001all right mrs lebron we're ready to go great thank you eric so good evening everyone my name is melissa labrocciano and i am the principal of huckleberry hill elementary school and i want to thank you all for joining us this evening this thursday night to hopefully get some of your answers based on the questions that you've asked through our google form that dr burl shared last week prior to starting our presentation i do want to do some introductions tonight on who's part of our district leadership team and also members who have contributed to our reopening plan so we have this evening dr maureen ruby our assistant superintendent of schools miss deb farias our director of curriculum instruction miss terry cavanaugh our director of human resources miss gina wygonic our director of special education and pupil
002personnel and also we have anna laforgia who is one of our nurses at wisconia middle school but she's also our nurse supervisor for all the district nurses in in the district and we have dave pipsoski who's listening in our assistant principal at huckleberry hill elementary school and last but not least we have mr eric cochlin our director of information and technology and without him none of this would be possible so thank you all for joining us tonight right so if you want to share the screen eric i can talk about the agenda great so as this is our q a for huckleberry hill elementary school based on our 2020 reopening plan eric if you want to just go to the next slide great so our agenda for today's meeting so we have come together in
003collaboration and also to provide you with some answers at either a district level to address your district level questions or to address our building-based questions that you have asked you can submit additional questions this evening via the google form that was shared with you last week dr ruby will be our question moderator and if we have chance at the end of the presentation to answer any additional questions we will be happy to do so but that's really truly our agenda for tonight the purpose to provide parents with answers to their specific questions regarding the school reopening plan and our goal is to really create a coherent and consistent understanding of the current status of the district reopening plan and i will say that we have received probably close to 300 questions so far and all
004of building leaders and district leaders have gone through those questions and we've really truly done our very best to succinct those questions together and the best way that we can because many of the questions we received were very similar in nature just asked a different way so our goal tonight is to truly try to provide that clarity for all of you and for you all at home to get a little bit of a better understanding of our reopening plan and i believe dr ruby you will begin our presentation this evening to talk about the brief review of the planning process and to answer some of our district level questions that's correct thank you miss la brasiano so welcome and before i begin i just want to thank everybody who's here tonight representing um the school
005district and also to thank all of the people from the district who are not present who have been working tirelessly for the past it seems like forever now but the past several weeks um to develop the plan that was mandated by the uh the governor and the commissioner and was due on the 24th of july which we submitted and i want to just reiterate uh some of what dr brill's been telling people in our other school meetings that what we're presenting to you tonight in terms of responses to questions that were submitted are based on the the situation as it is today and that while we are going to be presenting the most current information we have things are subject to change as melissa stated we had well over 300 questions and what what we
006did is exactly what you said we called through those questions even as they were coming in right up until this afternoon looking at uh at themes so that we could provide in a a succinct hour-long presentation answers to those most frequently answered questions asked questions that we have the answers to and we don't want to give out information that's half baked there are some questions that um some parents have posed that we are still working on and we're not going to make up an answer for you we are collecting data and we are working with our health consultants we're working with the uh connecticut association of public schools superintendents we're working with information that's coming at of cea and aft we're working with a variety of of collaborators to get the the actual details of
007the plan in order so that we can do a written response to the questions that have been asked we will answer every single question and that document will be available on our website so i i know it's disappointing to have an answer in there and to be in a situation where you're waiting for that information but we are going to give you that information maybe not all tonight but the information we give you is going to be absolutely up to date with the details some of you have expressed that you needed so as you know we did an initial parent survey and to put people as minds at ease that survey was for us to get kind of a dipstick of where folks were feeling about um whether they were sending their students back to
008school or not because we were asked by the the governor and the commissioner of education to gather information um we've been asked to give a lot of information so that the state could have an idea of what was going on in the towns to kind of get their finger on the pulse of what was going on in districts throughout the state so a guidance document was issued by the connecticut state department of education that required us to develop a reopening plan that was a tripart plan there were three parts to it we were required to develop a plan for 100 of the students in 100 of the time a hybrid plan and a complete remote plan and these uh reopening plans were due last week and we developed them we submitted them to the board
009of ed presented them to the board of ed and then after the board of ed reviewed uh the plans and unanimously voted on it we submitted it to the state department so now as we explained we solicited questions from you and we are going to present as melissa said district level answers to questions that pertain to the district and then melissa will do just as the other principals did deal with her constituents parents from the huckleberry school and give you answers to questions that are specific to huckleberry sometimes talking about what we what i'm going to explain to you from the district level and then how that plays out at huckleberry um it's no surprise that some of the things that we have to do are have a cost attached to them so the state
010department required us to submit costs to them in terms of the um the additional personnel the additional materials that we would need to safely open and the board of finance the board of selectmen and the board of education are collaborating to work out the financial arrangements to be able to procure what we need to open schools um we will be um sending out uh probably the the earliest friday or next monday or tuesday i'm i'm hoping by monday um a a survey document to parents of all the students in the district and in this document you are going to be asked um what your intentions are for your students so the options which we'll explain more about what option means but currently we are our plan consists of a 100 of the students in 100
011of the time that's what we're preparing to be able to do however parents have the option of having 100 percent remote learning for their student for a variety of reasons some people may be uncomfortable with sending their children back there may be extenuating circumstances related to student health parent health or uh other folks who are living in the home's health and that you don't have to disclose what that is um but you're going to be asked to commit for each one of your children to one of those options we are obviously a a organization that's very dependent on human resources teachers make it happen the paraprofessionals make it happen our secretarial staff we have a number of unions and everyone that works for us is critical to our operation running smoothly and safely so we
012um just like every year we expect that everyone's coming back and we are sending out a welcome letter and uh folks who are not able to come back for whatever reason are um to contact human resources so we'll be getting that data and that will help us be able to plan for opening school we're going to communicate every single procedure and protocol that we will be doing and that students will be expected to do to everyone in the district all of our employees all the parents and all the children and we have an extensive pd planned for our teachers typically we have teachers back or three days before the beginning of school to get everything done that really is like spitting 13 days into three days but this year we did some changes in the
013calendar at a board meeting so that we would have five days and then following that decision the governor and the commissioner changed the number of required school days from 180 to 177 so that districts could have three extra teacher days so we will have eight full days of professional learning opportunities where we'll be working with all of our staff to make sure that we're all at the level that we need to be in terms of procedures and protocols for safety for safeguarding health or using a variety of new teaching modes that we will be using in the classroom and so i just want everybody to rest assured that we're going to be well prepared in terms of the professional learning opportunities and then as we'll talk about later students need to learn these and so
014we're not going to expect that our students are just going to come back to school and be able to function in the new environment as a part of this planning process we are planning for how we are going to teach and support our children to adapt and to function well in the new environment eric so i've talked about this but this is laid out because this is going to be available online we're going to post this recorded presentation for you and you'll have be able to look at this and and see and be able to read because if you're like me you hear it and you want to see it as well so this is what these are the scenarios i just described 100 in person experience a hybrid per uh experience which is 50
01550. that model we talked about earlier in some communications that is a model where fifty percent of the children are in the school at one time rather than a hundred percent and this would happen um based on uh changing health data and recommendations or if we were not able to secure the building's safety in the manner that it needs to be in our 100 plan because as i said the plan requires us to procure things uh more materials some of those materials are desks because we don't have desks in all of our classrooms we have tables where we have children working together that's not going to be permissible with social distancing so a 50 50 model could be triggered with changing health data it could be triggered if um supplies were not able to be
016procured to ensure a safe environment then the remote learning model if there was a real spike in um the the incidence of cobit in our community where it was no longer safe to have children in school um we have a plan to be able to go to a 100 remote model so we have all three scenarios and as i said earlier our goal is to have 100 of the students in 100 of the time and you have as a parent the um that choice what's really important is that we all understand that there are only at the two choices that are presented the 100 in or the 100 remote there's no parent option for the hybrid choice that hybrid choice is a model that's triggered either by a health situation or a material situation but
017it's not a choice but we as a district because of the the details that we've worked out in our plan are prepared should anything happen to go from a 100 model to a remote model 100 model to a hybrid model a hybrid model to a remote model or a hybrid model back to 100 model that's why the state had us do that so that we would be able to be fluid based on the needs of of the community depending upon the variables that i discussed eric so remote learning we the state is using the term remote learning in the spring they use the term distance learning and i think that the change was made because the remote learning that we are prepared to engage in is not like the distance learning that we were doing
018in the spring in the spring i think i was quoted as saying it was like an amputation i mean we were just cut off from being in school and so our our faculty our and our administrators i i were heroic in how they were able to overnight just get get our act together to get something that we had never done before up and running and as you will recall that was an asynchronous model where content was put online in google classrooms and um that's not what we're doing other it's going to be synchronous and i'm going to talk about that in a few minutes but this remote learning as defined by the state is a temporary option that's being offered by the state for parents because they're sensitive to the to the needs of of
019parents and families and so as i stated the district will honor this parent option for as long as the state of connecticut allows us to offer it um and as i stated before you will be able to inform the district on the survey of what you choose another another um statement that i need to go over that's kind of fueled by questions that we've been asked is about transitioning on in terms of parent choice people have asked us well if i choose to keep my child at home and remo learning um do they have to wait till the next semester or can can they ever go back into the classroom and so the answer is absolutely yes parents have the flexibility to change their their choices about the model that they're in however you can
020understand that when we have to engage in uh implementation of social distancing and other precautionary measures in school we need some time to plan for that so if a parent wants their child to come back we there there are things that we need to do to accommodate and ensure the safety of that child and the other children that are in the class so parents who are going to be asked to give a two-week written notice to the school of an intention to have their child come back into the 100 in class model um and then in order to to give us time to prepare we would anticipate having that that child come back into school the first day of school in the following months so for example if on september 17th you say you know
021what things are going great i really want my child to be in school send a letter to to the school following the protocol that we'll provide and the school will initiate getting that your child's classroom ready to receive your child and they would come in the first day of school in october if you send your child you elect to send your child to the 100 in school and for whatever reason we don't need to know what your reason is you decide you know i really need to have my child at home that's not a problem uh we still need a written notice we need to keep track of where kids are there's documentation that we need to do with this date on attendance um but that can happen immediately because you can understand the school
022isn't needing to do anything to prepare for your child to leave the classroom and go home that's kind of on on you what you do at home and that's your business um so you know as long as this is permissible by the state as it is now brookfield is ready to honor um parent choice on and and transitions if you change your mind eric so remote learning i hinted at this before it's remote learning it's different from distance learning and the fact that it will be a synchronous model so that means that the children who are at home will be getting live instruction from their teacher along with their peers their colleagues in the classroom um so the school day for somebody who is in remote learning is exactly the same as the school day
023for the student that's in the classroom and you might be thinking oh my goodness does that mean my child is going to be glued to a computer screen all day not necessarily that's not our intention um the teachers when the teachers are delivering their lesson it's you know a focused lesson and that will be delivered live through zoom or through other technology that we are currently working on to find the the best most affordable um way of delivering live teachers we can deliver live um uh instruction that's on a whiteboard or that is on a video through zoom but we are going to be having live instruction that's happening in the classroom um there will be down time where your child won't be on the screen where they'll be doing their own individual work uh
024there will be breaks there will be mask breaks there'll be you know obviously lunch and other things so it's not going to be like on the screen all day although you need to understand that that we are using technology so there is going to be a considerable amount of screen time necessary another thing that's really important to understand is that attendance is mandatory so if you opt into 100 remote it's not a la carte like i think i'll do um remote learning from 9 to 10 30 and then maybe i'll hop back on at 1 30. there you'll have the schedule and you have the child has to be engaged when the instruction is going on some other questions that we've received about remote learning is how will the teachers engage you know with the
025students and how will students have interaction with their peers and this is possible teachers will be receiving more pd building on what we did in the spring and learning how to efficiently and effectively use break rooms breakout rooms in zoom so if eric conklin is a student in my class and he's um he's at home he's doing remote learning and melissa is in my class and dr ferreira is in my class um i can have eric actually working in a breakout room with melissa and dr ferreira and i can be in that room as well looking in on what they're doing giving feedback i can look in in the google classroom at documents that they're working on and talk about that and the other students in my class so i have anna and gina and
026and terry they're in my class and they're either at home or in the class for live and they can be working in another breakout room on an assignment and that would be going on within the classroom and through my computer and also by walking across the front because i need to be socially distanced i can i can work with individual students so we are going to work very hard to master the um the technology that we have to harness the power that's in that technology to be able to be as interactive and inclusive and responsive as we can be but we'll be honest there's nothing like how it used to be um but we're not there right now um so i i think we can go on the next slide um face covering so cloth
027cloth faith covering and masks um everyone who's in our buildings will be required to wear a mask unless there is a medical reason that's documented for them not to be wearing a mask so parents and guardians are will be responsible for sending their children into school wearing a mask we will have masks available if there is a loss of a mask which won't happen because they'll always be on their faces except for mass breaks or you know stuff happens so uh we will have for emergency situations some backups um they'll wear them in the buildings in the classrooms and on the buses we will have mask breaks so many questions what's a mask break mass break it will they will be given um throughout the day our teachers are very much in touch with our
028students and they will be able to tell students will be able to say i need a break the teachers will be very responsive to them as they always are children will be their desks will be separated um this librarian will be explaining that and they will have um a a desk shield and so they will be safe when they when they have their mask breaks um i'm not going to go into any more details i know that melissa will be talking about that um i can move on um parent pick up and drop off we've had a lot of questions on this so the superintendent has been collaborating with the police department and with our transportation provider which is all-star and we are working with the um those two entities and the principals and each
029school is developing a system for drop-off and pickup and this is based on ensuring that we have safety of everybody involved you know safety of the children getting in and out of the vehicles safety for the parents not getting into um intimate situations with other cars in our in our parking lots and then also providing for the safety of people who have nothing to do with the schools and just want to get to work get get by the buildings and we want this to be in a safe and orderly fashion so all of the i do not have the details nor does anybody else right now because those plans are being worked out you can imagine how complicated it is going to be and it's going to be different at each school and we are
030going to communicate to you exactly what the traffic pattern is so we as as it says in the fourth bullet we want the buses and the cars to peacefully coexist we also within this um this drop-off situation and as well as the dismissal and pickup we need to be very sensitive to social distancing and so there will be scheduling of how children get out of the buses how children get onto the buses and um we are also sensitive this is a question what if i have children at multiple schools we are taking the schedules of the um the arrival and the departure of children from the schools into um consideration i'll say big time so that we're not put putting parents or students in a situation of anxiety and rest assured we know that stuff
031happens and if if there seems to be a little traffic jam at one school or another and you have a second child who's waiting at center or huckleberry or whisking air we will take care of that child while we're waiting for you to to get through we just as anything else in the beginning there may may be expected bumps in the road not to make a pun when we start um in the beginning of the year but we are planning for it to be as smooth as possible and we'll all cooperate and get better as we go along next slide hygiene another big question we are planning for the cleaning of our facilities um and for bathrooms they will we're thinking about a three level um cleaning program which is the full cleanings where everything
032is top to bottom that's obviously clean top to bottom that's obviously not happening when children are in school um because it would shut down the bathrooms and we can't afford to do that um an intermediate clean which is a more a more extensive clean than what would be a high touch clean where you're going people are going in and cleaning um faucet handles um sink basins and um parts of the actual um bathroom where the children are going um desk cleaning lots of questions about desk cleaning the desks children will be eating their lunch in their classroom and the um that they will be the only child in their desk so there should be some comfort in knowing that it's very different than going into the cafeteria where somebody was just sitting there before you
033even though the tables this is their desk their shield and they're eating their lunch at their desk and so there will be opportunity for children to clean up after themselves um and they will not be using any harsh chemicals we follow the materials safety procedures that come with all of our cleaners children will never be using cleaners but we will be providing what is called neutral cleaners for children to wipe their own space so it's not the same as sanitizing or disinfecting like we do for all parts of we'll be doing for all parts of the building um as a part of our cleaning protocol because it's the student's desk they will have hand washing breaks we are our um facility staff is going through all of our um all of our facilities and we
034know there were some questions about faucets that didn't work all they are all being addressed but we are also adding hand sanitizers throughout the school those have been ordered i think that we have ordered twice um and the principles will be working with folks from facilities to identify exactly the um spots that all of these will be placed in so that they'll be easily accessible and anytime a teachers or building administrators have questions about hygiene we have our nursing supervisor who is in touch with our medical advisor and the the our um health advisor from the town and we are we've been able to get answers very very quickly from doc sullivan dr ferrara so anna is in touch with them health and wellness i talked to a little bit about the transition between um
035100 hybrid and going remote and that has to do with the uh incidents in our local area and sometimes in the state if the governor decides that we need to transition because of what's going on in the state so a low incidence is when there's less than one percent of infectivity moderate one to five percent and substantial greater than five percent so those are the parameters that the state has given us um our health department in town monitors the um transmission in town and as doc sullivan has said on some of our other meetings they're finding that the transmission is really uh family-centered it's um we don't have you know a person here and a person there it's it's been spread within a very localized unit and in brookfield it happens to be the unit
036typically of the family so in order for us to to prevent the spread we need everybody in the community to keep doing what they've been doing and that's social distancing using face coverings or masks frequently using hand sanitizers and washing your hands using what's called respiratory etiquette you know um teaching uh children and and yourselves to sneeze into your into your sleeve and not all over the place um question on are we taking temperatures in school the answer is no and i know that that's been um uh something that's caused people to to really question like why we're not doing that um there's a lot of reasons we are being having parents do home assessments you'll get more information on that checking to see taking your child's temperature before they go to school and anything
037that a temperature of a hundred or more would mean that your child should stay home um the reason one of the reasons that we're not doing temperature taken is just number one the pragmatics of it number two we have found from a variety of convergent data that it's it's in a school situation it's not really valuable data there are too many false positives kids may have been on a bus you know hot it may if it's a hot day just taking that temperature scanning the the forehead we can get a temp we can get a high temperature that isn't associated with anything other than the environment and so um we won't be taking temperatures our our general messages if you're sick stay home this is not the time to be a hero we don't want
038our faculty and our staff coming in if they're sick we want to err on the side of caution so um fortunately if children have symptoms that require them to stay home we can arrange for them to participate in school through remote learning cohorts you've heard us talk about cohorts cohorts is keep the idea of cohorting is keeping groups of children together and not having them mix in with other folks to the greatest extent possible a lot of people don't like that term to the greatest extent possible but we just want to be totally transparent we have our principals and our teachers are developing schedules that are designed to limit the contact of students to to a group we've been asked well why are you doing that uh well we're doing that because it's very very
039important in a pandemic or an epidemic to be able to do contact trace thing so god forbid if somebody did um test positive in a school we we would not first of all we're not announcing that you're not going to get an email that says oh mrs wygonic is positive for kovid um because that's a violation what will happen is the health department not the school system will do contact tracing and they will find out because we will be able to tell them who mrs white got sorry mrs wagonic who mrs wygonic was in contact with and who those students were in contact with so then the health department can do their job and and inform people in appropriate ways and do the tracing so that's why we're going to have cohorts and schedules in
040you may if you have a student in wisconsin you may have heard mr renda last night talk about sub cohorts and so a sub that you meet saying oh another flaky educational jargon thing they're trying to fool us we're not trying to fool anybody but there are children that are in a cohort and then there may be some other children within that cohort who need to go for some specialized service so we are it we're like the the building principles are like engineers in how they're working with a variety of specialists to to develop these cohorts so that if we have an unfortunate situation we can immediately contact trace in a very effective way we will keep families cohorted together if we have to go to a hybrid situation families will be cohorted together so
041that's a question if if we go to a hybrid and i have a child in one school and a child in another school will they all be going on the same day the answer is yes uh we're going to be doing that by alphabet another question that came up is well we have a blended family and all of our children don't have the last name don't worry about it even if we made an error we will correct it we will keep families together in a cohort um we will let you know what cohort you're in as soon as all the details are worked out don't worry next slide i'm going to turn this over now to gina wygonic who is not positive for covet i'm sorry gina to have picked on you to talk to
042us about special education thank you dr ruby oh thank you for all of you who are here tonight um i just want you to rest assure that the special education department with the building principles and district administration are planning for the special education population we are following the guidelines and the requirements provided by the connecticut state department of education we we will be following all of the idea provisions for free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment we have students who are special education and other special populations and we will be treating them as general education students first for the cdc guidelines the two special education supervisors are working very closely with the building principles to maintain the cohorts that dr ruby had spoke of to the greatest extent possible with safety in
043mind all of the time some of you may have questions pertaining to your individual students children's programs um i'm not going to answer any of those questions or give you any information tonight on that but melissa baldwin who is the pre-k5 supervisor or myself you can contact us with any individual questions that you might have about your child's program and we would be happy to have a conversation with you privately about your child's program or if you have any other questions about how we are cohorting et cetera et cetera so please rest assured that we are working diligently with the building principles and district admin to make sure that those cohorts um are are put together with a lot of thought and safety and again if you have any questions feel free to call me
044or email me at any time or melissa baldwin who is at huckleberry as a special education supervisor thank you dr ruby thank you thank you very much we appreciate that and now i'm going to turn it over to eric conklin since he's our tech guru thank you dr ruby um so just a couple quick high level things on technology that we want to cover there's going to be a lot more information coming out in august um in the first couple weeks in august as we um start to receive our our equipment uh hardware and and and start to set up and configure and see how everything's going to look around the district um i've already talked about the one-to-one and byod program for the grades eight through 12. um so i'll skip that one for
045now but um thanks to the board of selectmen board of finance and board of education in supporting us you know we were able to purchase an additional 300 chromebooks on top of what we purchase every year to support our students and we will be making those available to students throughout um pre-k uh grades pre-k to seven um how those will be distributed and how that will look uh more information will follow on that again it's as we um get the devices back that that we had um given out in the spring um as we replace ones that need to be replaced and um as we uh as we uh determine our final counts um and start getting those out to the buildings um for those of you who um maybe have a student or or
046um are listening and were previously in fourth grade you know that we piloted a byod program starting in january at huckleberry for the fourth grade unfortunately we didn't get a long period of time to pilot that um but in in the um light of the need for devices um and the more using of technology we are fully supporting a byod program this is bring your own device we are allowing students and families to provide their own device for their student that will be supported um with internet access and the necessary applications and programs most of which are web-based these days um and uh and our it department is ready and prepared for that um should uh families have choose the option to bring your own device um parents may choose to take this route uh
047more information and and and some agreements that we um we share with families will um be forthcoming in august um with the influx of devices whether it's chromebooks that the district's purchasing or the byod that families choose to send their students in with um we are i.t department among many other things um is very hard at work um on wi-fi upgrades um we have our new wireless access points arriving early next week and we'll be going around the district and adding those in um and and beefing up if you will um our our wi-fi uh to support um all these new devices in all of our schools um there will be a lot more information um on technology in regards to devices for the remote option should should parents choose to do that and then
048how it's going to look in school a lot more information to follow in august but i at least wanted to start with this please feel free to reach out to me with any additional questions um regarding technology um along either by contacting me or on the q a form um and that is it for technology so i'll hand it back to dr ruby or i think we're moving on to mrs little just go to the next slide please so now um melissa lebraciano is going to take over for the rest of the program until we at the very end and tell you about specifics for huckleberry thank you thank you dr ruby and i also want to welcome dr ferrara who joined our meeting this evening so eric if you want to just go to
049the the first slide that'd be great so i want to begin the conversation tonight just on developmental approach appropriateness for our students who are in second third and fourth grade um and i apologize in advance as i may be looking down at my notes because there's so much information that i want to get in this presentation and i don't want to miss anything i want to be able to share everything uh with the families and staff that are watching this evening but pause is embedded in everything we do throughout our day we teach our students from the very moment they walk into our building that we practice kindness act responsibly work hard and show respect the ruler approach is also implemented throughout the school and in every classroom students are not only learning how to
050recognize their own feelings and emotions but their peers too coming back to school after such a long period of time of being away our staff are aware that there are going to be social and emotional needs and we've already begun talking about that very important work and how we're going to address those needs with our students teachers are already meeting and collaborating on how to implement instruction in a thoughtful and meaningful way as always teachers will continue to provide explicit instruction through modeling and also visual supports assessing will still occur after a period of transition to being back at school and assessments come in many forms especially for our youngest learners teachers will provide feedback whether that be oral or written and we've begun discussions with teachers about having students upload assignments and assessments using
051google classroom at the beginning of the year having students use the platform to check their homework or daily assignments when they get home each day after school we really want kids familiar with google classroom and the technology so that it's really intertwined in their day and even when they get home so that if any moment we are back to remote learning the transition will be easier for our students children will be taught about safety topics as dr ruby mentioned whether that be masks hand washing how do we social distance covering our sneeds with our elbow the district school just the school nurses are collaborating and creating lessons and nurse warner and nurse kelly our amazing nurses at huckleberry are ready to support our students and staff children will also be taught about appropriate social interactions
052and awareness whether that's saying hello from a distance or sharing from afar kindness feelings mindfulness self-regulation which is also part of our ruler approach our school social worker and our school psychologists will be ready to support students and staff in addition we know that it is very unrealistic for our elementary students to be stuck at a desk all day wearing a mask and even our adults even the adults in our building will need mass breaks mass breaks will be throughout the day and i want to encourage families to start having children their children practice wearing masks at home whether they're wearing a mask during a board game that you're playing or when you're out in public try to keep those distance keep expanding the distance or the length of time that children are wearing masks
053because more the more that they practice and the more they're comfortable the better they will be prepared when they they come to school wearing a mask i can speak on a personal level i have a rising third grader and a rising fifth grader that are going to school in the fall and you know they are so comfortable now with wearing their masks that there are times where we are out in public and then we go into the car and they don't even realize they're still wearing their masks five minutes later so the more practice at home the better our children will be eric could you go to the next slide please so i received a lot of questions about what a typical day will look like at huckleberry and and i want to give a
054big shout out and thank you to miss diamond the principal over at center school because she went first doing these q a sessions and i loved her format of her slide so i want to share that our daily schedule will look very similar to what it's always been we will be adding in our schedule and embedded into our day like i said mass breaks and bathroom breaks we will continue to have ruler activities movement breaks recess a daily special sometimes two in a day and a break for snack each day our curriculum and curricular resources will remain the same teachers will continue to use my math open court the smithsonian science units teachers college for our ela instruction st math the list goes on all of that will stay and be consistent what is different
055is more of the physical layout of a classroom desks will be on average about five to six feet apart at huckleberry and as dr ruby mentioned cohorts a cohort is a class at huckleberry so whether that's 18 students 21 students 22 students depending on the class that is a cohort at huckleberry we're not planning on splitting up any of those cohorts that it would be a classroom cohort i will also share what's different so students will remain in their classroom for the majority of the day students will keep their backpacks outerwear and personal belongings with them at their desks each student will have his or own set of manipulatives and tools students will eat lunch in their classroom small group work may take may be done via technology and virtually so even if you have
056a student that's present in sitting at their desk they may be meeting with a reading teacher and with several other children in the building through a zoom breakout session and classes will be assigned to use specific bathrooms and be scheduled for bathroom breaks i want to share two you know specials such as pe physical education library music art and spanish will look a bit different classes will be scheduled for the same special for seven to eight weeks and specials will be held in the classroom so that is a change for example your child may have mr martina our music teacher monday through friday every single day for seven to eight weeks and the rationale behind this even though it's not ideal is that it's really about the safety for everyone involved instead of mr martina
057working with 520 students per week he will now only be working on average with six to eight classes per week there is a chance as we are finalizing our schedule that your child may have an additional special each week but advice as i've said it's still being determined as we finalize our schedule and we be we start to build in our teacher planning and collaboration time some of your children may already be familiar with this process if they attended huckleberry last year those were the days that they may have had two specials in one particular day and as all this information comes forward that will also that specific that being that specific will be shared with you at this time we're still getting information about band and chorus i was in communication today with mrs
058fitzgerald and she has some really great ideas for band um so we will be working with her on that as well so lunch will be in the classrooms children can still purchase lunch i know that was one of the questions and munch will actually be brought to the classroom by their specific lunch monitor and lunch is 30 minutes it allows for our teachers to also have their 30-minute lunch and during this time a lunch monitor will stay with the class just as lunch monitors did when we had lunch in the cafeteria lunch monitors will provide will be provided with the appropriate ppe and we will be able to help stu and will be able to help students during lunch the monitors will also be cleaning each desk after finishing eating and during this 30-minute block
059students will also have one of their daily bathroom breaks i have received several questions regarding allergies and food in the classrooms and i know anna lafarza who is our district supervisor for our nurses has been in contact with some of our medical advisors and anna i don't know if you want to speak to that of what was has been discussed or has transpired really within the last 24 hours sorry everybody i was unmute okay so we know that huckleberry students are going to be eating their snacks and their lunches at their desks with a trifold desk shield as far as allergies we are discouraging um classroom celebrations with food right now due to the pandemic and we're asking for parents to supply a safe snack for their child and also supply lunch or you can
060purchase lunch and purchase a safe lunch for your child if you have a food allergy the children again will be in cohorts um just remember the desks will be wiped down after lunch after the children will eat the desks will be wiped down the trifold desk shields will be wiped down the children will wash their hands and then place their masks back on so we have a lot of safety measures in place and we have a lot of the teachers will assist the children if need be if you still have any questions regarding your food allergies with we recommend that you discuss with your allergist or your physician and if you feel that the measures that are in place need more options the teachers will and the nurses will discuss that with you know that
061there is an emergency action plan in place the nurses are in constant communication with the teachers and the teachers know who the students with allergies are in their classrooms those teachers will be in their classes all day the children will be in their classes all day so the teachers have can monitor their children closely again this may change as time goes on but for now our plan is that the children will eat in the classroom desks will be cleaned their hand they wash their hands the trifold desk shields will be washed and that's really basically it and constant communication with the nurse and feel please feel free to reach out to your school nurse if you have any other questions regarding food allergies thank you anna thank you anna and i also want to just
062add on to that that you know even though the classroom teachers are not eating with the students during their lunch time these school nurses go over all the student medical plans with anyone that has interaction with particular students so staff is prepared they they recognize the symptoms of students who are having allergic reactions and in addition to that there are actually even plans in place for students who may not have originally an unknown allergy and all of a sudden now is showing allergies type symptoms um in the classroom i also wanted to share two that last year and and mr cochlin you kind of mentioned this as well is that our fourth graders participated in byod which was bring your own device and it was successful this year we are encouraging all students to byod
063and of course it's completely optional we will be sending out information regarding byod with grade level student supply list soon so that's going to come together in conjunction to get in an email from you eric if you can go to the next slide so i did receive several questions about bathroom usage at huckleberry and classes will be assigned to use specific bathrooms classes will be scheduled for several bathroom breaks over the course of the day one coinciding with their scheduled lunch time as i mentioned students will be encouraged to use the bathroom during scheduled class breaks but they also can go whenever they need to we know that it's not realistic for our second third and fourth graders to only go to the bathroom during scheduled times and we're working on our plan on how
064to manage students who need to go to the bathroom outside of that time so basically having conversations or instruction around if you are going to the bathroom and you notice there's already a class waiting to go what do you do and and we'll have those conversations so that students are prepared with those types of situation and as i mentioned classrooms will have bathroom breaks built into their daily schedule prior to the start of the school year grade level teams will determine when those breaks will be best for their individual schedules and teams will also be cognizant of times to avoid too many classes using the the same bathroom at once eric next slide so i've received probably the most questions regarding recess movement breaks and mass breaks so i thought i would lump that all
065together into one students will have recess daily for approximately 20 minutes recess will be outdoors whenever possible just like it is now with the exception of rain or extreme cold or heat as always please make sure your children dressed appropriately for recess outdoor recess will be mass-free students will be able to remove their masks for outdoor play unfortunately this year our playground will not be used social assistancing will still be expected and we will collaborate to develop a variety of choice activities that students can engage in in res outdoor play i you know for us i think the biggest change in recess is that students will not be able to use the playground and recess will be more structured classrooms will be assigned specific areas outside for recess to ensure that classroom cohorts stay together
066during their time recess will be more structured and the classroom teacher will be organizing games for outside play to ensure that students maintain social distancing through structured play teachers will still encourage movement and socialization in the classroom there will still be plenty of movement breaks as i said we've always done movement breaks even during a typical school year um you know we teachers use go noodle and other movement activities for students and so those opportunities will still happen except this time instead of all of everyone being together on the rug they may be doing these movement breaks standing behind their desk and as i mentioned there will be multiple mass breaks throughout the day in addition to when students aren't wearing masks already for snack recess and lunch so there will be plenty of opportunities
067for children to be able to take their masks off for short periods of time to get those breaks that they need indoor recess unfortunately um potentially may not be as much fun but we will do our very best to get students still engaged and have fun during that time students will remain in their classroom with their masks on we will probably incorporate some type of mask break regardless during that time and we would encour we would just encourage students to be able to play games that are more geared towards individual students such as coloring reading drawing card games and games like that thank you eric so i did receive several questions about drop off and pick up for parents um and i know dr ruby also mentioned that there may be adjustments as well to
068staggering schedule which we are still in the process of figuring all the information out but for the most part a parent drop-off is not going to change except that it will probably be more staggered uh parents should drive up past the front entrance doors to create a car line parents don't get out of the car they've never have before students have always exited through the passenger side door to avoid going walking into oncoming traffic and there are always many adults to support students as they're walking into the building and i think that's the most important piece so as students are getting out of the car we just have to make sure we stagger that so that we don't have a cluster of children walking into the building at the same time but again there are
069plenty of adults that will be able to assist with that parent pickup will be very similar to what it's always been as well parents will park their car in the parking lot spaces parents line up outside the upper gym doors the upper gym doors are the doors located closest to the front main entrance we ask that parents maintain social distancing and wear their mask and please bring your own pen and a photo id because there will be a sign out for you to um sign out to so that staff knows that someone has picked up your child and a staff member will bring your child to you and then um as always parents will not be coming into the building to pick up students just like we've always said in the past you know as
070we've been saying through this whole entire presentation is that we just ask for your patience because we do know that things are going to take a little longer we don't know necessarily how many more children will be dropped off and we don't know yet how many more children will be parent pick up at the end of the day so will things take longer yes are they still manageable yes but we do ask for your patience with that okay eric so i have received a handful of questions regarding incoming second graders and truly the only change this year for our incoming second graders was we were not able to have our incoming second grade huckleberry visit when second graders are still at center school in first grade they come over and they spend a little bit
071of time in huckleberry kind of touring the building and unfortunately we were not able to do that towards the end of may i shared with all incoming second grade families our second grade orientation materials and additional information as well please let me know reach out email if you did not receive any of that information already incoming second graders will be escorted to their classrooms whether taking the bus or parent drop-off this is a practice that we've always done at huckleberry and that will not change there are plenty of adults that escort the children to their classrooms and that first month of school in addition to that if a second grader is walking and they don't know their classroom teacher because they forget many of our staff members even have student rosters so all they have
072to do is look up the child's last name and they know exactly where the child needs to be so none of that will change for our incoming second graders so i don't want anyone to worry about a second grader being dropped off at school and not knowing where to go i promise you we will find them where they need to be and they will get there okay safe and sound second grade teachers will just still do some type of scheduled tour for our second graders what that looks like we haven't established that yet but we're still planning on doing some type of tour so the students get the lay of the land administration and staff are planning to do for uh virtual ways for students to connect with their teacher and to see their classroom
073prior to the first day of school and i would also say administration and staff provide our incoming second graders with a lot of support and help to really aid in the transition to huckleberry all our second grade classrooms are located at the lower level of huckleberry so it's a very easy layout especially since children aren't going to be using the upper cafeteria or going to any of the specialists at least the beginning part of the year as the specialists come to them it really will be okay the transition will be fine and that's all i i got sums up many of the questions that families asked i don't know if we have any additional time dr ruby if we got any questions that came in well i wanted to talk a little bit about the
074questions that came in um some of them are very specific and we wouldn't they would take a long time to answer here and i'll give you an example we had several questions about ventilation in the buildings and ventilation filters and the care of the hvac system and those are there are very detailed answers that need to be given for those questions and those will be written up and provided um in uh the q a document that you'll have actually will be sent out through messenger it'll be on the website so the fact that we we had to figure out a methodology for delivering this information and as well everybody may not agree that um that they like this method that we chose we chose what we thought would work best for um all of our
075administrators and for the the community and so well it was not the type of q a where when we're in a classroom or an auditorium you get to raise your hand and you know ask your question it wasn't an open zoom which we are not going to be doing um we felt that having the um the administrators and the experts uh go call through the q a document and collate questions so that we could give answers that to the most frequently asked questions would be the most expedient and efficient way to do that promising that the questions that you send in will all be answered one of the questions before i we're a little over time but i think is important is a question about um there were some questions about will my children if
076i um homeschool well they still have access to all the um the tools and programs um that the school provides and so i want to take a little bit of time just to briefly explain the answer because the answer is no why is the answer no the answer is no is because home schooling doesn't mean the same as remote learning or distance learning homeschooling as a term means that you you have decided that you as a parent or guardian are going to be responsible for the education of your child and home when you homeschool your child you actually legally withdraw your child from the school so your child is no longer a student in the brookfield public schools when that happens that triggers a cascade of financial elements where they the child is not in
077our school census is not counted as a student in the school by the state any funds that come from state or federal count that the money is divided by the number of people that are enrolled in school so when once you've disenrolled your child and are homeschooling you then that child no longer has access to um the materials in the school so not to be harsh i i just wanted to make sure um that people understood the terminology and that because because we could say homeschooling when we meet remote learning if your child is remote learning yes they have access to all the materials for their or their classroom there are a lot of questions about bus transportation and things like isn't it kind of silly that we're doing all this um distancing and whatnot
078in the classroom yet the buses are not as treated in the same way and there are so many opinions out there about that um the bottom line is that the the guidance from the state is that the buses can be filled to capacity rest assured our buses are not likely to be filled to capacity given the fact that so many people have already told us on our what i called our dipstick survey um that they were going to be driving their children to school that we're not anticipating that we're going to have um very overcrowded school buses and we will be getting more information on that form that i told you that you'd be getting through a survey where you identify your option for individual students because not only will you be asked are you
079100 in or are you remote learning you'll be asked are you going to have your child take the bus or drive to school and when we collate all that data we'll be able to let people who want to know um you know just what the density on the buses is going to be um there were questions about um the notice that the governor gave on monday the surprise notice that where he started talking about um hybrid learning was going to be allowed if districts needed to do that um so people have many people have asked you know now that this hybrid thing came about are you going to do hybrid as i said earlier the plan that the district has is for and that hinges on us having the funding to buy all the materials
080that we need and the health data staying staying healthy the way it is right now so currently today at this moment our plan is not to go to hybrid but as you've been able to you've been living it things change from moment to moment so i don't want anybody to misconstrue if suddenly we have to go to hybrid in three weeks that he said we weren't doing that um currently we're going to 100 if anything changes the superintendent will let uh families know immediately every single other question that's on here will be answered um i do need to just as an overall response to questions about personnel there were questions asking will we be informed if a staff member gets coveted what will happen if a staff member gets coveted how many days do they
081have to those those answers are not ones that we can provide you those are um uh issues of personnel and um just like nope if you worked anyplace else if you worked at dunkin donuts they wouldn't send out and put a notice up in the window that you know the person who works at the window from seven to ten has covered you know that's just some not something that would be appropriate so we won't be sending home notices of names of children names of of um staff or teachers um that will all be taken care of through the department of health and the contact racing and i don't mean to be flip or you know like you're not getting the information but it's just not appropriate and i just don't want people to think that
082that's forthcoming because those questions are going to be answered that this is a person a personal personnel issue so i just want to thank all the people that put this program together because i know how hard you worked on um dealing with all the questions and i want to thank the parents that were able to tune in if you have friends that were not able to uh mr conklin will be posting um this uh the youtube video so that people can access it and the other videos from the other schools are up if you have children in those schools and weren't able to access we didn't get to hear from dr ferreira tonight but boy that looks great that picture if you'd like to say hello to everybody um we're so grateful to um dr
083ferreira and dr sullivan and uh anna for like helping us through this um very tricky time so uh dr farah so all your we sign off yeah i've been i've been hiding out but i will i will tell everybody who's listening that um you know we've worked very very closely with the school system and i have to tell you that the teams who have pulled all of this together for you many of most of them are on here have done an amazing job my son is actually in high school so he'll be a sophomore this year so you know the plans the the things that have been put together are really sound on guidelines from the cdc and i think the reassurance that i have for my son and my wife right sending him back
084to school is that i know the work that everybody has put in and i know the commitment all the teachers and the staff that the school system has to take care of my son while he's in there in their hands so i have no reservations i think it's a very well thought out plan certainly if there's clinical questions that ever wrote you know that come up out of tonight's discussions we'll be happy to address those with dr ruby and this team and we'll get get those answers to everybody in the community but you know again i would have to say from my standpoint thank you to the whole school district because it really is a phenomenal effort educating the community and doing the hard work that they've done over the last several weeks well thank
085you and thanks for all the help that you've given us because we would not have been able to do it without you and dr sullivan and our nursing supervisor anna so we're going to sign off um if you have further questions please put them into the q a my understanding is that that will be shutting down um soon because we need to collate that data i think dr burrell said that it will be shutting down sometime um following this meeting to allow the um parents and guardians from huckleberry who were watching um to be able to enter some more questions that may have uh cropped up while you're watching this hopefully we didn't confuse anybody dr ruby i think we'll put a safe time of dr varela and i i spoke earlier i think we'll
086put a safe time and say that um you have until 10 p.m tonight um and then we'll we'll shut down the survey so that uh the administrative team principals and all parties involved can uh can really focus on getting these questions answered for everybody okay so great those thank you very much i'm very proud to work with all the people who work so hard in brookfield and uh have a great night bye