees to select very specific demolition contractors that's a problem and that's being addressed elsewhere however with respect to this project the city's school construction office went to all four companies on that list all were invited to bid only two decided to bid and they actually went with the higher of the two bidders because the lowest bidder was so low it became questionable
028whether they really understood the work that needed to be done and what is left out of this conversation is the fact that before any of this happens an engineer's estimate is developed and the estimate to do this work was nine million dollars i'm using round numbers the highest bidder was eight million which is close to the estimate the lowest bidder was five million which is you know almost half of the estimate and when you have a number that low you really have to question whether they understand the work that is going to be done or not the construction office engaged the lowest bidder to try to clarify what's your understanding of this work and they repeatedly came back with incomplete information and so the school construction office went with the highest bidder with the um
029with the feeling that that was the bitter that truly understood the work that needed to be done it was below the estimate but it was also closest to it so i just wanted to put those things out there because you know these kinds of things get sensationalized and good people can be made to look bad when they were just doing their job so i just wanted to put that all out there that concludes my report [Music] next on the agenda is going to be committee reports and referrals mr chair may i ask a question about your report christine um so i'm pleased to hear that that the basic project is willing to coordinate efforts with resilient bridgeport once resilient bridgeport sort of gets underway i guess my my one question is and i'm not sure
030if you're the right person to ask but if you do have any background knowledge on this particular issue do you know if there have been any efforts either made by the city or by the state to collaborate or coordinate with brazilian bridgeport in the past yes yes and can you detail some of those efforts for the public familiar we were involved with several meetings with deputy commissioner hanks and uh coordinating where the project was bridgeport resilient project and how we would be able to co-exist at that particular time they were in 60 of the design phase after a little over six years i believe of planning um which became a little bit concerning to our end that this would kick that out much further as you know basic high school the old building as we
031referred to it for those of us that have worked or attended vasek high school was built in 1929 the new building 1969 it is in significant need of repair and obviously replacement so um those discussions then evolved working with the architects and engineers on how the project can be built and then the resilient project would be able to tie in um and that's where where we're at today where that project now can move forward once the resilient project is underway it will tie in beautifully with the finished product of basic high school and the projects will then coexist from that point on okay good that was a concern of mine and i've um i did attend the meeting last week and um the information was sort of presented in a way of conflict that those
032two plans would not be cohesive with one another so i guess my my um i just wanted to ensure that there's been a level of due diligence in the past of making sure that those two projects will coexist successfully i do think there has been several incidents in the past of there being flooding in the south side that's not a secret necessarily to anyone and i do think for for the integrity of the buildings that we take into consideration that that area historically has flooded a number of times and i feel that the the basic plan does address that i should hope that and going forward in the future should resilient bridgeport continue their plans that the two will uh complement each other thank you final the final approval on basic was not going to
033be made unless a deep signed off and a number of other agencies so that all had to occur prior to any sort of shovel in the ground so to speak and again as mr weldon mentioned they have designed the building to raise the elevation of the property 18 feet to protect the building and all its surroundings from any flooding possibilities and do we know more or less when the the building is going to begin for basic well they'll they're finalizing contracts and it'll go out to bid sometime this month they're estimating um today the first of the top floors of bodine hall were beginning to be taken down um so it you know another component to this is it's not like this is uh what you know you would call in construction virgin land there
034are buildings that have been there for many years that are being removed and the issues that had occurred because of those construction projects can now be alleviated with the changing of the elevation of the of the property to fit the new building so we did engage in a public forum as well several months ago with those community members there was some slight questions raised and concerns about flooding but a lot of the conversation was directed in other areas that did not include um environmental concerns that was troubling to those of us that participate and that's just being fully open and honest if we want to have that conversation more than willing to elaborate further but there was disparaging remarks made by the student body at basic high school by certain individuals that participated from the
035community that um were very offensive to me and those that were on the on the call okay thank you yeah i'm glad you brought all this information out i think um we as a board and as a city would be more better served to put things out in the open and are we planning anytime soon to have a community forum to say where we are in a basket new designs and such like that here's we need to understand that this is not our project this is a city project we can convey that to the city who's building it and if they feel that it's worthwhile to do something like that they will but they have already done that repeatedly so i don't know what level of interest they'll have but i can convey it if
036you'd like yeah you can bring it up they want the school building committee yeah that's fine okay anything else all right committee reports and referrals ad hoc district-wide branding initiative ms brown is not here but i was there so i'll just kind of paraphrase they've engaged uh blackboard who is working on our website provide some branding assistance to the district to be able to help them help us develop what some call a branding guide or a style guide that would be based on input that the district gives them um there was a presentation about billboard advertising over by brewport is it i believe route 25 and that was it i don't know off top of my head when the next meeting is but are there any referrals for the branding committee okay contracts committee met
037on february 16th and they produced the four new business items we have below so we'll address those later in the meeting are there any referrals for contracts educational diversity equity and inclusion mrs kolovic yes good evening everybody um yes we met on february 22nd and the president was bringing to a generation now who uh offered us free anti-racism training which the committee thought overwhelmingly would be a good idea for us to attend mr testani will be taking care of the details and finding location and other details to work out and it will be on april 1st 2nd and 3rd and we looked at uh some data from the paraprofessionals there's still there's still a wide disparity there's a wide disparity there uh latino representation not as wide as there is in the teaching profession but
038in the paraprofessionals at 28 whereas our student body is about 51 percent 52 latino hispanic population and that's something that we looked at we also looked at the educational achievement of the paraprofessionals because that would be a good place to um a good source of getting new teachers and stuff like that possibly and if they have the educational capabilities to move quicker that would be a quicker way of moving stuff with something that needs to be explored a little further and finally we discussed the district-wide diversity celebration which we don't know what it looks like yet but we just have a feeling that we need to find something positive at the end because this committee's going to be touching on tough subjects all the time and it's going to be looking at stuff with a
039critical eye and i think at some point we should look at stuff with our positive eye and our next meeting will be on march 21st 2022 central library at 6 30 p.m any referrals okay facilities committee is going to meet tomorrow at 6 30 central high school library items to be discussed will be a report on the heating system at columbus school a presentation of the stewardship report which is a report outlining our portfolio of buildings and such a request for authorization to expand funds for the curiale school and nutrition center roof replacement projects um in the next meeting we'll discuss mr benehan's item related to hall and edison and uh the issue relating to security but these were some more pressing items that need to get out of the way first are there any
040referrals for facilities uh yes mr chair i'd like to refer to the issue um can they be brought up in public speaking student use of bathrooms or bathrooms should never be closed i don't know if they are now i've got something mr that's not gonna the workout beforehand i'll be happy because our students shouldn't have to do we really need to have like a full committee discussion on the bathroom or do you just want him to find out what that happened i can't speak to them okay awesome so there are open bathrooms there's not universally la uh open bathrooms throughout all the high school buildings as a result of a lot of the vandalism that has been occurring across the district at an alarming rate early on in this in the year um the some
041of it attributed to tick tock and other challenges that have been um taken far beyond and where it should have been the facilities department is replacing soap dispensers and uh paper towel dispensers at an alarming rate where they cannot keep up as fast as they're putting them up they were getting ripped down having strategically placed lot unlocked bathrooms that could be monitored more closely by security and um who's entering in in and out by um surveillance cameras has made it a lot less of an issue since that's occurred if you like all the bathrooms unlocked i can order them to be all unlocked uh tomorrow morning um but we're not talking about you know five and six-year-olds that these are young adults that they know when they need to use the restroom and we'll be
042able to walk a little bit farther to get to an open bathroom be able to utilize it right i've seen in my own experiences the similar issues not that it being unlocked but there's certain times to go to the bathroom like kids are supposed to train their bladders to go at certain times and i think it might merit a discussion on a committee level on how we make these decisions because we've got every single bathroom closed and maybe it's probably five to ten percent yeah i'm just making numbers up out of the air of children that are vandalizing it ninety percent really gotta walk across the whole building to go to the bathroom and that's totally unfair so i think we need some sort of report on the vandalism and the stuff that's taking place
043and why these buildings are not being managed to the effect where these things don't take place instead of putting the onus on the children to have to go miles to the bathroom i think that's something maybe we could hear from uh student reps about i think they might have something to say about that [Music] um a lot of the bathrooms are locked as well we have to walk all the way down the cafeteria so it's a little annoying i mean yeah we normally have to use the bathroom so like i thought the video but it is irritating but that's all yeah i agree with layla it's kind of annoying because especially because we have the cafeteria bathrooms open and then in it we have the first floor bathrooms open so it's kind of annoying if
044you're on the top floor and you have to go all the way downstairs but then you're worried about missing something important in class because you have to make the walk all the way downstairs i mean it's not important but like it's not it's nice to have a bathroom the floor you're on so you don't miss important things in class can i ask is there an end date for for how long this this practice is going to be exercised or i mean because you mentioned it was at the beginning well it was it was they've we talked about this at one at one of the other high schools earlier the bathrooms were open it became problematic again the other thing that a couple of the other high school principals had mentioned that um there was congregation
045in the bathrooms to the point where students that needed to go use the bathroom couldn't go and get into a a bathroom stall to use it because of all the number of folks that were hanging out in the bathroom so they would not be visible if they were missing class so that was a complaint from students to the principal that when they went to the bathroom we couldn't get an opportunity to use it because of the amount of unfortunately it was happening in the young ladies bathrooms at certain schools so they couldn't get into the the stall to be able to use the bathroom as well so we've been balancing a lot of this and we don't have a large number of female security officers to go in and clean up clear out the bathrooms
046when they're congregating in there for 20 30 40 minutes this is just the the reality of it it's not that it's just the question we're going to give you the answers right now yeah on the security issue in the congregation in the bathrooms if these children are congregating in the bathroom it's either between classes or drawings how are all these children allowed to walk out of classrooms well they'll dip in there before as classes are passing and then they'll stay in okay and then how is the lateness or the absence of the class handled and allowed to continue i i mean our parents are parents being called saying your child hasn't been to their superiors they're starting to be enough back and forth on this which is why i wanted to refer to facilities for
047the committee okay it's not just a simple answer to a question anymore now i'm starting to have a few questions myself because buildings are designed with certain restroom facilities located where they are so that because that's the building code and then we're violating that by just locking the bathroom to resolve another problem and i understand but i think we need to find out a root solution a solution to the root problem instead of just locking it all up you can put it on the facilities meeting agenda and i will have the high school principles present to discuss yeah they're specific so they can address you more to their personal experiences and maybe come up with some solutions that they may may have not thought of fair enough finance committee yes the finance committee met on
048february 23rd at central high school we had the usual discussions about essa funding balance and we had handled um mr bennett had asked for a report on the charter school expenditures which amounted to about 3.48 million dollars per year that comes from the bridgeport budget bridge for board of education budget before it hits the rest of the students and the next meeting will be on march 9th 2022 central high school at either 6 or 6 30 p.m depending on the availability of my committee on fellow committee members any referrals for finance okay governance will be meeting on march 7th 2022 we will pick up our discussions regarding public comment and the high school magnet policy any further referrals okay personnel personnel had a meeting scheduled to interview for the position of executive director of specialized
049instruction one of the two candidates dropped out so it was kind of pointless to interview just one person so it was cancelled and um i don't know how that position has evolved to this point have you interviewed the party no later this week okay students and families southern family will be on march 3rd 2022 at six o'clock on central high school's uh any referrals uh yes mr g i'd like to uh refer i don't know if you got time to get it on this one kind of report the data but um i like student suspension and school climate data they've broken down by categories like how many fights assaults whatever have you find out what's going on in the schools because apparently there's a lot of things going on did not meet in the interim
050our meeting got bumped by the regular board meeting having to be rescheduled and there wasn't too many items so we will be meeting march 16th at 6 00 p.m thank you referrals okay superintendent's report thank you uh just a couple of items of before we do some recognitions uh bridgeport public schools received 506 cases of il test kits today so this is in relation to prior to going um and changing any masking in the district so we do have enough test kits that we received um today to be able to follow the guidelines and send every student and every staff member home with two test kits prior to any changes to the masking requirement um on that note we are also um trending into an all-time low in bridgeport uh going back to when we
051opened the school year in terms of positivity rate there was 22 new cases including the weekend that were reported in bridgeport as a city as a whole and uh one in bridgeport public schools so liberations program inc has begun uh to make presentations to our grade seven and eight students to raise awareness on the dangers of illicit drugs including fentanyl this was something that uh engaged with our police department after the tragic events that happened in the hartford public schools they also offered a presentation virtually for parents last week it was advertised throughout the district wasn't as well attended as we thought it would be um so we are reaching out and if individual schools would like um a evening where either virtual or in person uh liberations will come out and do a presentation
052for uh school parents at their school march 11th is national sel day all bridgeport public schools will be participating in a variety of activities across the district and then we have some shout outs congratulations to our own avery fleckner who was recognized as 2022 national certificate of distinct distinction recipient of the ncwit award for aspirations and computing she's being recognized for her computing related aspirations and demonstrating outstanding aptitude and interest in stem especially information technology and computing she will be recognized at an online virtual celebration on april 6th so please share that with us avery jump the gun out um congratulations to all the students at park city magnet who were the first recipients of the park city magnet school's new heart award for showing honesty effort attitude respect and teamwork every day as role
053models for their fellow students they receive certificates with their new panda logo and a kindness bracelet so very proud of the park city pandas hardy high school held a breakfast with brown event to celebrate 437 students who achieved first honors second honors and or perfect attendance during the first semester students were greeted in the cafeteria by the harding drumline they had breakfast received certificates and bumper stickers acknowledging their achievements so congratulations to 437 students at harding who had breakfast with brown or mr brown but they call it breakfast brown um like to recognize john winthrop seventh grader jayden pinkney for receiving first place in the martin luther king jr fairfield university connecticut post essay contest also uh natalia marquez for receiving third place and eighth grader wayne lewis jr jr for receiving honorable mention they
054were received uh recognized by fairfield university and they had their they haven't yet uh their essays published in the connecticut public huge event held last week february 23rd and 24th uh kudos to mr hermineo planus and the math department hosted the first annual mathematics winter olympics this event was made available to all fifth and sixth grade students throughout the district 53 classrooms participated in the virtual event which included over 1500 students the winners of this year's competition were grade five first place miss wyman's class multicultural magnet second place mr velucci's class read school third place miss joseph's class cleator school congratulations the fifth grade winners grade six first place mr howery's class tisdale school second place mr nichols school nicholas's school excuse me winthrop school third place mr snow's class at winthrop school the perennial
055math company hosted the event the cost was covered by funds from this year's mathematics movement partnership grant and our department will hold similar middle schools events um but this was the first time they allowed the entire class to partake in a math event the award ceremony was held virtually through faith facebook and youtube live on february 24th at 6pm uh big shout out to basic high school students who celebrated black history month with student performances and performances and presentations last week um their jazz ensemble and jazz band and student vocalist performed presentations and poems were provided by the theater group and a ptso event closed out with a dinner to celebrate that evening so um as you may have all received the bridgeport islanders hockey team is hosting a teacher appreciation night april 3rd where
056each teacher administrator and support staff can receive one free ticket to the game and they're able to purchase an additional discounted ticket for family and friends i want to show their appreciation for how much schools have endured over the past two years and honor every teacher and staff member and they will all be entered in to win a teacher prize pack and lastly the new york yankees again would like to honor bridgeport public school educators and staff they have a number of teacher appreciation dates um for severely discounted tickets to see the new york yankees at yankee stadium also hot dog uh i believe chips and a drink uh they will also host as part of that many beginning in may and all the way through july so we're stepping up to appreciate what our
057educators and staff have done over the last two years that is the superintendent's report very nice any questions yes so in the last meeting we discussed um forming a committee to make a recommendation regarding the mask mandate that has equitable representation so i just kind of wanted to ask um where you're at with that do you have an update what is it looking like yeah i we had some discussions uh myself with some folks including our health director um the idea of a committee as she clearly stated and was pretty obvious depending on the makeup of the committee that will drive the decision of the committee um so what we're going to do myself and why is that early the director of nursing's supervisor for the district in conjunction with the health department are going
058to put out a parent survey so that we can gather some information from parents and then also look a little bit more closely at the data the next couple of weeks will give us an indication of how other districts across the state are faring but as you can see it's not only in connecticut all surrounding states are starting to follow suit um i can't share that um caps did a survey of districts uh statewide and out of the uh responses i believe 124. today went mass optional um it was a few districts that were undecided at the time stanford has made i believe march 15th their day to um make it mask optional and i believe the same has been made with norwalk i'm not sure completely sure on norwalk but um so we are
059gathering the data i think what we were encouraged by uh the health department is to really um make sure that the messaging is is accurate and informative to families moving forward whenever the decision is made um and that this there's no real um set in stone that if there are dangers that seem to be presenting themselves in a particular classroom a particular neighborhood or a particular school that we may have to pivot in those specific areas for a short time to prevent any further spread if we start to see that so i think these are some of the things that we need to discuss more so than making a decision because that's obvious that the decision will be indicative of the committee and if we split the committee we're going to just be at a
060standstill so we have a lot of information being provided by the department of public health and we'll do continue to work with them closely and we'll continue to follow the guidance that's been released by the cdc which has now provided us with some more framework over the last uh two weeks since our meeting right um is there any plan to include um faculty and staff in the survey so the the next question we're meeting we meet frequently the bea and myself the leadership and ana batista is here we'll be asking the teachers union to survey their own folks to get feedback from them um and so that was and we'll be doing the parents thank you one of them is i don't exactly the name how to tell you the person but we can oh
061i don't know years back i found out that we have somebody in hardcore that will fight for us especially when it's about budget when i was about money i know different towns the lobbyists yes thank you that's the question and then sometimes be us going sometimes quite crazy because the budget had somebody for us there and then bringing to you information what we can do though we can have somebody like that so well the city does have a lobbyist i have spoken with him um with our delegation um but the lobbyist is there to advocate for the priorities that have been set education is one of those priorities there are several things that are occurring at the state level i had some meeting last week that sounded encouraging at the you know from a member
062of our delegation on where we could be that could possibly not only solve our budgetary needs for the short term but also for the long term so i i think that there is a an appetite at the state level especially given the fact that it is an election year for governor to make sure that cities like bridgeport receive their fair share in comparison to other districts like hartford so but to wait and see right now there's a lot happening but okay and my second question is how we can have our homeschool connectors back why i ask you the question because look at all the hiring we have here we got a lot of special pyra we got a lot of assistant coaches i know for the season and stuff like that i know we can
063have a spit you know how homeschooling they're back and you know they are great people they do a lot of things especially with the parent and student staff so i don't know how we can do it or we can bring it to another agenda we can bring it to the committee financial you know stuff like that i just want to know how we can bring this amazing home supernature back what is the next step what we can we can try to do there there really are no next steps i mean depending on how much money is provided to the district um a spending plan will obviously be in place and we'll if there's any additional money to bring back staff that have been lost in the past we need to prioritize prioritize what that will
064look like but um i believe we can try to do something maybe bringing into an agenda on the finances because right now you have a person here managing budget you know 125 000 so i know we can we can try to do something to have these ladies and gentlemen's back so i just want to bring that to you to attention for the record now one more question in my comments mr chair of it uh i want to circle back to the committee this boy took a unanimous vote at the last meeting to have a committee i understand there'll be people on both sides as there is in the board um assuming one board member will be on one side one more member will be on the other side and going back and forth if we
065don't send this to committee as the board has already voted first of all we would have to have a vote to not send it to committee because there's already a vote affirmatively and if we don't we're just going to have this conversation again but it might be three or four on one side three or four on the other side if the committee vets it out first come up with the metrics have all these arguments outside the public eye and come to some sort of understanding between the people and compromises that everything we're having i think we need to gather the the survey data first i think i think we're on a very tight time frame we've got 30 days yeah i think how long is it going to take for the data to get out
066no please let me finish the chair i think what it's going to be time to take form the committee we're going to find the members we got to put them together we got to schedule meetings around people's schedules this is a 30-day turnaround just about 28-day turnaround at this point and i think we need to be in place have some preliminary discussions before we get the data well we can always extend the mandate beyond march 31st if we're not quite where we're at so the time is it's not a hard pressed if if we haven't gotten here so we will be forming the command yes i think what mr tastani was saying is that he didn't want to just form a committee and have them just start having at it without some information for them
067to actually talk about vis-a-vis the surveys from the union and the parents as well as statistical data so i didn't take that to mean he wasn't going to do it but he had to do some other stuff first absolutely forgive me if i misunderstood but i do not believe in things going on instead of having miscommunication so it's out there okay okay get it done can i can i also add that um mr tassani i felt that your recommendation was inclusive well that was one of my concerns in our last meeting i was concerned that there wasn't going to be equitable representation from both sides i like the idea of serving all parents you know there's obviously going to be some parents who may not respond but at least they are provided the opportunity to
068same thing with our faculty and staff i think it's extremely important that they weigh in also because they're going to be essentially closest to our students when we make this change and um and the same goes for them so it's an inclusive approach i think it was a considered decision so i appreciate that and i do just to mention it's not as if when masks do are allowed to come off that you don't have to take them off either you know i mean i will get garner some information from the surrounding towns on friday when we meet to see you know what the participation in the removal of the masks are as well in these optional places because you know they've been optional in public settings in many towns and now in bridgeport for some
069time and when you go places you walk into a store you walk into a business some people wear them some people don't so i mean it's not as if you're saying that if we remove them you have to take your mask offline so that is always an option for everyone okay you have something to say mr macaron no no i just said i disagreed with um okay all right so old business not to be transacted new business first one is discussion possible action to award contract to install new weight room equipment at central high school yes so um i did have a point person that on this project was mr dave catalina assistant principal from a football coach he has an expertise in this area so he did have a company come in and do
070a schematic of what we were looking for based on that it we did put the rfp out we had um several views of it we had three um companies bid and this is the low bid for the exact specifications of we were looking for um it's actually two rooms it's the main weight room and then the auxiliary weight room that is currently just like a storage area so this will provide student athletes and all students access in their pe classes to new equipment if you've been into the weight room or fitness room whatever you want to call it at central currently we have not only dated but it's donated and dated from other districts broken equipment that doesn't work there are no cardio machines that are operable so this company will come in and set
071up all the new equipment and dispose of all the uh current broke and dilapidated equipment that what prices [Applause] so this the final price is approximately 24 000 dollars i played did you hear it mr macarthur mr macaroni yes harding high school it was all done um in the building of the new uh harding high school said they are already um have new equipment and the basic will be included in the basic project unfortunately uh during the uh renovate as new of central high school because of some over significant overages that were discovered with removal of pcbs and other things one of the items that was removed from the project was this uh component of it um as well as if we can find funding at some point the uh the gym floor which is
072also in uh a necessary need of repair but this is step one any other questions yeah just a quick one uh this one to the lowest bidder yes thank you yes you said that the total question who constructed central high school and who was the demolition contractor so there were it was a renovator's new the original construction manager was morganthe when the funds ran out they were gone bismarck construction then stepped in and completed the job with whatever budget was left and the remediation and was done by uh smi out of rhode island i believe yes and what year was that was completed he's not like 18. four years ago i believe final completion it began several years before that because it was done in phases while students and staff were operating in the building
073right and it wasn't the same emergency contracts that was used for no no the demo was just it was really abatement um more than anything else and it was smi out of out of rotation okay and so the change order costs is what kind of delayed yeah so when they were removing certain uh exterior and the pcbs were not visible so when they became exposed uh that's when the change orders needed to occur in order to complete the project so you know at face value you're not gonna be able and testing but you know the bid just it wasn't in line with what they actually found later on thank you it's just to you um the i i missed the number it was a hundred and 324 000 okay and is there budget for this
074excuse me is there budget for this yes this is part of our our our federal monies okay it's expanding so that kids can have more activity yes okay great anyone else we now have a quorum again so now we can oh no mr macaron was behind us so we had one okay all right so is there a motion and what's the name of this company i think it's total fitness yet total fitness so is there a motion to award this project to total fitness go move moved by ms baptiste perez and second by ms allen all in favor any opposed any abstentions okay next is discussion with possible discussion and possible approval to award contract for athletic training services just stop mr detton is here denton's here he kind of spearheaded this good evening my
075name is james denton we started this process for the athletic trainers in the summer with the development of the rfp which went out to bed once we secured the winning bid it went to the city attorney and the vendor's attorney and the final contract was developed it went through the contract committee meetings and we're here tonight looking for you know the final approval it is a three-year contract 130 000 a year to supply three athletic trainers one at each high school harding basic and and i understand it there's some ancillary services with this as well for folks who get injured that is not i mean part of the process the the injuries go to a doctor but that is not in the contract i thought there was some component where they provide therapy or well
076injured student athletes are referred to a medical doctor for treatment but that is not outlined in the contract well because there is a relationship between the winning vendor and a local doctor's office that they use but that is you know they're that's not spelled out in the contract that it's you know part of the deal i was led to believe that why we were outsourcing this as opposed to hiring individual people was that they as part of their service they brought something that we could not accommodate ourselves well if if we didn't hire the um individuals through this contract we would have to hire three full-time employees and it's these these positions are you know part-time they they fill the the needs of each high school and they work in correlation with the medical doctor
077i think that's the component we're talking about that if we were to hire an individual they would not be able to provide that kind of service through a medical professional yes there is a relationship between the vendor and local medical uh doctors all right any questions any of you saw this at the contracts meeting okay is there and what's the name of this firm select physical therapy select physical therapy they have provided our athletic trainers for several years okay they are at 130 000 a year correct okay so is there a motion to approve awarding this contract some will move by mr benahan is there a second okay there any further discussion or questions all in favor are you opposed i would like to abstain ms allen will abstain any any opposed okay thank you
078all right discussion possible action to approve issuance of an rfp for special education auditing review services this is your yes so it's been uh eight years this month since the last uh review of our special education department service delivery has been done um and we'd like to take a look and put this out for bid to get an outside lens to come in and assess um through their their process from from ball indications it would take anywhere from six to eight months to do an accurate assessment and a report back and that'll be the baseline for any planning and to address some of the needs that we can do a better job in providing service to students across the district okay any questions about this i have a question is baptised is it for all
079students receiving special education funded through the school district well they'll do an assessment of the services we provide to the students um our staffing levels and so they'll they'll assess and provide us with a road map you know the things we do well the things we can improve upon uh at first glance we do see that there are issues that we can probably be more efficient uh we just want to also see how how much better we can be more effective as well yeah let me clarify the question um when i say all students that the district funds does that include charter schools well they're they're that's going to be a difficult component i mean we can engage them in that conversation but we don't really have any control over we wear a seat at
080the table at the ppt meetings that are conducted at charter schools but the team makes the final decision on whether students qualify and what they what services they will be rendered so uh we're hopeful that through discussions looking at the ieps that were that they'll be able to do an assessment of those children as well in those services i have a question we recently discussed i believe it was at a teaching and learning committee a software that we were going to be adopting sometime over the summer that was going to sort of um standardize the data the way that we collect data for ieps well that's statewide everyone's going over to that it's it's nothing that we don't have now it's now that all all our ieps are on one pla on our own platform
081yep uh the state is requiring we're all on the same platform every district so that they'll be able to look and um there'll be better oversight of how the ieps are written right um but the review will look at now only how they're written the recommendations that are provided our staffing how we're allocating staff how we're utilizing staff so this is more i mean this is what the state is doing what we talked about in the teaching and learning is just a platform to upload the ieps it doesn't look at whether we're doing them effectively or what we're doing that we're implementing them efficiently it's just a platform that we're in compliance with okay so when would this be scheduled if approved when would this be scheduled to roll out um whenever we would be
082able to make the final award that company then would then have to based on what what month it is um get in here and then they'll start their process whatever that would be so that's going to be focus groups talking to parents talking to teachers talking to administrators looking at ieps you know i'm sure it's you know like i said six to eight months to come up with a final product or a report that's from just talking with certain groups that have done this okay thank you i have a question mr mccarron yeah uh my question is um we already have an issue with funding special education correct am i right well it's an escalating cost that we continue to encounter that's exactly right so this particular company a firm is going to help us
083do what with with the lack of funding that we have how are they going to improve our special education delivery to our students they will assess how we deliver the the services and how we staff it so they will make recommendations on how we can improve upon maybe that we're spending more money than we need to be spending and what areas we can we can do better in and what areas that we we do well and we can and you know this is this is like i said over eight years there's been a lot of uh inconsistency in in in leadership so things have have gone in different directions based on staffing based on schools so we really want to take a better look at this and we don't have the capacity to do that
084in-house that's you was that awful you finished mr macaroni yeah i'm good follow it back um yes mackerel brings a point about finances which brings up a question i didn't even think of to ask the last statuses around we're not only going to look at uh over identification and ways to save money we're going to be also looking at if we under identify any students that aren't going to have receiving services correct this is not just uh well this is not about saving money we may not save a penny through their recommendations but we may be able to deliver services more effectively to students i don't know what the report is going to find but that's why we need to do this periodically to make sure that we are doing the best for the kids
085that we serve um i mean to say we're under i don't i don't know how they would be able to measure for under identifying um students that have not been assessed because because we always we always talk about how much money of course and stuff like that we always got to keep first and foremost in our minds these are students with the needs our most vulnerable students correct and we've got to deliver these services no matter how much they cost unfortunately they're very expensive and that takes away from the other students and all these we've gotten in trouble with the statement before over special ed delivery is about 10 years passed or so correct and we definitely don't want to be you teeter but it's also about maintaining and providing not only the services to
086the students but effective services and i think one of the things that we've uncovered is in some cases that may not always be the case that we're doing it efficiently and effectively and what happens is like you mentioned it it does become expensive it becomes expensive when we send we send kids out of district right but what what better way to save money is to provide that service in-house where parents want their children in their local public school not on a bus for 45-50 minutes to a place that we really don't know if what they're doing is effective is just something different so yeah and um this uh fatigue perez's point um the charter schools you can look at how we deliver our services to them from our ends and to make sure we're doing
087it as efficient and efficiently as possible i don't know if it's um as far as which schools they hit every day or whatever or how they have because if you got one student at one school or whatever are we scheduling them properly we do the best we can for the charter schools once we've properly provided services in-house yeah i'm just talking about just efficiencies that maybe we can find on our end while delivering the services to their rent not enough out there sure i can't hear you yeah yeah turn your leg back i was saying to your point thank you is that all you need okay thank you questions all right is there a motion to approve issuing this rfp moved by mr sokolovic is there a second second by ms baptiste perez all in
088favor aye any opposed any abstentions last item is discussion possible approval to issue rfp for student transportation services mr testani yeah just simply as we discussed at the contracts committee our contract with wheat transport is expiring at the end of the school year we do not have permission to extend the contract on their city ordinances so it needs to go out for bid plain and simple does anyone have any questions i have a question as this issue been addressed to the city because it's an ordinance issue where we can't renew um has anyone has any discussions been made for potential i don't have to go through this city charter right correct so my understanding is that the city is working toward modifying that aspect of the charter to allow for greater latitude in being able
089to have option extensions in future procurements i i hope that is the case um because it does not always fit what we what would benefit the board of education um but i don't know what the timeline for that is and where they're at with that um we spar with them very often on some of their ordinances when it comes to purchasing and um because for example when we have to renew a contract like powerschool which is our student reporting system and we get a response back you need to go out to bid well it's not that simple it's not something you can change every couple of years so it doesn't always fit in the box like it does for you know sidewalks at seaside park or a walking trail at beardsley park so we're hoping
090that they're they incorporate some of our input when they do make their revisions to the chart do you have a question mr castillo so mike mike you're just saying that moving from could really cause issues to the new company because of the routes and all that stuff no it's not necessarily we'd be moving to any different bus company but we have to put it out to bid so that they can other uh transportation companies can have uh an opportunity to compete but the the routing is all done um from the data that we import into our software um so okay they just need to be on board with working with us once the routing is completed through transfinder okay okay thank you thank you okay anyone else okay is there a motion to approve issuing
091the rfp for student transportation services then we'll move by mr shanahan is that our second second second is alan any further discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions okay is there a motion to adjourn 8 o'clock our next meeting is march 14th at 6 30. good night