Policy Committee 5-16-23

001uh Cheshire Board of Education policy subcommittee meeting to order this josinski please call the roll here right thank you well please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay all right so um according to our agenda we have audience first um so if there is anyone who's joining us this evening who would like to speak on anything that's on the agenda tonight or anything else about policy you're more than welcome to make any statements three minutes uh it's uh just like a regular board meeting if anyone has anything I don't have anything prepared okay but I was curious about the equity and diversity and also the survey of the

002state of the still here for tonight oh okay and so um I just was curious on what your policies are and how you're going forward with this well that's why we're here tonight we're going to be discussing those things so okay all right okay great okay [ __ ] Mr White I said um so there's no one else from the audience tonight okay great uh we'll move on to uh for discussion uh Transportation policy so this is a continuation of the discussion that we had at our last meeting um where we started to really look at a couple of uh current situations as it relates to our transportation policies but also kind of considering what will the multiple years down the road when we open our new North End in new Northern schools and redistrict and how

003that will impact things um you know Luther and Vin contributed uh greatly to the conversation at our last meeting we asked them to come back and take a look at you know the the policy is exists today and any considerations that they might have for future policy review and talking to Mr grippo and of course with Lucy Marciano and Mr Miller too you know it would it would be pretty insensitive if we were to Institute a new Transportation policy on May 17th or whatever after a couple of readings for for September 1st or whatever so um I think you know given the fact that we are in the process of bringing in some new buildings and we're looking at the policy now is a good time to start to review it to evaluate it maybe

004even Institute some changes over the course of next year to give families enough lead time to make any necessary adjustments if there are any um so with that I'll turn it over to Luther Miller our transportation director and Mr maciano Chief Operating house I mean I I would just you know offer a couple of things that I know that you know it's a relatively long policy and certainly there are some recommendations that that we would make um really to tweak what we already have the one thing that is probably the most important that I think was discussed at the last meeting was you know what what are the maximum walking distance right now we're actually a little bit under where the market is you know for k-6 you know most school districts are on the

005mile you can go to a mile and a half to a middle and high school we're at a mile and a half our school districts are two miles um The Only Exception really that we have that from a policy point of view we'd like to adjust as kindergarten is that a half a mile and it creates a conflict for those families that have a kindergarten have a second or third grader where you know there's a pickup in a kindergartner but not for the third grader to give us the most flexibility you know we would be recommending that we move everything k-6 to a mile where we need to have bus stops at less than a mile we do that already you know so I don't think it would fundamentally change anything but it will give

006us greater flexibility and I think we're going to need it as we go through the next couple of years even before the new schools are built you know whereas we see enrollment increase you know that flexibility will help us to try and keep our costs in my um and then some of the other you know changes that we that we would be discussing when we bring you know a formal review about the policies you know would be to tweak some of the the explanations of you know what's uh you know safe or hazardous area because it does create some ambiguity and we'd like to clean that up you know when it comes to safety we've always defer to police um and public works if there's a safety issue we circulate petitions if there's a concern

007about safety and we're very prudent about as how we established you know our walking and our pickup zones so that's kind of the long and short of what I wanted to say that anything I miss Luther just jump in I think the only thing to add is that the are half mile kindergarteners was basically set up when the only kindergarten in town was Darcy all kindergartners went there so so our policy became outdated when we went to all day and as as our um children that have been kindergartners have started to go into their their home district for lack of a better description that's what has created that conflict with having a sibling who could be a third grader who has to walk a mile you have yeah so I I mean moving it from

008a half mile to a mile I mean just very uh off the cuff it seems reasonable to me um with regard to with regard to the uh sorry I lost my train of thought I will come back to it I should have written it down I'll just jump in here to you know further validate uh Luther's point about when this policy was established was 2008. when the policy was lasted reviewed so and at that time all kindergarteners were right and they were half day right and what was it this is my question what was it before Darcy when we went to Norton school there was no Darcy for at all I don't think used do you know what I did not know that I I all I know is what our policy states now yeah

009yeah and then I did get the even mentioned it I did uh pull up our surrounding towns and our surrounding towns are all a mile for K through throughout Elementary including okay so I guess my main question is um the parents who have the kindergartener it changes totally acceptable to me change can happen um but what's the impact have you thought about that like how many parents are affected you said that right now it's a gray area where it comes to safety and walking along sidewalks so you're gonna work on it and for parents who are watching at home first of all there's no requirement that sidewalks exist correct and just because sidewalks are there does not necessarily make it safe I'm assuming correct um so you could maybe go to the police or something

010like that and ask for traffic accidents or any sort of incidents that they yeah and what I was referring to is if there's a petition this is the way the ambiguity becomes an issue you know parents as well I need to add a bus stop because it's not safe and our language is kind of ambiguous so we'd like to clean that up but when we do have a petition like that the the rule that we use is we circulate the petition including to the traffic officer and so the police will look to see you know is this an area where it might be prone to accidents where there's not clear visibility you know and good Sidelines for when the bus stops which you know we think we do a good job of that but when

011those petitions come in we do defer you know to what police um you know would rule on so that the so government we provide services so you're taking you're effectively we would effectively be taking away a service not looking at the parents looking at the kids does a kindergartner in September have the stamina to walk a mile and stay awake in class for the day generally it doesn't have to be every kid but generally speaking I'm I'm thinking they probably do but I'm not really sure so but you said other towns do it so right and so you know I guess you know I'm sure that somebody could say my child does not you know I'm just talking I'm talking about 90 of the kids like most of the creators could say that too yes

012they're gonna they're gonna be out there gardeners and the physical stamina to do that and the parent the parents would be doing it the following year anyway right so it's not like it's something it starts let us start developmental difference between kindergarten and first grader um necessarily also it really doesn't impact Darcy any of the kids that go to Darcy because we would never have any child no more well yeah so that it doesn't impact them at all it actually and I'll make this the argument it makes it easier on parents because they now can have both students and potentially at the same stop as compared to having one be a walker and whatnot that's where our conflict has been we've had where one student is a walker and the other one gets a boss

013because they're inside the half mile it's for I'll give you the little ones it was one of the examples we had where we had one student who's kindergarten going to do a little and he gets the boss put his sibling was a walker and we didn't have enough room for that student to petition on an available seat to get on the bus and the important thing is that it's up to a mile or up to a mile and a half that doesn't mean you know we don't draw a mile in every direction and that's where the stop is so yeah we do use reasonableness you know and most of our stocks will not have a full as long as yeah I mean as long as you're doing what you're saying you're doing I think it

014makes sense to try to alleviate the administrative burden that you know that you have if you can well in the parent frustration too when you know like Luther said I have to be in two places at once if I'm the only parent you know walk maybe walking my you know right watching my first grader walk on in my kindergartner and taking them to the bus stop and you know that does create some frustration can I just go back because you know and I don't know what the criteria is are setting 1.5 versus 1 the versus half because I used to always thought my kids went to Darcy driving there I said if my kid was a walker how would I even get to Darcy right now because it's not safe so what what is built

015in that we would consider okay we have enough Walkers where we need to force the sidewalk onto this I just yeah the sidewalk if you're talking to me well not everywhere you guys know how to hear me all the time but you're right yeah that's a town decision right and you know I think I don't know if you remember more recently the hullabaloo over uh a sidewalk yeah the community that didn't want it and um but you know if that sidewalk does not exist then we're going to provide the bus that's right I think we'll have been the same reasonableness we look at yeah we wouldn't want any student walking on 70 especially at that age you know a good one by High School wouldn't want to walk on 70 myself a good example is

016is again it's do a little because within that mile walking area for the for the elementary school students that takes them almost all the way down Mountain Road going towards West Main pretty damn close right sidewalks end where those sidewalks end we start picking up the kids so we we don't have those two we're not going to let a first grader walk even though it's inside the walking area where we pick them up and that's the discretion that we do the last thing I want to do is have a student out there and so you know that's that's where I'm always saying I always say our sidewalk policy and gesture is very schizophrenic I have a sidewalk then no sidewalk then the sidewalk again and then there's a sidewalk on the other side but then

017I mean it's all over the place there's no Rhyme or Reason and the same thing with the new North school I'm driving over there I'm like where are these guys walking uh that's how I keep telling I keep telling these guys in all directions and we did already communicate with Sean okay um about that scenario and about where sidewalks should be and or extended in that neighborhood um and that'll be certainly in the top of the conversation soon the example I used was The Courier Woods kids that's a bus almost by itself that back entrance or the Jarvis entrance it you don't put sidewalks there you're gonna pick up kids you're going to use a whole bus most likely to pick up kids to take them driving across 200 feet yeah but you wouldn't want

018to walk in there no without sidewalks so is this an ongoing discussion that you have with the town manager it goes on year after year about places where it doesn't have to be every year but this is an ongoing discussion highlighting places where well there's definitely more urgency as we start new construction um there's definitely more of a an intentional focus on that uh you know I don't know that there was much appetite for it after what what's I can't remember the streets the block the side of the high school oh you know I don't know if there was a lot of appetite on the council side after that experience but um certainly now it's worth revisiting with the new school being built so well we have the situation on Coleman Road where there's student

019developments went in with one's once built and has sidewalks but then there's two houses right on Coleman Road that have no sidewalk and that's relatively busy road so you know yeah and they're obviously family houses yeah they're meant for families and the kids that live there if they want to go over to those new developments have no choice but to go out to Coleman Road and I'm talking about just socializing with friends with us we're picking them up we're picking them up probably at the house so one thing I I encourage you to do is to identify if you if you identify the places where it would make sense especially gaps like on Mountain Road and I don't know where the I don't know where the public works department is on this right now but

020I know I've spoken with him about it in the past which is basically to try to keep tabs on the homes with respect to sales when I was on the council I mean one of the things that was really difficult for me would be you know the little old lady she's got a reverse mortgage people tell you all sorts of things when you're going door to door relatively little money can't possibly shovel their sidewalk can't pay someone to shovel their sidewalk she leaves the house for some reason it's a new home you have the kids move in they're that is a sidewalk let's say the so that's a that's a bad example right there but right next door you have another home that moves the kids move in they probably want the side there's a

021good chance they would want the sidewalk there if you do some sort of like annual follow-up with the particular gaps on Mountain Road Ron Coleman whatever you're talking about just a reminder email it might uh poking Public Works might remind him and say oh yeah let's look at that as a possible um expansion of the sidewalks to fill in gaps yeah I think if we're going back to the table to talk about the North End sidewalk situation it's not a bad idea to kind of cue up some of the other hot spots that we know around town um no I know them all yeah I know you do but I mean if you if you could if you could jot it down and give it to Public Works I think that's I would like it

022if you did that yeah because they're open to it and the big the single biggest thing for them I believe is basically connecting the gaps so getting that sidewalk over on Jarvis or Marion is not necessarily something high on their to-do list you consider Peck Lane in that category because there's a section of Peck Lane that has about 400 feet of sidewalk and then there's a gap and then there's about another 100 feet and then nothing yeah yeah I mean would would should that be connected at least the peck where the new the new sidewalks are that can come down from the top of guanabear and give them your list of priorities yeah I know yeah again I think is worthy of pursuing the conversation with them we've already notified them about the intention to

023have that conversation and they've been very receptive and so you know we'll we'll get that squared away in terms of at least having the conversation you know obviously we don't have the authority to dictate what they do but you know we certainly can express the urgency and the need so in this policy Jeff what are the possible relations so I think you know some of the things that we're talking about are like we shared tonight with the um you know moving it from a half mile to a mile from kindergarten um there's some language in here that's a little big in places um There Are Places again where we would just look for agreement in mileage so it says like uh there are some things that we would take up in the fall with the

024more comprehensive review of this policy but um just wanted to have some more preliminary conversation on it and make sure that we can dive in with a little bit more detail hopefully even when the fall kicks around we might know a little bit better about what the sidewalk situation might how that might be an improvement um and then we can kind of work on the three readings for the public made sure there's a lot of information about it and then you know making any modifications some of it is just clean up we still in the house you talk about mailing postcards to parents which I haven't done that in years is there a defined I didn't read the whole thing but is there a defined safety there there is actually a quite elaborate compared to

025other you know communities so we'll propose the language and you know kind of work it through as you normally do in policies I I think the biggest thing really has more around the walking Zone I think there's some language about ages that's the easy stuff all right um when we're measuring a mile I know we talked about this at the last game so I've forgotten that is it from the door to the beginning of the driveway or to the front door of the school it's from the corn it's basically the corner of the property of the residence curb line to within a hundred feet of the nearest entrance of the school based on the policy without a hundred feet okay so so it would be a significant change then if we did it to the

026door of school because we're going to have some new schools they're going to have pretty long driveways well that would sort of bring up it would still be 100 feet to the door oh I see what you're saying that extended driveway in the school property where you can choose up mileage right yeah as you're kind of bringing it that would be correct yes right yeah if there's a much longer run point we're on the Bus Loop you know as you know preliminary designs hold true that both the driveways at Norton that's why that's why the policy I believe the policy is set up to start it basically the end of the driveway because we have some pretty long driveways yeah I know we have some driveways there Hi Well actually hi there too I guess

027yeah all right I just want to consider that um any other questions okay move on thank you gentlemen thank you uh to equity and diversity this and our um our next policy around civility are things that I want to say we I had to discussed this at one point a few days back yeah briefly yeah and so this is just a proposal it's not a statutorily required policy but it seems to keep in mind and see if we can pretty out a copy why don't we give you a printed copy that might be easier that'd be great easier to read these guys have already seen it um you know I can go through I'm not going to read verbatim so is this where where uh where did this language come from this was designed by

028Cheshire Public Schools people um there's uh this isn't Kate no okay no this is uh you know from our teachers administrators here um and it really what it it talks about is trying to ensure the success of all learners that we're committed to the success of all kids and a Workforce that's reflective of our student population community um I'd say those are some of the Hallmarks the uh when did you travels okay let's say the fall because I thought we talked about this ability one and then wanted to entertain this since Kate does have their own Equity about this example so I'm not sure if we can kind of merge the language to align with you know the work that's going on out there publicly too so when you say the words you know I

029mean it's it may not impact with Cave's example I think it's a bit more comprehensive um you know even in my own District it's not just one page it's pretty outline to yeah this is four pages yeah it's three it's pretty extensive legal references um you know I think also just kind of mirroring some of the efforts of minority teacher recruitment that would overlap a little bit into this policy and I'm not sure if that's included here yeah the minority future recruitment piece is is referenced here in terms of attempting to diversify our Workforce and efforts that we have made in that respect you know the minority teacher recruitment is incredibly challenging right now as is recruitment of all teachers really unfortunately but um we have engaged in practices uh like the um for lack

030of a better term grow your own program where we had a african-americ American male who was you know working with us peripherally who we went through uh Cheshire High graduate went through the training program and will be hired next year he worked all year at Norton and will be hired next year as a as a teacher for us which is great to diversify our teaching quarter um because he had Norton alum was he born [Laughter] so I mean I'm more than happy to share some of this language is this Kate derivative language but generally it's what what our group put together and I can share with you guys the cape version if you not well I mean I was able to read through this um almost all of the language feels familiar like it's it's

031already in a lot of our um uh what is it our diversity uh policies that we have already in some of our existing policies yeah you know hiring practices uh a lot of the equal treatment of people and students and employees are all seem to be sort of covered right this is more of a declarative summative statement yeah that it does I mean it should have hints of a variety of things whether it be current existing policy or uh vision of The Graduate or some of our goals as a school system so uh it's not it's not law right it does reference law though for example if you know if you look at the last the reference page it'll be pretty clear that you know obviously we can't discriminate in our Employment Practices and things

032right yeah yeah so there's certainly many references to law and or um cases that have gone through office of civil rights or whatever so again this is more of a declarative statement about a board Community belief system so I guess my the biggest question I have is uh section d where it's it promotes the equitable distribution of resources how would we do that so um right now in a in our budget we do uh highlight where we're required by law to illustrate where the resources are spent by school um you know I think for example it is hard to illustrate that but I wouldn't I would say for example that we don't just assign every student a dollar amount right if we took our per pupil expenditure we know faith is is asked and we've

033provided the average per pupil expenditure for special education it would be wildly inappropriate to say well you know I don't care what your needs are X dollars you know and so I think it's again some of this stuff is uh more uh aspirational than it is something that you can clearly measure very easily but um for example if we had a group of students that were historically underachieving this would say to me that we wouldn't engage in something where we would say well you know that's they they got X dollar now it's you know better luck next year that we would say with that then that requires us to provide more resources as we've done with special education you know and our special education scores are parallel with our our achievement on general education in

034terms of a rank so it like like I said it's not some of it's a little bit aspirational in the sense that it's hard it would be incredibly difficult to put a dollar amount on how much money you're spending on each individual because I mean for budget wise we don't necessarily have an equal distribution for every school like to say for our elementary schools these budget is different right the requirements are different um they're not necessarily based on uh the racial makeup of our students right it's more based on need in general um so I was just concerned that this adds another level of consideration because it says child doesn't say must um and and we don't necessarily and I'll have a section of town that's more diverse than another you know I think the

035makeup is pretty homogeneous for good or bad right yeah generally speaking so I don't know if you know a set section like this is necessary because you you use special education as sort of your example but that's not what this is talking about I think it's talking about any sort of differences of I mean if we had um while not in a general sense right Equity is not talking about especially I guess maybe not in a general sense yeah the resources for special education could you give a specific example hypothetical that how you would Envision that based on what Adam was saying well I think if you know multi-language Learners okay [Music] um that you know if we need different resources than we have I mean we've invested in that respect that you know one

036of my favorite educational books is titled fair is not always equal and you know what's doing what's right by our students in our community does not mean giving every student equal resources some students we know require more resources when we identify groups of students who are not performing on par with their peers but it's I think this is more of an aspirational statement that says when you see that we're going to try and do something about and we've never not done that agreed I think that's I I agree with that I think that's been a you know a source of Pride for us to try and support all students who need that and that we help them find success I know specifically for me one thing that has concerned me since I was in high

037school was the student sports figure after school activity fee I never had a problem with it as a kid I don't have a problem with it now philosophically but I don't want any kids left out yeah of course and if that kid needs to have some sort of extra resources whether it's a credit of you know fifty dollars I think that's important to have that I don't want I don't want that kid feeling like they're poor and they they're not allowed to participate I think that would be frankly really awful yeah so in spirit I understand what you're saying yeah yeah and they provide access and we wave fees yeah you know you know the multi the the language Learners multi-language Learners so kids who English is not their first language right I think Marlene

038said there was like 80 or so kids um I think we're about over a hundred okay well over 100 at this point so this is for people watching at home there are kids here in Tamil English is not their first language yeah and they have every right and it's important for them to go to school and have a public education and that's gotta that's gotta work and so I think it's important to have some sort of resource for those kids and they're not special ed they just chose the language these are children in our community who um you know their families live here and they said English was not their first language and we provide them the resources they need to be successful uh academically and and socially you know I hate just the idea

039that oh I'll always worry about the academic success we want our kids to be successful in all frames um but yeah I'm in the same way we provide resources for students who have different needs whether they be socioeconomic to your point not available to able to afford a participation fee um we would provide that access if you need more support for special education you provide that access and the reality is if we found that you know our our black students were performing significantly worse than our white students we would make efforts to intervene there too which may mean more resources and that's what a I think a Humane and uh you know an educational Community should be about is elevating all students to find success that's what public school is about for me I definitely

040like the language indeed I think it's also speaking to the reallocation of resources depending on your population of the schools you know when my kids are at Highland Highland was the High maturity special ed school so I would hope that you reallocate special ed support to Highland and not just equally sprinkle out special education resource teachers oh everybody has an equal amount of teachers well that school there does not need it because they don't have a high number of you know said needs I hope Jack would be able to then reallocate those resources to the areas that would need it you know so I think the D language wise I don't have a concern with it and it encompasses um DNE not just race the socioeconomics and academic needs as well too as well as

041you know what you address very Tim so yeah I was gonna ask you about that check so I just I I personally think this is a step in the right direction most districts have this just to name the fact that we are doing these things um we're not not doing them um and so I think the public should know that there is diversity amongst us majority of which are homo genius but there's still a diversity of needs and it's not just about race you know um in social class yeah I think you know one thing that we tried to focus on in our group is that there is a lot that goes on in political climates outside of Cheshire um and I I could care less about that necessarily you know if if we're as

042we look at this we're looking at Cheshire our students our families the kids that attend our schools what is it that we want to try and do to support Cheshire and our community and not engage and all the other stuff so you all maybe find some language that says far left is some people were like I don't think you're going to find language that's as far right as other people would like but um what I think we do try and focus on and if you reread the the policy and you look at other policies is the students who are attending the Cheshire Public Schools what is it we're trying to do for that and that that's that was the frame with which this was really drafted but you know this is a discussion item there's

043not a advancement so you know we'll discuss putting it on the next agenda or not and I'll share the other information from cave and we'll go from there is is it from your perspective is there anything new in here that's not happening right now you're just because what I'm hearing you say is you're basically codifying what you're already doing yeah and some of it is codified but it's in one concise policy right here yeah I don't I don't think there's anything new that we're not doing um you know I think there's also value and like you know writing down what you do stand for so no I I you know but you're right absolutely it's not like these are new things that we're doing I mean to me my analogy is drunk driving there's drunk

044driving laws yeah before that there were reckless driving laws drunk driving law were basically they were just saying keep this one in mind especially type of thing right people could still have been arrested for reckless driving sure that's it so I'll share that other stuff with you guys um civility policy this is a little bit different in the sense that um this is one that came you guys uh were acknowledged with the award from McCabe about their efficacy and capacity as a board uh this past fall uh this is one that would help Elevate to the next level that's not why we do things chasing Awards but I thought that was interesting that it stood out with with Kane uh is something that would you know Elevate the board to the next level um we

045were the motto particularly I was gonna say particularly given all the work that we've done around Civility and navigating difficult meetings um and I think what this does is uh we invite public discourse whether it be in public session or hit the building level um this this does a lot to address other venues beyond the board meeting this isn't the board meeting policy this is as a community um we believe that the free exchange of ideas is appropriate you know you we can criticize each other um without losing our civility um and when people are threatening or engaging in repeated use of profanity and things like that that you know this is something where we would say Hey you know we have a civility policy it doesn't change what we can do legally um so

046I the school district has the right to ban parents and there's a very high threshold for that and there should be you know but if a parent continues to come in and use a lot of profanity and it's threatening people then we there's a in this kind of outlines what we do in line with law you know you direct that parent to stop doing that stuff then you have them direct all Communications through the principle and if that's not effective then you know you would cease that we would only do Communications and writing sort of thing um but that's all Guided by current law anyway in uncivil conduct includes directing vulgar obscene and profane gestures or words that other individuals taunted engineering inciting others to talk or cheer as an individual shouting at another individual

047or repeatedly interrupting and other individuals speaking in an appropriate time and place imposing personal demand to time your own settings where they can flip through the same duties that reasonably we met personal epithets you know shaking your fist and somebody invading the personal space of getting up in their face and and I'm not stopping doing that when the other person's backing away um you know rifling through somebody else's things that I think is a society we generally all agree or not okay you know and um and again I think it's important to note too that it doesn't include expression of controversial and differing viewpoints things like that um it's okay to say to us you disagree with things that we do or even have perspectives that are controversial as long as you're not you know

048shaking your fist at me while you do it and swearing a storm so in the second paragraph Jeff are you implying that you're going to have restorative circles here with you know as some of the actions that you'll be taking I think it depends on individuals and on the circumstances um that may not be appropriate for yeah some parties but I suppose the problem I have with this is that the definition of uncivil conduct is depending on your point of view again which goes back to free speech and First Amendment and it says it's okay to express your opposing point of view as long as you don't raise your voice or shake your fist or do any of those other things that we all experienced several years ago in meetings already and if they did

049that in a public meeting that's still an expression of free speech and unless there is an incitement of violence you know we had already um you know steps in place to you know for through Robert's rules to you know the control needing so is this meant for like during the school day like what if you had some uh someone rent out Thorpe Auditorium and have a speaker come in and things got wild is that is this does this uh Encompass yeah that would be abusive school that would be a private event property so you know at a PPT you shouldn't be using profanity toward the future okay and threatening their personal like generally accept the sort of behavior already or accepted I'm sorry discouraged certainly discouraged yeah but yeah all right important clarification right yes

050but um yeah of course and there's already measures in place and I've been in meetings before where I've said you know we can't this isn't productive um we're not going to be able to continue if this Behavior continues and unfortunately we've been in meetings before where that has continued and we you know what we're gonna have to uh terminate the meeting at this point we'll reconvene when we're able to do it in a productive way um so yeah that exists uh that practice would exist um I think you know a lot like the equity policy this is a public statement to that end um and so again I I don't know that you know this is if we adopt this is this gonna reshape the the life of the Cheshire Public Schools no I don't

051think so I think what it does do is support more or less principal communication as needed with individuals who might might benefit from reviewing it so as an example I think of is I think during covid there were student walkouts there are protests if I recall um if there were counter protests like let's say another group of students wanted to protest that protest is that considered you know because it was a school sanctioning walkout in the first place if another group is the only one the only School sanctioned walkout now we're not in the business of you know hey let's walk out of school every day yeah it only happened once the one that I can remember was after Parkland um yeah that was you know hundreds of kids right in order for it to

052be orderly and appropriate you know we did facilitate you come out you can speak and go back but what if there was another group that wanted to also Express their point of view opposite to that yeah and they did that would that be considered uncivil if they no came out with a bullhorn or something like that um and this more disrupted to the other walkout yeah I think in the sense with each other yeah I think we would say you know this isn't productive you have hundreds of kids out in the parking lot though yeah I mean that's uh one event in the 18 years right no I know but it was an unusual time absolutely yeah yeah I also think that the tenor of society has gotten increasingly oh that's fair too uh yeah

053this is a really good sign or what if they weren't even students what if they were just other people yeah who came on their property I mean I don't know at that point is it a legal issue you know yeah right yeah the teachers had yeah yeah this um because it doesn't seem like there's a lot of teeth in this anyway there's like a lot of because you said talking circles or whatever there was it wasn't a lot of restoration yeah this as I said to you you know I'm not gonna pass that this is you know it's a game changer for the Cheshire Public Schools um but it would likely be used less than a dozen times a year um and it you know I think it's just a statement of decorum for our

054community and some people sometimes need to be reminded of that it's not meant to be the playbook for protest or anything like that it's it's again just kind of a statement about the expectations for decorum in the community in the Cheshire Public Schools community and you know doesn't have teeth you know but your song clear this is meant to be during school hours on school property yeah I mean that's the the gist of it it's not like you said if somebody's renting out the auditorium that's private that's that's their own event so even though it's school property it's not this conduct this policy does not yeah you know I can certainly look at Clarity of language again this is a discussion so if we wanted to bump it around if I rent that out called

055in Tucker Carlson or something like that to call you I think there would be a lot of people would have a lot of things to say sure and lots of crazy things in that Auditorium right and you know would that this civility policy kick in because people would be screaming at each other or uh you know that that's not a school event right so it's private when you're under private insurance and all that kind of stuff that's considered a private event yeah when you rent it out that's your thing I mean there are we have rules I mean like we had this massive Indian wedding it died when I was a little vice principal there you know we have rules about what you can and can't do um but it's not governed by decorum our

056expectations for your social it's just like don't destroy the building yeah I already have to pay for it right it was more or less that stuff right but um you know we can always go back and take a look at this in the summer and see if we wanna on Thursday I'll bring it up there yeah it's just kind of important well I'm sure it'll bring up some discussion yeah I think yeah yeah if you're good to get other board members so yeah take that you know even if we wanted to solicit something more formally for the board you know we could do that too I mean this does apply to our board meetings as well too so yeah you know respectful discourse here tomorrow yeah and you know and that's why I'm gonna have

057a problem with it though I think for me anyway because as as crazy as those meetings were it's the public does have their right to speak and however they wish um we have lots of lawsuits more definitely have the right to speak with the reason and you know right and those protocols have been effective right right um when necessary and right and again marginal percentage of the positive yeah 99.9 at the time it's it's fine you know and and I remember Tim saying at one point when we had discussed this that you know whether it's fair or it's not um I tend to agree with him that you know there's probably a different when you say subjective right whether or not it's appropriately subjective I can manage a different level of criticism or lack of

058decorum than I would expect my average kindergarten teacher to have to navigate you know by virtue of position and experience you know whether that's fair or not you know I expect to use public officials perhaps whether it's fair or not to navigate something different than I expect my luncheon to have to navigate you know what I mean and how do you you know that isn't necessarily articulated maybe it should be maybe it shouldn't be I don't know um but I I think the intent on this was just a general level of decorum and expectations the same way we would you know the community would expect us to treat them with a certain level of professionalism into Coral so we can you know yeah kick it around down the road yeah I think my my I

059think my problems with an application to uh a member of the public coming to speak um then employees you know we could look at Carbon that out yeah you know not that we would say No Holds Barred the board meeting because there's other we have standards right yeah so like maybe we're more specific about that right if we're to say that because I don't know anybody in our community who's comfortable with somebody berating their fourth grade teacher they don't like where you know you can get upset you can get you know especially in this world we live in if you're getting there you need to talk to somebody else to support that conversation a principal or somebody else like that nobody's nobody wants their like I said the teacher or rated in this community I

060definitely think this helps to prevent twos or you know concerns later on if we have something that's named and you know the other thing I could do to that point is ask Cade but why do you prioritize this as a does he mean by title I miss you well there's not a safe space I might feel as though you know you're insulting me as a female I can go on and then it ends up being a Title IX concern because I could report that that's an interesting you know well I think it's a good point to ask Kate yeah like why why why did you elevate this particular potential policy um because it's not statutory either um and see what their answer is I'm curious probably won't have that for Thursday but good good to

061know yeah they do prioritize yeah it keeps us on a level too right I mean you know yeah right yeah Hold Us Down Hold Us Down I want a better place just yeah so in spirit I agree with it but I'm I I'm very hesitant in doing anything like this in terms of elected officials yeah um but in terms of staff I think that's a different category and maybe students are even a different category I'm not sure how to look at it not yeah I don't feel it's all the certainly a lot of rules that protect students from harassment you know whether they be statutory or building you know practice based but you know this is more about adult stability but there is a message in here about you know how you carry yourself at

062athletic events and things like that um you know there's another one where we've seen an uptick in kind of outrageous behavior toward coaches and officials and you know there are laws that protect people too but this is just more or less a statement about that sort of thing and I appreciate the carve out with the elected officials um this is not and that'll include YouTube yeah you know you're in a different you are not a classroom teacher and I appreciate that yeah the same way I appreciate to a point yeah the principles are probably going to tolerate a bit more than we should ever expect our teachers to tolerate you know or have to endure is probably a better word tolerate you know criticism I expect that in this role we expect um harassment is

063different you know any of us should expect it but I kind of do you know to a degree because of the position I have and the roles that you guys play I think there's a difference you know but anyway but that could be subjective too though yeah it is yeah if you're not in that sea in somebody else's that's you know not how they're going to feel absolutely right absolutely right so let me go back to Caden see what their perspective is on some of that one other point on this this is a very minor detail but I don't know if it's a bigger issue as part of a pattern within it one item in there was uh personal space yeah that's very much cultural yeah and we were just discussing about how we have

064over 100 Kids yeah in the school system and English is not their first language my guess is their parents probably weren't living in Cheshire for their whole life or anything like that probably came as immigrants right and that personal space may very well be different from what people would expect here in Cheshire again that's a very small small detail but just as part of this overall policy I think it probably needs to be flexible and depending on on the situation yeah then you go back to the equity right yeah you know there's some overlap here between these days all right next item up forbidden international travel as it relates to the superintendent staff yeah so the simple thing um is as far as I know we have no policy related to international travel we for

065staff correct and I think it is entirely possible that something like that could happen I could easily see a conference say in Montreal or something like that where um zonia my civil request is a draft of some sort of policy that could mimic or mirror the student international travel policy which is you know it gets board approval sure the um just so you know the only thing that we really have in place now is not even a it's more of a practice than it is any sort of policy around uh professional development as we historically do not send people to Vegas for conferences that's the only thing you know that we kind of attribute to now so there's not a lot of guidance on this topic when we went to look um I gave guidance

066on the council about 15 or 20 years ago on that I said because it was a conference in Vegas student Paul it seems like we approve trips for students knowing that the adults are part of the package I guess attending so wouldn't that come out of yeah the student policy anyways I'm just trying to figure out how we would extract well I think I think what Tim is talking about correct me if I'm wrong is you know for professional development experiences out of country that you know a three months Advance approval maybe that goes uh through curriculum that uh you know just have advanced approval from curriculum that it kicks up to the full board for approval something like that and correct me if I'm wrong here but here's a hypothetical that could happen I

067think a a trade of teachers for one year that may not even have let's say there's not even any cost to the school system but they remain on Cheshire Public Schools insurance policy Health Care sure there's there's a tie-in they're not leaving it um so if something like that happened I think the board should simply be aware of it um and get yeah have some idea I don't think it's necessarily something will require a big discussion but uh no different than a sports team going to Germany or something like that where it's generally paid for I think by fundraising the parents yeah yeah I don't want people to think that these are you know all this millions of dollars being spent on international travel or anything but I just think it would be worthwhile to

068have um the board aware of stuff okay do we have an out of District conference pop like guidance or nothing no nothing so you would most it will go directly to you somebody asked to attend an outer District event not generally um usually that goes to Marlene if it's something more significant in the company but it you know there's a conference in Middletown or I mean we actually it's Unique that we have casts in our backyard I mean sometimes we have cast and that's you know they go to that Connecticut Association schools does a lot of PD um but you know you might go to a PD at the hotel in cromwell's another you know Lively spot for educator PB that's not going to come to me for a one-day conference something like that um

069you know uh uh college board has a uh two-day event in New York City if we're paying for somebody to spend the night I'm probably gonna see that one um but it's really depends kind of if it's an overnight I'm likely to see if it's not a state or I'm likely to see it but just out of town one day Marlene's gonna so what's your checklist of criteria to approve or you pretty much just I don't know only if it's aligned to curricular needs or yeah absolutely we look at relatives okay yeah we look at relevance to our curriculum needs our goals the person's role so I mean this might be tied very closely to our curriculum goals and needs but you know not for a seventh grade teacher there's no reason for you to

070have to go to this you might love Orlando but this is not or conference relevant to your standing so it's relevant to your role so you wouldn't approve that so we evaluate each one on a case-by-case basis so generally in state and conferences and stuff does that go to ubin because this is an expenditure or is it just no it you know the mileage comes to say mileage reimbursement um no registration registration fees yeah those will go through Marlene yeah yeah we and again we evaluate cost benefit analysis I guess it wouldn't hurt to have something I don't know what the process is it's probably why I'm asking these questions like what's the difference with that kind of thing versus out of state versus at a country you know what are the criterias that you

071set to approve yeah so um I don't hear that being the request for the policy from Tim but uh we and I don't know that that's a board policy as much as is it procedure but yeah in our procedure the the teacher let's say that it's generated from the teacher right right sometimes it's generated from the administration to the teacher saying hey this is a great conference you think it'd be a good fit for volunteer for your role yeah and sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn't but um if it's generating from the teacher level they'll say to us hey this is a something I was looking at be good good opportunity um and then it goes initially to depending on the school age the department chair or principal um ultimately if it goes to

072the department chair at the high school level and it's elevated to the principal and the principal would then give a blessing or not through Marlene and that's the vast majority of stuff that we overwhelming majority of stuff we then prioritize you know for out-of-state travel it's probably affiliated with your review cycle and our curriculum review process which is a five-year review cycle and so we've done most of our out-of-state travel aligns with the content areas that are being reviewed for the curriculum review process so nctn the National Council Council of teachers and Mathematics may have their National Conference in St Louis um this is the year that aligns with our curriculum review process we might send three people to that because that's where Cutting Edge information is that's where a lot of vendors are that's

073really rich professional growth experience so we'll maybe send them to that um but like I said most times if you're going to a conference like that that's overnight uh multi-day out-of-state conference that's tied into our curriculum review process so it's time there's a limitation I mean I would think it has to be a billing exists throughout you know the year not just when yeah they have a regional and a uh right they have a multitude of PD experiences as do other content areas and vendors ascd I don't want to come across like I'm limiting professional learning here I just you know we have to teach how we do it but procedural informs policy you know form follows function here so in the the same holds true when we're developing the other policies we're going to

074need procedurals and you know I think you know the the part about out of state or international travel is pretty rare and it's always affiliated with more money you know we're almost always you know even if there was a big National Conference in there had been in Hartford um yeah most people are not staying there but it's usually a big National Conference it's more expensive to attend but honesty those things are you know is an easy place to start by looking at what are the what are some of the protocols we follow in terms of notification an approval and to mimic that for staff it's I can easily draft that up I don't have all of the protocols that you you know have to think of every yeah and I'm just thinking from my point

075of view I guess it would just be I guess it would just pertain to you specifically since that's the only um the only purview we really have I think that the International Community for students isn't that more ceremonial or no that's no I mean the board approves that or not approves uh international travel I mean that's part of our policy so if we extended out the staff yeah then that's that's I mean are we voting every month on something no no [Music] it's incredibly rare so why not yeah if you're if you're approving the student field trip obviously as part of that right our staff are going well curriculum tends to Bunch them together it's like everyone like every three months or four votes on it though yeah right when it comes to the board

076and you know I think this this where we're beginning here is looking at just uh the certified staff because we would be approving out of state and international professional development experience International or uh you know domestic honesty experiences for PD okay so I can draft something up there based on the yeah you know Foundation we have for students that's easy okay okay um all right now we're past discussion it's like you know this is like an old-timey policy meeting [Music] oh yeah back in the day yeah I know yeah foreign so the first one um teacher aids uh Carol we looked at this yeah not just a para educator not the teacher a so the I think what made this more confusing is that this was um kept switching yeah it kept switching and it

077was um kind of directed to if you remember kind of tied to the uh Title One School language around para versus Aid so just to make it more straightforward acknowledging that this could be um confusing I just added this note at the at the bottom um the directs people to you know look at the contract if you're looking for more Direction around what the role actually is so that training does perf does um refer to teachers aides as well as paraprofessionals or is it because there isn't it inferred that paraprofessionals have more training to begin with right don't they have like a two don't they have to have a two-year para Educators um well I'm sorry I say paraprofessionals that's right very very educated yeah para educators uh we've required to yeah we don't right

078that's all in high school diploma and uh same with teacher aids however like a para educator doesn't necessarily do lunchroom duties a teacher Aid that is a recess aide kind of different names this is formerly IAS right para Educators is formerly okay yeah it's hard to keep up the lunchroom playground AIDS in the contract are still lunchroom and playground AIDS they're not they're deaf power Educators even though they're in that Union it's and that's why I say you know look at the contract if you want Clarity around because this was a a mandated policy around the the language if you want Clarity I want the a specific person is doing check out the contract I used took some of the ambiguity out of it that way rather than trying to Hash through those so every

079time it says paraeducator should it also be slash teacher's aid or is it supposed to be one in the same no they haven't is one of the same in the version that they give us and in teacher eight we don't technically have a teacher Aid we have a lunch grunt lunchroom um playground Aid so so should the term teacher's aide be removed the part I don't is there a contractual difference I mean I guess there is because well they're in the contract they're in the same Union with different responsibilities right and so when you talk about lunchroom duties that is not a para educator necessarily doing that a para educator may have a lunchroom duty to assist a student in the lunchroom but nah you traditional Cafe so in the in the contract there is

080a title teacher's aid any title career educator there's a title lunch room playground Aid and then there's title para educator so I hear what you're saying about the teacher's aide yeah but this was you know the the legalese that was giving to us that I'm afraid to mess with so I'm just asking at the bottom consult the contract for clarity around what people are supposed to be doing okay that was it's just because it switches you know it's teachers not in love with how it's written um you know I mean what was the one that the bullying policy I think it was that we were like God this is so much easier when it was just filled with jargon oh yeah right yeah yeah the new one it's much like oh my God this is

081like such a relief the number of people that are actually going to access this policy they it's probably going to be incredibly limited but if they do if you're looking for Direction I wouldn't point to this as the best place of information about what teacher uh para educators are doing and what playground resource uh recess AIDS are doing that's really got to be a contract and this is a statutory change there are a contractual change or both it was a statutory and that and it's really all around the title one pair of educators which they refer to as paraprofessionals it's not it's ridiculously confusing uh so we comfortable with leaving it like this I mean it would be modification of the contract yeah I think it would be good I'll go back to Cave again

082because I'm talking to them anyway about the the you know did this come from cave or did they give it to you like this yeah please don't go back and they've done really good about it they've been really good about it like actually they got back to me on the next one pretty quickly uh the survey one okay I think what Adam is suggesting is something so can we Define a teacher Aid in our world to equal yeah educator delineate it somehow and then I think that makes us because you know sometimes you go on a posse you're like oh well this is the policy and this is what it says and you read that you're like well I'm not sure what it says title we do see that's teacher Aid but yeah they're not

083special education they're just classrooms yeah para Educators that are classroommates it's hard to have 17 definition or 17 titles for the same job which is kind of where we are and then you know we still get IA mixed in there all the time too yeah we're trying to lose IA it's been a as a vernacular around yeah um the surveys of students what do you call them we actually had an issue with we have kindergarten AIDS but we also have Paris and when we hired the kindergarten AIDS the pairs have an issue because it wasn't the job descriptions were very right Junior they're not oh that's a bigger problem because it was a temporary well based on as they're funding well that's yeah the this is uh did we come to a conclusion on that

084I'm just curious Jeff has to go back we're gonna not move that forward right right this is so we just got this so we do not have this on the books currently we do we do because it said we're buy so this is our current policy this is not our current policies okay but the Law changes just so we see because like this is pretty robust yeah now it's five minutes because I'm like well this this is our policy then why do we have a problem so remember yeah yeah she's on the homepage now yeah uh Colombia the lady on the homepage was a preschool teacher for Adams and my kids she was over masonicare yeah I guess we paid better she's not a teacher she's not a teacher for those of you keeping track

085so this is okay so this is the original that was done in 1997. actually um and this is specific to surveys it administered through doe funds or is that the updated versions the new one has that yeah 25 years old needs a revision yeah Federal program and so the other one also includes that is obviously much more robust in the one pager you see before I am this would apply to like the free reduced lunch survey or at least that came out of this somehow if it's a federal program yeah I guess you know I foreign I was talking to the new policy person that came who's a former superintendent and we were racking everything I can't I don't know if you can remember Department of Ed ever issuing a survey that would address these

086things I don't remember the number issue with the survey um now they talked about some of the research surveys that dob does when they've been was doing research on this but it really had more to do with the Collegiate level um at the public school level but I think you'll see if you if we look at the proposed policy um that you know you'll see some of the similar language about that we administer surveys to learn like you know safe School climbing and things like that uh the Board of Ed must approve those that are received by the superintendent include that these are the that was not in that other policy through the doe right yeah these are through the DOE um reference to any of these factors so this is this has been the

087same if it's v-o-e funded survey however where it's um enhanced is even if it's not a doe funded survey there are a number of Provisions you'll see that we follow now in this proposal that you know would it would address notifications so um any time that we're gathering information on the list if it's something that is doe funding funded it requires sign consent if it's not and I you know even if you look at the list um I can't think of places where you don't ask questions about the political affiliations mental or psychological problems of the student or the student's family may come in definitely the illegal anti-social sexual behavior this is for uh our older students on the uh developmental asset survey that Michelle picarillo talked about in our last board meeting does get

088into this stuff if you go back I forwarded you the the developmental asset survey results the from the last you'll see I mean it does talk about when are kids engaging in sexual behavior at what age you know stuff like that it's none of its personally identifiable but it does ask for it's all Anonymous when you say it's Anonymous houses taken is taken online or is it taken hard copy online yes to like a Google form no no uh I'll just say if I'm taking a survey online I don't buy it that it's not a mess yeah and I'm not saying that it's not I'm saying I just don't believe it and my guess is is the whole survey we'll have a subset of students who just are not going to believe that it's Anonymous

089they may answer the questions honestly or not just pointing that out yeah because I know I've got this conversation with a bunch of different people yeah yeah maybe I mean there's I don't know if my dad was a cop he always said Humpty Dumpty was pushed they're going to be shut up for people um I appreciate that but um so you know things that delve into this stuff the only one I can really recall is the developmental asset survey is a good number of these right down to the religious practices not you know are you affiliated with a religious practice you know because of the developmental asset survey is um it's asking how many positive research-based positive connections do you have in life do you have frequent um connections with family members like grandparents and

090things like that because research says the more that kids do the generally the better the outcomes are for those kids so we will be asking like do you do you go to are you connected to Church synagogue whatever um and what's the Frequency now again it doesn't tell me who the student is but it tells us about all this you know the ninth graders at Cheshire High X percent say that you know they they are connected to this degree to their religious beliefs or to you know X percentage are engaging in you know smoking marijuana or something like that it kind of gives us a picture of the kids and the community what they're saying um and how do we support the development of positive Assets in their life and I think that that survey

091that I shared with you guys the results from the last time we did that really does a nice job of articulating that and it's something that Southington does it I'm more of a community-wide basis so they have like a the Community Committee that's dedicated to the developmental Assets in providing more developmental assets and that you know we talked about things that perform your budget and stuff they they're deeply tied into the developmental assets or that but that's the only one I can think of that really covers Us it's not a governmentally funded um and so you know as you go further into this parents have the right to inspect other requests or father request surveys created by Third parties and stuff we we do that now so like when we send out the developmental assets

092survey we will tell people you know it's going to be administered on this day if you want to see it you can't come in and take pictures of it because it's you know all proprietary I guess you can review it you can look at it and anybody who's ever seen the um the uh the executive summary that I sent you would know what the questions are basically anyway because you can see it right there but you can come in and observe you know review everything like that uh if it's not uh if the survey is not funded by the federal government so it's not a federal government survey you must be given prior notice of the survey with the opportunity to opt out uh but written consent is not required and what I like about

093this um policy is that when it gets down to notification and we we would send this every year to all parents like all parents would see this this gives you know uh information about different surveys uh how where you would opt out how you would inspect surveys uh and then we notify parents which is the I I like this part here so if we're going to give any surveys that address any of these issues and you know the the school climate survey I mean maybe you can make an argument that addresses this I don't know I think it's a bit of a stretch but maybe oh you're getting climate so it does have yeah indirectly because the comments that students write yeah can kind of get a feel for the tone yes well-being I mean

094I certainly think yeah so if anything here that you're talking about maybe the mental or psychological issues and other climate survey but we at the beginning of the year send this to them with the date that it's going to be administered to the grade level what the survey is a summary of the survey um and then you know if it's sign permission slip if it's a funded survey and then directions on how to opt out or review it if it's not so climate is not uh federally funny right that's something we just do right so but you would still be notified if we're saying that this is without falling in the second section of opt out and yes right but I think what we should do the uh um so that's an opt-out version there's

095a parent I can tell you if if you sent me this notice in August before school starts which is what we would do the likelihood that I'm going to remember it in March um is zero so I would recommend that we send it out a month in advance of the survey of the surveys that we're doing even if we set this in this would be like a parent Square type distribution yeah that we would send it I mean we could have send it five weeks four weeks both five weeks out just reminder four weeks out is what's the is there a requirement for the August distribution yeah okay yeah I mean from people I've talked to who do surveys professionally yeah um and this is really just anecdotal I think this is what they do

096the first notice is often not done at the moment in time I will get to it later and it is forgotten and then when the second notice is sent that's when you get a much better response rate oh sure yeah so I mean because they feel guilty at that point that they hadn't done me oh damn I was supposed to do this one yeah I mean every everybody that's a parent I mean or anything interesting being I guess you've probably been through well even the parent what's it that all of the um not parent it's not parent handbook but the all the forms you Society oh yeah you get multiple reminders information at the beginning of the year yeah it is it's tough at the beginning of the year and this probably adds to this

097to a degree so the I don't think it's fair to think that any parent who's going through this in August is gonna I mean we'll they'll be like seven parents who will actually really read and process this and the rest of them will be like okay not an immediate issue moving on yeah but I think that we would send the the protocol that we would design and you know discuss here is to you know someone out like five weeks in advance of the survey Administration another one in four four weeks in advance so we could do it you know three times five four three uh before the administration are you naming the frequency on this subject or you're just waiting you can okay we can I think we should um feeling you out about you

098know what do you think is I think it should be more than once but I don't really want to tie your hands and tell you if it should be two three or four times depending on the situation it might only be let's say it's a survey to Chapman relatively small what is it 200 kids 100 families you get 90 responses 100 responses after the second one I don't watch you required to send a third yeah yeah I think I think you should have the flexibility just um at least my belief that if you send it out once that's like if something goes wrong you'd be like well I told you but that's ridiculous twice I think it's but keep in mind I mean you're talking about surveys that have a pretty Limited scope here we

099don't do this every day we really don't do it period I mean we developmental asset survey like I said definitely and that the last time that was administered I don't even remember it was pre-covered was that Michelle yeah Michelle yeah she said 2018. yeah because she was gonna do it in 2020 yeah you know we were doing it every two years up until that point yeah yeah um so that and again by you know Loosely I think we could say that the school climate survey fits in here and those are the only surveys that touch upon those issues it's it's be exceptionally rare for us to do something like that um and it would come through now the developmental or excuse me the uh the curriculum committee is examining this past assessment which is social

100emotional learning uh I think we would have to be that closely to determine if it you know it doesn't address anything except for maybe the mental or psychological problems of the student or the family and it's really asking about mood generally you know what's your mood uh I don't know if that qualify as a mental or psychological issue but we do that all the time anyway in class with the mood reader to coach kids about if you're feeling X you know in the red area that we'd meet her angry uh upset you know how do I move to the green area and that's part of our social emotional learning stuff yeah I mean I'm I'm not a health care but I would want them to look at that yeah I'm not a healthcare professional but

101to me the way you're feeling about the school climate to me that's like a psychological thing like and I don't mean that like any sort of negative way it's like just how what you're feeling about something yeah I do I do have one general question about the surveys when you send them out they're age-appropriate well so because this one I think you're talking about like ninth and 10th grade so the survey is being sent to the high school the developmental asset survey is exclusive to seven through twelve in our district it has been okay uh other districts have decided otherwise historically that's what we've done if we're going to do the developmental asset survey again that would come before the curriculum committee to evaluate whether or not they want to do that and so you

102know that's you know developmentally they make that decision but a curriculum can be in the board so I guess I guess my question is this so my kids just brought home a Norton climate survey so that's only Norton yeah but the survey I could see a situation just based on the words that you used the kindergarten is not going to be necessarily understanding what a sixth grader would not do we asked the k-3 version okay four through six okay 70 okay 9 12. so everything should be age appropriate for the curriculum or for the uh climate survey yeah okay those are ignoring the fact that some kindergartners can't read a thing when they start okay so that so that leads me to um the the top section where the Board of Ed was supposed to

103review quite uh review the questions of the surveys um and specifically the school climate survey because state law does give us latitude um having us review the questions so is that something that's inferred in here or do we need to add that um I would feel better if it was explicit I don't want to and then like but I would assume we would go through curriculum right yeah you know you know like you said they're all if they're defend uh developmentally appropriate for each grade then you know curriculum at least gets to go through them and say yeah okay we looked at them and then they put it on board with the datum the other thing is because I know some of those other surveys those are proprietary I don't know yeah chance to review

104those and with those surveys the developmental asset survey the the pass assessment those things you know they've been researched for validity and reliability and I don't know I don't think that it would depend on the actual survey that you're using as to whether or not taking questions or playing with questions within those instruments mess with the validity or reliability so like you know and this is yeah if we're giving psychological exams like we do is part of our special education programming that automatically comes with written consent but you can't play with the questions on those exams for they totally you know ruin the results right I don't that's what I guess I'm trying to save for the developmental asset survey into the past we would need an expert here to tell you well yeah I

105more specifically talk about the time of survey because State log is this latitude the state law directs us to answer asks certain questions but then has a lot of latitude about anything else you want to ask but even that I mean the state has not yeah high and low to find the specific questions they want you to ask right and there's no follow-up on that part from it at all if you don't do it though that's problematic that's part of the state statute but there's no nobody ever asks us for the results maybe somebody goes on our website and wants to see if they're there because they are they're there from the last Administration we haven't finished processing this one but those will go up when that's done so so then we'll add up so

106I'll add a piece about school climate going through the curriculum committee okay great for this created by third party event like Panorama creates a lot of they do yeah not for our school climate survey oh the school climate survey the the Genesis of that was from sde Maybe a decade ago maybe longer it's a week about the yes so that's that's ours that we're asking questions there's no guidance from the state on that the pass we think is a better instrument to look at social emotional skills than kids have um and that one they just discussed through the curriculum committee you didn't get the report on that Thursday because that just happened last Monday I think Tuesday last Monday yeah I'd feel more comfortable Defender that specializes in how to appropriately ask and they're probably

107not asking the state required questions but nobody from the state has said anything Panorama I know you gave that as an example astronomically expensive yeah so we were looking at the past is a better instrument to get to how are our kids doing socially emotionally and how can we coach coach them that's not anonymous that we we can look at student data and support the development of SEL skills which is what we were trying to do weekly is an organization say that development of SEL skills is a priority but we don't measure that which I have a real problem with and how do we we want an instrument that can tell us if what we're coaching kids on in terms of being able to see the red and move to the green and those skills

108communication skills is is it working or not for us as a school system because if it's not we're spending a lot of time money and energy on it we need to ingest our practice that'd be one where that would require the specific written consent right because you said only anonymous um no specific consent is when oh that's a funny Federal funding yeah okay uh opt out review all that stuff is if it's now notification all that other business but I'm I'm curious I wasn't able to see Monday's meeting yet um and I did meet with the vendor multiple times um but I I don't know so non-anonymized for instance right information now it's going to be going through a third party vendor foreign we have privacy agreements and things like that that are required by

109Statute um you know but it's all available on our I'm just getting flies that's all yeah right our data privacy page on our website has all that all that information it's really it's a good good site the data privacy piece um so I guess we won't move this one forward yet we'll wait for the additional like well we can move it forward to the second reading and adjust anything now okay and because it'd be best to try and get it in place for the start of next year yeah that'll be great yeah they'll do that so if we don't do that today then we kind of make it more much more difficult to get into place for next year so with the understanding then we'll we've been yeah yeah we're going to be discussing it

110again at our next meeting okay in early June and then I would think maybe we could get a third meeting in before the end of June 30th and then adopt the policies we've done a few times in the past at the June 30th close of business meeting I think Dr Ben's looking at me because that's usually his okay uh then I'll I'll move um a move that we move uh 6162.51 surveys of students student privacy uh to a first reading however all in favor all right unanimous thank you thank God another opportunity to talk about teacher eight yes oh great I make a motion to advance right away sir this is uh again a statutory reference I you know I'm gonna when they talk to them about the other one this is this is the

111same is there anything materially different between this thank you sorry not to add confusion because I don't know all the details but under No Child Left Behind there was some language specific around paraprofessional having to have an associate's degree and that's for title one for Title One schools they have to play the one um it's based on so certainly the North End School and now we've kind of adjusted it we have multiple schools where we use Title One resources so that if you're a para educator you have to meet a different set of standards that are defined in law and that's where this whole thing got Inky yeah um I'll ask uh Cave you know just to take another look at because I have to like we were saying on the other one I'm calling

112them anyway so let me try and get some clarity on this too but I think we're okay advancing this as well um and we can adjust any language before the next meeting this is education under parental direction from homeschooling um this is if you're if you're homeschooling you're homeschooling uh you're not part-timing uh that will be running to again as a reminder a number of issues with vaccination status with behavior and maintaining school rules uh you know you shouldn't be participating in athletics I can't monitor your academic achievement to make sure that you're following ciac protocols and things like that so we just struck the idea that students can attend on a part-time basis um in the in the schools do we have not to go too deep into this but I'm curious do we

113have part-time students and I'm going to talk about extracurricular I'm talking about academics the only thing that we have that would resemble a part-time student is at Cheshire High School there's a group of kids who go to the Educational Center for the Arts the Educational Center for the Arts is an extended day afternoon program where students go in they receive instruction in their core content areas it's CHS jump on a bus go to New Haven and go to school there from like you know lunch through four o'clock and they engage in artistic Pursuits there so theater music Visual Arts things like that but that's the only thing we have that kind of resembles a part-time student okay so you as a superintendent view those students they're not whole time yeah they're not homeschooled okay yeah

114they you know this is we don't permit you to homeschool your child but no I come to PE because you like it yeah no I get it I understand yeah okay the in and out of that logistically along with discipline and vaccination issues would come super treats so those are the only two that we had for second reason have you got any complaints about that one from any parents no okay I'm fine I've never had a we've had it and people asked and we said no if you if you're homeschooling you're homeschool they're just homeschool yeah there was a lot of noise during the pandemic well I'm gonna homeschool ing that I don't know what our percentage is right now I know one family who coincidentally was in my daughter's class and her friend told

115her they were moving to New Hampshire because of masks there was another one who said something about it but I don't think I actually moved and I think I've probably heard that from a few people but they did actually move to New Hampshire and you know I guess what relative to our peers we were open back of a lot more than most and I think you know so for the most part people didn't make that decision to try to opt out you know the circus tent community that we had going on and the precautions that we took you know jumped through a lot of Hoops intended you know the circus reference to make sure that our kids were in school a lot now the mask thing was the mass effect and that's all of them

116so we only have a lot of homeschoolers it's pretty rare bird friends any other questions um yeah move uh policy [Music] 422-4222 uh teachers Aid paraprofessionals and policy 6172.3 education educational instruction under uh parental Direction homeschooling uh for a second reading is there a second Tim all in favor it's unanimous thank you we'll move to third grade this is the one where we had to clarify with the state law we have and the yellow part is the the updates of what as of today the state is requiring you may have heard in the news that the state is also going to be requiring uh personal finance is a graduation requirement potential that's a requirement yes Cheshire Public Schools already does that somewhere and you do um so that would impact us necessarily but that's that's

117not uh this is the state what the state requirements are so that's why it's update the Asian Pacific Islanders effective for the 25-26 school year so what so do we offer it or require it we we all would offer that class and as the state offers requiring us to offer it or requiring us to require it questions to offer it okay so that's lack the Latino studies yeah yeah I'm talking sorry I'm just talking about personal finance yeah oh oh that hasn't been decided yet that where are we do we require it we require it yeah okay either then it won't have no impact we require either personal or Advanced personal finance for graduation at CHS so these are just the updated as of today will probably be a bit you know revisiting this yes

118although Jeff I'm wondering because of that it's going to impact our our personal finance curriculum anyways because the state has a personal finance curriculum model up on their site right now yeah I don't know to what degree they're gonna require that either um I was just looking at the other day we don't have to they they can require standards but not curriculum they can provide a model curriculum right and I think our standards would meet or exceed anything that they put together but we'll have to review that once it's the fruition and the last one is just basic instruction I think that word basic implies that we're not we aren't comprehensive enough and it's reflective of what you saw in the list on the other policy so the API if you're getting 25 uh the

119black latino studies offering in 21 Native American July 123. so these are this is just conforming to state the classes that we have to offer requirements oh let me change your daughter for a question yeah that was the point you know the point question okay um any questions on okay uh motion uh to move to a third reading policy 6140 curriculum and 6142 basic instruction all favor right so we're voting on that on Thursday yes okay yeah and then uh is there anything I don't have anything for other oh yes really quick um policy 3542.43 which I just handed out the planning committee worked on this and the policy was required November 17th of 2022. this is the charging policy for food service we were required to do this to comply with state law we

120just had completed the audit the Child Nutrition program administrative review which is a big deal and we did very very well however with the state asked as one of its finding is that there has to be a declaration of the right for any child to obtain a Meetup so if you look at the third paragraph where there's a green crossout and then there's the following words were added students have the right to obtain a meal in accordance with CGS 10-215. and the rest of it would stay so the state was really being specific that you have to have a declaration of the right so we think this would satisfy that the reason I wanted to bring it to the policy committee tonight is just to let you know that we will have to add this

121as a policy recommendation for consideration um and what I'd like to be able to do is in the audit response that we have to provide to the state by May 29 is just to be able to say that the policy committee is aware that this will be taken up for possible adoption and adjustment future meetings because I know what kind of tight we may not does it have to be adopted no like do we have to fast track it or anything like that you know I don't think we need to because I know there's another two more policy committee meetings possibly by June 30th so if we're at the second reading and then we adopt in August I think we're fine but I just wanted to let the policy committee know that this is coming

122I think it's just kind of dotting the eye and crossing the t as far as the State Department of Ed Food Service program requirements are concerned um so first of all this policy no parents ever going to see it does this get communicated to parents in any way or is it something you you just normally communicated on an ongoing annual basis anyway so this is just making the got it okay okay so from your perspective this probably has no budgetary impact oh zero yeah it doesn't yeah it's not going to change anything but the the charging is a major issue on a budget perspective so what do you mean the charging the the amount of money owed by families particularly during that window where remember our meals were free and then like Jan went to

123March one or something yeah [Music] was ten thousand dollars which we never had that much outstanding for any one year as we did in that you know and that's a day period so that's a standalone budget right if uncollected balances from parents have to be repaid to food service programs by the board of education's operating budget okay so we're trying to collect the funds all right now we're being pretty aggressive about it I'm not sending it to a collection agency so we are trying to collect those funds but of that ten thousand dollars just off the top of your head I mean are most of the families able to pay it I mean so many families will not be able to pay some of them able to pay it none of them able to pay

124it the ones that were eligible for free and reduced but would not be included in that pool because they were free and reduced eligible okay I got that so I think I'm probably not understanding this fully I'm thinking that you had a window it was probably like a month and a half or so is it fair to say that you know most of the people who didn't pay during that window work snap families yeah the free and reduced you you were charging you're free yeah so of the 10 so the wait so you're saying of the ten thousand dollars basically all of it's collectible or most of it most of it what I'm saying is most of it is not free and produced in the family should pay it yeah got it is that is

125that a situation where if um the uh balance remains let's say at the beginning of next year what do we have the option of of uh cutting them off from using our system or anything like that that's what you no longer do under right on the state law discharging but you would have you'd force them like during that money instead of there you can't tell them you can't go to gym class that you can't go on the school trip that no no I'm in like the uh the payment system you know how you could use um uh what is it called my school box to charge up your account you can't cut them off from that and say well you know you have a balance that's way overdue so until it's paid you can't use

126that yeah so what can you get to get a meal you never wanted to put the student in the center of an adult problem yes but that's one way of looking at that yeah it's not to shame the student I don't even want to suddenly we go back to the parent but we could not have any ramification that would negatively affect the student on the lunch line or participation in any other programs or anything that we provide to the student so in theory and I certainly hope this doesn't happen but I mean people kids could just kids and parents could just stop right they could just refuse to pay anything and the kids will keep eating and they could push it and it could become a much bigger issue that I don't know where it

127ends up but in theory that could happen based on state law yes and ultimately you could end up in collections issue okay which for them which nobody really wants good on that road but you know you could abuse it so tonight we'll just say that we have an understanding that this will be on the agenda for our next meeting right for first for appreciating right yes so if so I'm just curious on June 30th if you've got ten thousand dollars or any amount does do we end up voting on that in some way when because we're normally doing like one vote I think to move it around the six buckets yeah we go this Falls outside the six buckets right no no when I present the closing transfers will include whatever outstanding balance we have

128to write a check back to the Food Service program within so that the budget so all we would all we'd be voting on is train making a payment and then do we have what's do we vote on any sort of do we have any budgetary authority over the food server the Food Service yeah okay interesting when I present it's like this dude when I say Yeah final transfers yeah there's a balance out to the food service department we'll include that within those transfers and I'll explain it you know no no I understand I understand it we're just making a payment out everything else is a payment made and a receipt basically just an accounting entry this is balancing the books you've got to transfer between two accounts two bank accounts I'm assuming the rest of

129them are all in one big bank account basically yeah and we're like balancing the books versus exactly thank you uh yeah that's interesting to me that if we so we don't have any authority over the The Authority we have is establishing the price remember we've done votes on that I know I know we I know we do that it just seems odd to be like so what always goes through my mind is if something blows up kid gets food poisoning they pointed they point the bigger when I say you don't have a car you don't have the Awards operating budget and the food service budget are separate so so they're not an Enterprise account that's not like it's not an end it's it is an Enterprise account but it's separate from the operating project definitely

130capital budget yeah I know it's more along the lines of Tech Student Activity yeah I'm not worried but I will be curious to understand it better at some point for my own peace of mind what is the process of collection because I would hope at some point we don't go to the extreme of what Tim is saying that we step in and kind of find out if there's con you know sensitivity to numerous times and encourage them if there's an issue to contact Food Services and you know unfortunately on occasion somebody will say you know it's not within my means or whatever we try to work something out most you know often it just is I don't want to assume that it's ignored but it's not responded to and then we send the a letter

131that's uh you know more strongly worded about like you need to pay this debt we're not you know like any other agency the energy we put into a 17 debt looks different than the energy we put in the 1700 down so at some point it's not worth the postage for a 17 now that you write it off yes but 17 adds up to ten thousand exactly right yeah okay so we try to try yeah it's a couple of hundred families plus that make up that 10 000 that is a lot yeah and and so yeah it's been constant emails you know parents getting fairly regular reminders and then yeah we'll just up with just a more strongly worded you know email or a letter so that's the process that we follow but this is so

132outside of what we've seen I mean in some years we've closed the books with a few hundred dollars that's uncollected balance that you know boards writing a check to the Food Service program ten thousand dollars I've been here 13 years we've never had I mean we've had a couple years where we're like three thousand but that was over the course of the whole year or not over a course of 30 days and you know it's just it's an anomaly I can't explain why parents wouldn't pay it but following up and doing what we can to collect it and bring that balance down I imagine some of them it's just a matter of making a priority rather than being willing to rather than being willing to pay it's a matter of willing to make the time

133there's a survey a reminder after the third or fourth one please yeah yeah yeah I think the point was made earlier there's so much communication that comes out from the school and the parents might just be yeah they just don't read it I don't even know I don't want us to generalize you know if parents lose a job and they're insecure about responding that's how are we those you know we would fix those pretty easily yeah if they respond to you right exactly we need to know yeah there are programs out there yeah absolutely right maybe some additional paperwork right yeah maybe you know maybe not depends on the situation but responding is what you need to do in general right and I know that can be tough the other thing we do is we

134do phone calls so I have somebody that's pretty good at it we don't think it's money way nicer than [Laughter] that all right uh any other questions thank you most children all favorite all right we are adjourned thank you thanks folks