001call to order this is a call to order of the first regular meeting for december 2021 of the bridgeport board of education please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty mr secretary would you call the wrong can you hear me yes okay uh john weldon president bobby brown president christine baptist perez president albert betterhan president erica castillo president michael macaron joseph and joseph lombard president okay i'm gonna also note those student reps that are present joe you don't you don't have access to this because they sign in as they come in so i'll just read it off from um basic high school we have ruth cruz would you raise your
002hand okay from central high school we have latonya ferguson mrs ferguson from fairchild wheeler we have alina khan from i'm sorry that was fair child wheeler arrow from fairchild wheeler i t we have avery fletcher and those are the uh representatives we have here tonight welcome next on the agenda is uh something unique for tonight um this is the end of the 2017-2021 term of the board those that were elected and or appointed in that time frame and i thought it was appropriate that we acknowledge those folks and the time and effort they gave of themselves for this district so i'm just going to go over here do we have sosa mo fabian did you step up to the podium um jessica martinez says martinez chris taylor and hernan ellingworth okay i guess it's just
003you so hello okay presented to sosimo j fabian in recognition of your service to the people of bridgeport connecticut as a member of the bridgeport board of education during the 2017-2021 term your dedication to the students and staff of bridgeport public schools as well as to the community at large is deeply appreciated presented by the bridgeport board of education december 6 2021 thank you very much don hey i just want to say thank you it was really um a learning experience for me to serve on this board i just want to say real quick that i often catch myself abbreviating bridgeport as bpt which reminds me that and stands for me as be proud to live here be proud to educate our children here i am proud of both and that's why i chose to
004give my time to this public service welcome to the new board you have a wonderful opportunity to make a difference [Applause] all right thank you so so i know it wasn't always easy for you to uh participate but you made the effort that you did and we really appreciate it um ms value you'll see that those plaques are delivered to the appropriate recipients next on the agenda is public comment we have two people tonight first is joanne kennedy evening everyone congratulations to the people that wanted new people hopefully this um coming two years with the new people that are on that things will change so far it hasn't because you voted the same people back in for um the chairmanship vice chair and secretary um shouldn't make that much of a difference but sometimes it
005does because certain people take the uh position to their head and they don't do the right thing for the children you're here to do the right thing for the students of the city of bridgeport no matter who they are no matter what color they are where they come from economic um feasibility or no they're supposed to be treated properly in every aspect every single one of you have a charge you were sworn in correct to say i will serve the children of the city of bridgeport bridgeport public schools okay we do have charters and all of those children are our children so my thing is that i admonish you every single last one of nine of the board members the superintendent and the staff to do the right things for the children of the city
006of bridgeport our students i don't care what your name is or who you are who you think you are you need to do what's right for our children in the city of bridgewater we need to take care of our children and if you cannot sit up here and be objective and vote right for our children get the freak off that's what i have to say my comments are on the board of education and you have this student sitting right here i hope i hear them tonight because this is their school district these are their formative years mr tastani said hi mr tatsani how are you doing he said living a life living his best life great i'm happy for you i want you to live your best life and i want our children to live
007their best life in their schools i am heated about the fact that it seems like it's the status quo let's see how you vote if you vote you is the error you vote an era with the children with the students because it's about them it's not about us adults here we have all graduated from high school hopefully all you guys got some kind of education because you're on the board of education for our children do what's right by them okay spell good evening my name is and i'm up here as an actual bridgeport parent i have two concerns the first one is is that my daughter is a student athlete in the middle school and i was informed this year that coach lofton was no longer over the middle school basketball system that caribbe was
008over it i went to registered my child for the season it was interesting to me to find out that you're asking an abundance of questions about personal stuff that has nothing to do with my daughters playing basketball how much i make whether i be a donor or even like what i do for a living should not impact whether my daughter plays basketball for y'all or not she went through the process i did what else i supposed to do as a parent to ensure that you know she does what she does so i'm bringing this to the table because one us parents was not notified that there was a switch and the actual who was running this system and two it wasn't explained to us why do they need all this information from us so i'm
009asking the board to put that on your list for facilities because i think it falls under facilities and have that discussion the second concerning issue i have as a licensed therapist in the state of connecticut as well as the national certified counselor today i have been addressing issues in the new haven area due to active shooting and bomb threats last week we had in all rock hampden this week you had multiple schools in new haven camden is on lockdown and there's no plan i'm coming to y'all tonight as a parent that is concerned this is close to home i actually have kids in all those schools i understand but this is important this is about the safety of our kids i understand that we need to figure out a plan when stuff like this happens
010our kids are terrified they have no clue if going back to school will look like something that happens across the country i'm asking this board once again under facilities that we need to start having strategy plans because i do understand that when it comes to safety right now the kids are mandated to come back to school i kid you not and i'm telling you this on the record something happens in a school district my child's not coming back and she's not being faulted for that okay so with that in mind for my young people something happens in your school y'all need to tell people this is what's going on across the state and i'm being serious all right thank you thank you next we have approval of board minutes we have one meeting november 22nd
0112021 regular public meeting moved by mr benahan is there a second second by ms allen is there any discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions mr macaroni abstains i don't have anything personally to report um we're going to segue into committee reports and referrals first one being ad hoc district-wide branding initiative ms brown in process um finishing students submitting their ideas of what logos will look like we'll have a better report on it once we decide on committees okay any referrals contracts committee nothing to report it did not meet since last meeting are there any referrals educational diversity equity and inclusion that committee did not meet since the last meeting are there any referrals facilities did not meet since the last meeting are there any referrals that's mr chair i would like to uh
012prefer security protocols in light of what public comment was speaking about just for the board i know security sense sensitive issues can't be discussed in public but we as a board should be able to be informed in uh executive session about security protocols surrounding such things okay just uh i think i guess i have a question actually for facilities okay um i don't know if this would be but would you if you want to state your name for the record so that the transcriber can keep track of who's talking yeah of course ah my name is avery fleckner i'm from uh fairchild i.t um so what he was saying for securities and what they brought up can we like enforce like the security of our students so we know definitely that there won't be threats
013and stuff like that and also securing drills and stuff so we're all prepared because i know this is just for my school and i know like they can schedule it whenever but we haven't had a single drill all year so far and it's december um i so i don't know if this is the right facility to bring it up to man is taking notes that's totally fine he's gonna i think get in touch with but especially for this i feel just i mean anytime in general but especially this time kids should be prepared kids should know what they do especially the freshmen who haven't haven't been here before they should know what's going on okay and just to know we're safe at school and nothing will happen sure you're gonna address that okay great could
014i ask ms brown [Music] can you turn your mic on miss martinez can we can we um go ahead i also wanted to mention that one of the things that we mentioned in the last meeting was providing uh social media etiquette uh to properly uh so we can properly track for the most part because remember we talked about nine times out of ten we know who's sending out the post so having students feel safe enough to be able to report on it without them feeling like they're calling out a classmate in a sense but creating a safe space for them to be able to do that because i know working in social media it could be something from another school but if we identify it quickly enough we can actively make some decisions yeah and
015also just being able to have somebody out there that they know because i just know from my experience at my school are counselors to me doesn't feel like an act counselor i can go to to talk to this stuff it just feels like a schoolwork um college stuff counselor so knowing we have trusted adults some people don't want to go to teachers or their parents or somebody just somebody straight for our school can even be like a group of students put together to be like a safe environment but someone or see it yeah to be open to you to if you have or like even an anonymous box if you have a concern about a kid having something to be able to do without absolutely staying something that's just my opinion okay thank you mr
016chair thank you all right um i'm going to take the liberty of breaking from the agenda to acknowledge the presence of ms martinez who is here presented to jessica martinez in recognition of your service to the people of bridgeport connecticut as a member of the bridgeport board of education during the 2017-2021 term your dedication to the students and staff of bridgeport public schools as well as to the community at large is deeply appreciated presented by the bridgeport board of education december 6 2021. thank you [Applause] okay i guess um well um my service to bridgeport has been all of my life and i will remain um dedicated to being the change that we need um whether elected or not you know as long as you encourage your neighbors to make sure that they put their
017voice and their action where it belongs what i do is for each one of you my son is the senior year in basic and it's not easy um but my heart will always be with bridgeport and i know we could do it and you know i know we could do it with it just takes everybody to link up together and remove politics and put the children first the children are what matters their future and so i it's bittersweet you know um and there's hasn't been a you know it's not easy it's kind of you know hard and the journey is bumpy but no matter what i know who i am i know what i represent and i represent you all and um and my neighbors and i will continue to do that so i appreciate
018the time that i had and i'm still here if anybody needs me [Applause] please feel free to stay okay carrying on next on the agenda is the finance committee anything to report mr skalovic meeting okay any referrals governance has not met since the last meeting anything further to refer to it personnel did not meet since the last meeting were there any referrals students and families we didn't meet um last month with the chair because i was able to stay for you know personal things but we're going to have the next meeting december 16 2021 at central high school library at five o'clock okay any referrals lastly teaching and learning uh again no meeting in the internet any referrals okay superintendent's report oh mr chair employed a personal privilege uh could um well i'm not sure
019if stop everyone can we uh get a mess from miss martinez if she's gonna say i'm sorry can we get a mask for miss martinez do you have a mask is there one available okay thank you okay superintendent's report thank you mr chair um a couple of updated items i think are worth mentioning um prior to the thanksgiving uh bridgeport public schools held its second community event we gave out over 300 two-day family meal kits 300 fleece blankets almost 400 coats to children and families uh 50 school supply kits and 50 uh shoprite gift cards to families that were identified by school social workers in need during the holiday season on december 22nd we will give out toys from the toy drive that we're currently doing our goal is to exceed last year's 300 toys
020to get to 500. if anyone would like to donate toys please contact the office of the superintendent on for more information on how to donate toys to this year's superintendent's toy drive last week organization called sawwa partners with billy blanks jr held six live events two at basic on wednesday to at harding on thursday and two at central on friday in to kick off their promotion of wellness for our special needs students at the high schools they were um exciting electrifying and um kids really enjoyed themselves they got into it and they were able to sign up for the free online platform where they can participate in over a thousand classes um classes that are given by people like paul abdul mike tyson from dance to all different types of physical activity that they can
021do from home we're also looking to bring some of the instructors into the school buildings to be able to provide free online uh free in-person classes uh for the special needs population at our high school so great three day event um no dr rayola is here probably could speak to um what his kids the feedback they received um over at basic on wednesday uh the luckett foundation who's headed by walter luckett a basketball legend here in bridgeport providing free virtual 12-week s.a.t courses for juniors starting this week and we have 80 students who are registered to participate also through uh walt luckett's um facilitation uh we are doing and working closely with the westchester knicks if everybody's not aware uh the westchester knicks the g-league team of the new york knicks uh nba franchise is
022playing this season in bridgeport um they are partnering with the district to host uh bridgeport public school game night or afternoon we haven't nailed down the date yet sometime in january or february when they return from their long road trip and that will be at webster bank arena more details will be available once they become final last week on wednesday we held the trade fair at central high school in the auxiliary gym we had representatives from all the building union trades um we had students from basket carting in central uh 120 participated listened and were able to ask questions that were interested in possible uh careers in the building trades bridge bridgeport cut ebay youth leaders um as part of their partnership with bridgeport public schools completed their success 2.0 first session last thursday evening
023thank you to miss perez baptise perez and mr benhan for attending the culmination event where kids presented their action plans they were quite impressive and the next session will be expanded to include high school juniors max mentoring program has officially kicked off as well so we have our max mentors back in the public uh high schools i'm working with our students that is long awaited since the pandemic we have begun our home visiting program that was approved by the board in conjunction with riosapp we are now expanding that to go to include staff members who are interested in making home visits to to outreach to parents of students in that are at risk right now our student success team has already made over 100 referrals to the um home visiting program as part of that
024leap money that we approved last month you can see on the billboard on 25 and i-95 bridgeport public school attendance billboard we're also in the process of developing i know ms brown is working closely this week to develop our second billboard that'll go up as well we've also handed out to all our schools of banners that are being displayed throughout the schools to promote good attendance throughout the district and we have two district-wide events coming up one on december 8th virtual and one on december 11th at the cardinal shan center families that attend and complete their fafsa are eligible for a 75 gift card to stop and shop and a 25 gift card to amazon uh the event the virtual event will have opportunities for students to join breakout rooms with college admissions counselors and
025financial aid counselors to get one-on-one support to complete their fafsa the in-person event will have a computer lab available at the shan center for fafsa completion with representatives also on-site to provide support we have a dj from a local dj that's going to be there promoting the event and food will be provided by bazis and that concludes the super integrity thank you sir are there any questions for mr tastani yes i have another question coming to this time you said december 22nd um it's going to be exactly in central high school what time uh i believe it's from 10 to 12. no that we switched it to the evening so it'll be from i believe 5 30 to 7 30 but i'll double check because we just switched from saturday and we pushed it out
026to get more opportunities for donations all right thank you sir okay any other questions mr honey miss castillo i believe um avery had a a question that she wanted to dress and and we passed it to you but got distracted oh you have something to do right was it is your name avery yeah yeah go ahead oh did it just having drills in general oh yes okay okay i just wanted to make sure that it was addressed for you okay anyone else okay old business there's none to be transacted new business um at the request of the superintendent i'm going to seek a motion to move item a discussion possible approval to advance pre-k student gr to kindergarten to the bottom of the agenda some will move by mr benahan is there a second second
027by mr sokolovic all in favor aye aye aye any opposed any abstentions okay so that will be the last thing we discuss next is item b discussion possible approval of sub-award agreement between bridgeport public schools and regional youth adult social action partnership for barnum elementary school who's here to present for this is this ms clark miss clark say yes okay you've got to press the button there on the mic it's on good evening everyone we have uh two contracts you should have received the draft documents yes for basic high school and one is elementary school [Music] schools have received school improvement grants uh in the conjunction of creating those proposals that went to the state uh there was an indication that they were going to work with ryosa to make sure they were going to
028complete certain um services under their climate and culture banner that is a requirement under the school improvement grant uh under basic which they've received four hundred thousand dollars i'm sorry both of them so both uh both agreements are substantial yes correct and they're both um trying to contract services from raya essentially for the same thing wrap around services so under the basic um banner we are asking for your approval of a hundred and ninety thousand one hundred and eighty four dollar subcontract for isaf and under barnum we're asking for out of their 350 000 award a 149 to 15 award to rayasan okay if you would like some additional information about the services proper that rysap will be providing or what the principals are expecting at their schools they're all here to provide additionally okay
029thank you does anyone have any questions oh yes mr chair um by the way yeah has this been vetted by uh contracts committee no this is a lot of things this is a similar agreement that we approved a couple of meetings ago and they needed to get these done right away so i just pushed him right to this because i'm finding a lot of things are coming directly to the board i've mentioned that to the staff i've mentioned that to the staff i think we really need because of this right okay and uh okay and as far as this contract again with uh on page five we've got um again with the mediation and court proceedings hasn't have we looked into it since the last time to try to cover of course it's not a
030question for her did you touch base with the city attorney regarding binding arbitration yes and based on the last uh draft that we've actually discussed in a meeting today this could be removed if it is an absolute requirement wait could you repeat that no no no no no like you have you have mediation in here non-binding mediation but a couple of meetings ago mr sakalovic was talking about inserting binding arbitration oh i'm sorry excuse me yes no that did not come up in today's conversation excuse me can we just look at that for future definitely for future content okay because it seems like we have arbitration and they don't like this thing they don't like the result we got to go to court and we got to pay lawyers fees and we end up in
031a position where we have to settle and this is something that happens on a constant basis please please look and specifically ask that of the city attorney's office yes thank you anyone else okay i have a question how soon does this have to go forward you just mentioned that it has to go forward soon but how soon yes immediately we received the award from the state recently but it it's expecting that it's a start date of seven one it's backdated 71 2022 2021 this is delayed is delayed yes delayed by how much time just based on how the proposal under review and we just receive our notice of award with an indication of a start date of seven one okay so we we just received notice of reward right yes well but we're being pushed
032to push it right now immediately without any further discussion or conversation could it be held off until next month potentially if that is the wish of the board i mean if we just received notice i don't see how the immediate push for a vote right now trying to understand the timeline because the award is backdated to 7-1 the expectation and the implication is that the services and the project is starting at these schools which includes rights so this has already started based on the notice of award that we received they have a start one a 7-1 start date that says they physically started well we're waiting for your approval of the contracts yes but the pre-work to make sure that we can start moving okay can anyone on the contract committee discuss so i can
033help give some clarification this is routine with the state of connecticut that monies are delayed and awarding but services are expected to begin okay so we should have been noticed of this award prior to july 1st but it's routinely delayed um as it was again in this instance um and because ryan sapp has similar contracts doing similar work at other schools both principals felt that it would be an important component to providing wraparound service is to meet the needs of their school populations as as what's going on at harding correct currently and over at louis munoz marine so this is just the repeat of prior contracts that are services that are being implemented by rysef at those schools successfully okay so we were supposed to receive notice about six months ago we just received it
034now recently yes can you clarify what recently is is it december so it would have been actually maybe in the middle of november i'd have to go back yes a couple of weeks ago so these documents were prepared and we were waiting for your next meeting motion to table this to next month for further consideration we can talk about at the next meeting there a second a second for a second discussions um will um just delay implementation of any essential services that are absolutely necessary and we put the grant in jeopardy uh so yes it will cause some issues with our reporting again the state is expecting even though they were delayed in giving us the notice of award the project is gonna go from seven one to six thirty twenty 22. so you wait
035a little bit longer implementing those services that means that we're not up to speed with where we're supposed to be and it's going to have some implications with reporting and how far we've gotten that would make us out of uh compliance with the grant we would have some issues with explaining why we're so so delayed even though it's not completely our fault and i understand everybody's comments and concerns but um in making sure that we're implementing things as quickly as we can we need to move as quickly so just a discussion it's not completely our fault with the terms of the delay for the program but it's still being back date i would still want additional time to just look over it and to actually consider it because it does seem like a significant amount
036of funds so i think in the interest of fairness if they had a six-month delay and we're just taking one month to make sure that everything is correct i think that'll be that's a reasonable thing especially since there is no arbitration provision within it well i would like to ask the principals to share what the impact would be on a delay for the buildings because one of the things that becomes an issue is that as bridgeport public schools historically we advocate for more funding and the state turns around and their view of it is you ask for money we give you the money you should have uses for that money immediately which we do they were in the planning process before the award that's why this is is important to their execution of services but
037they're more than happy to share with you what any delays could potentially cost them in terms of working with students and families if you don't mind i'll go first i'm christine booth i'm the principal at barnum school thank you all for allowing me to speak and i totally respect and understand you're wanting to have more information unfortunately since none of us had the control over the timeline because i think it was right before thanksgiving it was not even weeks that we found out that we were awarded it really comes down to making sure students are in classroom for me um having to do two additional full-time staff members for conflict resolution allows me to increase the amount of time students are in classroom it takes us you know i may have to students may have
038to wait and i give them time we want to listen to them i want to hear with them hear them i want to create problem solvers and so um these two staff members the restorative practice facilitator and the student success advocate social worker will enhance my team to be able to do that so there is an urgency because we are already at december we already are in our fourth month and students have needs and while i have a wonderful staff i even have a staff member here who goes out of her way outside of her role and you know she may be able to realign some of her focus because she dumps someone does some of this stuff dr rayola thank you um good evening joe raiola principal of basic high school uh congratulations to
039the new board members welcome um the pandemic has done a lot for our to our kids uh this wraparound service that we're trying to get into place is really going to help provide four additional staff members with uh for services to our students um they're going to be able to receive some additional social work um there's also going to be the restorative component of it as well if there's any conflict within the building currently we're we're running real thin and these four members are going to help to alleviate um some work from from everybody and make the climate a little bit better when you're running a building and you don't have enough staff members as is to be without these additional four it puts additional stress on the building um and that climate carries through
040the building so these four members that we're going to bring on um are going to help improve the climate just through the amount of work that they're going to take on to help our kids would the staff member like to speak i just know that it pushing it a month away will not help us and coming from someone who's active in the community active in her school building i coach the kids i go out of my way i love my job i love bridgeport showing everybody knows me shayna taylor and we really really could use this help in our building right now it's really really important miss booth is trying her best but um some things we just lack at and additional resources would just complement all the things we're trying to do moving forward
041especially during this school year so delaying on this is delaying on the success of one of our students multiple students so um thank you for joining i know some of you guys just got here but this is something that's been in the works and we're just trying to push forward with it because it's really going to make a difference in our building a lot of the teachers are so excited we learned about this the beginning of the school year and um i could tell you the relief from all the teachers in the building when they heard that this was going to be implemented and we just been waiting on it so you guys would be a part of that solution and just relieving the stress of half of us and just making things better in
042our school and functioning for our children thank you any other questions i know we don't i know the process is like dire need but i also want to keep calling to fact that this is dorankovit um and we're trying to adjust to the school so whether whatever way we decide to go i want to applaud you guys for even making this happen and putting in the effort because i think we look at it like at the end of the day we are here for the kids um and we do value process so let's make sure this isn't a habit for going forward and that we do properly go through our um um again this came at right right before thanksgiving and it just wasn't time to be having a committee meeting and have it on
043the agenda for tonight so i just put it on for tonight so that the full group could talk about it if people want to take more time to digest it um there's a motion on the floor table to the next meeting do you want to vote on that uh yeah mrs young um i'm comfortable moving forward on the contract at this time so i are you going to withdraw your second second hang up point of order back back up back back up back up back up point of order chair point of order we vote on it he can vote to not table it okay and then we go back to the original okay there can go a lot of ways but all in favor of tabling this item all opposed hi hi hi okay so
044we're not going to table it we're going to vote on it tonight is there any further discussion i just want to add one thing if if it wasn't a contract we already had entered into an agreement with and the urgency it would not be before the full board tonight we would have followed the channel as as we did with the previous ryusap contracts but because it was mimicking identically that's the only reason why it's here tonight and i just want to yeah you know make that clear to everyone a very similar agreement was was approved here two meetings ago for which school we have harding and marin currently at play and um very successfully so far okay mr chairman address for sure state your name for the record my name is mark donald and i'm
045the executive director of ryzap and i just would like to add that mr tastani and i began conversations about the uh the project we started at marin prior to the pandemic and that was done on independently raised funds by riosapp and it's still being done on independently raised funds by riosapp and uh we are committed to it and i think as we saw last year with the implementation of what we were hoping was going to be a pilot was not a pilot year because the pandemic however the urgency of this project took on greater and greater and as we did in consultation with the principal over at marin we designed the program and we're seeing that this youth need is increasing by the day um we see it in the news we see it in
046uh action and behaviors and conversations with security guards and in addition to this uh with approval of the contract myself i'm a former middle and high school principal in the bronx in new haven um i have independently fundraised for a director of school programs who has his 092 who was a high school counselor and a middle school dean in addition to these and what you see on the contract here we have the support of my street safe gang intervention and gun violence prevention team we have the hub substance abuse addiction prevention and education and advocacy team um we have other programs including the juvenile review board team and all these are done in kind based on other sources of funding that we bring to the table and and the sense of urgency that we hope
047to bring to the product is at full full awareness of risk to myself we've already started training staff members to take on this opportunity and we're going to continue working and building relationships with the youth in bridgeport throughout the break and i think the urgency and the opportunity for us to get going especially based on the early results that we've seen both at marin and and harding where we've done similar work where we're trying to build capacity in the youth trying to build capacity within the staff but also support urgently the mental health needs of students and families and with that in mind we're prepared to to begin as soon as the contract is signed if not we're still going to continue working and training our people so that when you're ready to go that
048we are we're ready to address youth and family needs across bridgeport thank you thank you is there a motion to approve the agreement related to barnum elementary school somehow by mr benahan second by ms allen any further discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions is there a motion to approve the agreement related to basic high school moved by mr benahan second by ms allen any further discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions okay thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you remaining item to be discussed is discussion and possible approval to advance pre-k student gr to kindergarten this item may be discussed in executive session as a confidential student matter is there a motion to go into executive session for the subject item is there a move by ms brown is
049there a second second second okay those present in executive session will be the members of the board superintendent tastani are you bringing any staff with you yes uh miss newton um principal at howland school okay diary irene all right we are recessing to go into executive session times notice being 7 20 p.m are we still going here to the right off where are we going back here let's go [Laughter] you