001i call this meaning to order so she's coming right now miss jagensky uh the roll call please here thank you i'll rise for the and to the pledge for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all well uh welcome all to our uh board of education business meeting this evening september 23rd um i guess i'll just uh move on down the agenda you may notice i am not chairman paragini uh he's out uh uh duly celebrating uh with his wife this evening so of course we give a little special dispensation um so uh first up we have our student representatives oh uh dr gad would you please introduce these student representatives i am delighted to introduce our two student representatives so this evening i'd like to welcome and introduce
002annabelle kalin annabelle is a phenomenal young woman who is driven motivated and compassionate she has taken some of the most rigorous classes that cheshire high school has to offer and has done exceptionally well annabelle is a dedicated member of the cheshire high school community beyond the classroom as well she's been involved in student senate since ninth grade holding vice president and senator positions annabelle has also been a member of the cheshire high school marching band and the body positivity club teachers commend annabelle for her unique insight as she often considers other people's perspectives on how every but what she's learning impacts everyone she has a great sense of community and truly cares for others so welcome annabelle [Applause] you can sit there and next rowan scazzellati rowan is an extremely high achieving student who has
003taken one of the most rigorous courses of study possible at cheshire high school his teachers are effusive in their praise of his effort and enthusiasm one teacher even commented that it was an honor to be his teacher rowan is also heavily involved in our school in the surrounding community he is a youth soccer referee and has participated in many drama productions at cheshire high school when asked to describe himself rowan said that he is cooperative dedicated generous thoughtful and motivated we could not have said it any better ourselves welcome rowan um welcome annabelle and rowan um so traditionally um you give a little report a little update from the school do you have anything for us this evening okay testing okay here we go um i was saying we are very excited for these roles
004um and one important thing that has happened in cheshire high school actually just yesterday is we elected our class officers for all of the grades um student government is a very big part of the high school is we're planning so many different events for the school community so it was really awesome to finally see that get to come together this year and i'm like dr gott said i'm a part of student government so i'm very excited to plan a lot of things that we're going to get rolling with this year and ready for a great year rowan yeah there we go all right um like annabelle said we're just so excited to be here and kind of serve as representation for the student body at the high school um there's been a lot of fun
005stuff that has started up again now that we're starting to be able to move forward we have our pep rally coming tomorrow as long as the weather holds up um so we've been having spirit week all throughout as we've dressed up in fun and unique ways um and so we have our pep rally tomorrow hopefully fingers crossed assuming the weather doesn't get too bad and so we're excited for that we're excited for football and all of the other sports and activities that are now coming back to the high school um now that we're kind of moving forwards [Music] yeah great thank you um board did you would you like to make any comment or okay i just want to say welcome to you guys um and i look forward to hearing from you over the
006next five yes thank you thank you so much like to just say welcome aboard um your reports always are one of the highlights of our evenings here um to be perfectly honest with you because we get to hear what's actually going on in schools from the students and it makes this what we're doing up here you know more worthwhile for us to hear it you know firsthand from you guys so there's a lot on your play and you're busy busy busy so i appreciate you guys taking the time and doing this for us we appreciate it very much thank you okay um just i just want to say welcome and uh as andrew just said we we always look forward to the student reports every month so no pressure but no but welcome and it'll
007be great to have you on board for the year go ahead and yeah just welcome and um looking forward to hearing from you at our meetings in the future and you didn't even need those mics you project very well thank you so not to worry and i'd just like to say um uh thank you for serving this year um compared to last year um we actually get to meet you in person i think our representatives last year we didn't get to meet until the very last meeting of the year so it's great that we can all be here in person and you'll be able to report uh hopefully for the entire year in person so it'll be great to have you so welcome thank you thank you and uh i think uh that's it i
008guess if if anything you're welcome to stay if you have nothing else to report you are dismissed good night everyone [Applause] dr sullivan thank you mr grippo i'd like to invite a special honoree to the podium this evening from highland elementary miss lindsey grant [Applause] cheshire public schools is proud to announce the selection of lindsey grant as the 21 22 cheshire public schools teacher of the year lindsay is an elementary teacher at highland school and is beginning her seventh year in the district she holds a bachelor of arts degree in english a bachelor of science and education honors program and masters of arts in curriculum and instruction from the university of connecticut well at uconn lindsay received the connecticut women's center outstanding senior women academic achievement award as the honoree for the neag school of
009education her honor thesis was entitled academic self-concept and student preferences for grouping formats and elementary reading instruction lindsay began her teaching career at highland school in 2014 where she taught third grade for six years she moved to the fourth grade this school year and at the district level she's served on the personalized learning task force and the cheshire strategic planning committee and has represented her grade level on the safety and technology committees at the school level in addition lindsey has volunteered as a teacher mentor for groups of students working on projects for the cps steam expo she's also enjoyed working with these students as they developed a magnetic levitation train and composed the classical music piece in the style of a baroque fugue i hope i pronounce that right outside of the cheshire public schools
010lindsay has taught traditional and therapeutic horseback riding lessons to writers aged 3 plus for the past 10 years in her teacher of the year nomination letter a highland parent wrote this about lindsay if you have a child you know the angst of waiting to learn who their next classroom teacher will be if you're an educator you have an inside perspective of just how much a year would the right teacher can do to change the course of a child's life my daughter has been forever changed by her time in lindsey grant's classroom i've seen lindsay's professionalism and deep knowledge about her students individual strengths and weaknesses her ability to rise to new challenges with grace and positivity and her outstanding teaching expertise administrators colleagues and parents agree that lindsay is a gifted educator and a consummate
011team player but her students love her because she pushes them to be better students to persevere when things are difficult and to view education as an opportunity we and the cheshire public schools are very proud to name lindsey grant as the 21-22 teacher of the year congratulations lindsay [Applause] now typically we would award lindsay a plaque at this event but not knowing how kovid was going to go and everything we took the opportunity to do to do that at our convocation ceremony last month so lindsay if we just take a quick photo [Applause] congratulations on your great honor um okay um so we'll move to um audience comment um uh so uh rules for for this evening as with every evening um uh each speaker is limited to three minutes and uh i will kindly
012um remind you if you go over so come on up if you would like to have public comment uh yes right hello good evening good evening i tried to hide in the corner so a couple people wouldn't know i was here my name is liz linahan i'm a cheshire resident uh some of you might know me from being up here in my day job today i am here uh for my full-time and most important job and that's as mom to thank lindsey grant as uh the number one teacher in the world as connor put in his card right now um but as our cheshire schools teacher of the year um normally uh i'm quite the tough broad but i think today is going to bring me to tears a little bit so please forgive me
013it's rare that you have an opportunity to tell someone publicly how they changed your life your child's life and your entire family's life mrs grant is that teacher we should all be so lucky to have a teacher that changes us and i think many of us have i know i had a teacher who changed my life and i am confident that when my son conor looks back he's going to remember that it was you lindsay that changed his life my son had her uh for third grade and she was there the day the moment literally the second that my son was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder that made difficult made schooling difficult for him and she sat me down during that parent teacher conference as did mr jeffrey and she said it's going to be
014okay and here's how i know and then she proceeded to give me a list of all the things she was going to start doing for my son tomorrow morning that's the kind of teacher that lindsay is and then she proceeded not only to do all of those but add things every day as my son needed so that he could achieve any goal that he set his mind out to be to do but one of the biggest things that has stuck with me was the fact that she didn't try to fit him into the box of what a student should be she fit the curriculum into what my son could really achieve and i'll never forget she turned my son into a math champion a fantastic writer who loved school even though it was so challenging
015for him and with his hearing loss she took care of that too and even all those great things that she did for my son she did even more for me as a parent because good teachers great teachers know that working with parents is a collaboration and that we're all in this together and that it takes a village my village has been forever changed because of you and i wanted you to know that my son is doing so well because of the work you put in for him and all your students so we wanted to take a moment to thank you from the bottom of our hearts from our entire family it should be noted that she also taught my daughter and since mr jeffrey is here i'm going to put in a plug that when
016finnegan uh goes into fourth grade he should really have her too um but you know i'm usually so good with the words and today has been so tough because there's so many great things that i could say about lindsay but i'm just going to boil it down to one thing she's the teacher that has changed my son's life made him a better student a happier kid and she didn't make him feel like an outcast instead she made him feel special and that is the mark of a fantastic teacher so therefore from our family i have these flowers come on up i'm trying so hard not to cry this is from our family um and connor knew that we were getting her flowers he wanted me to pick up um the venus flytrap plant because he
017said she'll think it's so cool there's that um and this is a card from connor he's watching by the way uh he wanted to come but because of covet and not being vaxxed he didn't um but this is for you and there's a little private note inside so um if you would mr chair if you wouldn't mind me just asking one more time if everybody can give one more round of applause for lindsey [Applause] thank you for those kind words um yeah come on public comment good evening christopher raffi 204 peck lane uh first of all i want to uh thank everybody for a great start to the school year my son jake is now in middle school and he is adjusted really well uh he's going to enjoy it really well he's gonna enjoy
018it for the next two years and uh he's probably gonna enjoy making uh uh baked goods for his principal i know yeah uh principal jeff loved him so maybe he'll he'll probably still make you something so yeah so he's gonna he's going to be uh doing that for real eventually um i want to thank maura esposito and all the board members that supported her during and after the meeting last time she is part of the reason why my son did not miss any days of school last year um unless he just had to be remote but he never missed a day of school and i don't think he loves going to school anyways so i don't think he's going to miss a day of school this this year you know what was talked about last
019time was about the mass mandate a lot um and i am i i wish that governor mom would not do a universal mass mandate so i wanted to say that what i would rather have and i told uh tony is that there'd be some kind of metric uh that board of eds could follow like a checklist and if you met that vax rate uh you know community spread that kind of thing i don't know if it's ever gonna happen it's probably too big of a mess and i know we might have this till february but i wish we could do something where you would would have some choice what i don't want is just you know sorry seven people saying i think this is bad this is good but having some data so i wish
020that could happen so i i hope that can happen soon where you can have that decision um so universal mass mandate i wish it didn't happen but it seems like it is gonna happen um and lastly i was gonna thank tony uh personally uh tonight uh but he's not here but i'm sure he'll hear that but i thank him for listening to my concerns last time after several comments were made by people i'm not going to go through it there's no need to but he listened to me and and we talked for you know through email and on the phone for about a day and he listened to me and i'm sure several members here also listened to those concerns from other people because there were people that were upset and you know i do
021thank people for saying they weren't sure of what to do next uh i don't think it's a hard decision i don't know what to do next i don't make those decisions where i work but i give my opinion and i want us to all be safe you know i didn't miss a day of school last year either thankfully um so i want to keep that so i thank you for your time thank you mr raffy is there any additional public comment good evening terry terzakis226 mcsville road first want to say thank you to all of you guys for everything you do um you guys been faced with a lot of challenges and we appreciate getting us through everything i wanted an opportunity to comment on the excuse me the school modernization committee's plan in deciding
022which scenario to put to referendum many residents that i've talked to and my wife has talked to we're kind of shocked to hear that they're favoring the two elementary school plan over the plan that includes the sixth to eighth grade middle school having two children in the system now this is a common discussion among parents and hardly a week goes by that it's not a hot topic on the facebook forum i'm sure you guys are all on it and we i see these posts saying people aren't commenting you're not getting us your opinions i mean read the form um everybody is commenting and it seems very clear that the new sixth to eighth grade middle school is an overwhelmingly desired choice among cheshire residents we've yet to hear anyone to favor the other plan from
023what i've we've read the reason for the committee wanting to put forth the two elementary school plan is because of the plan costing less money these are not apples to apples comparisons these two plans accomplish very different goals so please let's not go cheap just for the sake of going cheap please let's do it right the first time so it doesn't cost us more money down the road we've seen that happen here in town for other reasons from what i've read in research there are only about 22 other towns and districts in connecticut which still have seven to eight grade middle schools most towns have moved to the six to eight or even five to eight grade model even our neighbors in hampden where a new seven to eight grade middle school was built only
024around ten years ago or so they're already making plans to add on to their school to move their sixth graders sixth graders today are ready for the middle school environment there are so many opportunities for them in middle school that they will not get in the elementary school setting both academically and through extracurricular activities dodd the dodd building is also likely in probably the worst physical condition of all our schools it's also too small both in the building and the site it sits on there's no room to expand it and we're going to be forced to expand it sometime very soon my daughter was in the dodd band and it was sad to hear each year at the parents concert in the gym that the band director led off her introductions telling us this will
025be the first time that all the kids played together because there's no space in that building for them all to play together to me that's sad and unacceptable she also mentions in her thank you to the gym teacher who had to forego his classes so that they could have the gym to set up for the concert i just don't feel that that's acceptable starting our school modernization with a new six to eight grade middle school also solves other problems that we have which is the overcrowding in the elementary schools we'll be removing a full grade from each school opening up space for the growing population i would think this in turn would actually lower some costs when we go to renovate those buildings or may negate the need for additions or larger new schools have
026those cost savings been factored in wouldn't this also allow us to take darcy offline sooner by freeing up space for the kindergartners has have those savings been compared and added in when they compare the two costs side by side all cheshire students will benefit from a new middle school as opposed to only two new neighborhood elementary schools i would think that's going to be an easier sell in passing a referendum if anyone has concerns over sixth graders being with eighth graders in the same building well we have the luxury of designing a brand new building so it can be designed to keep grades separated by wings or by floors similar to what we have now with the two separate floors and sixth graders are much more close closer physically and in maturity levels to eighth
027graders than they are to kindergartners and first graders i want to thank all of those who have put their time into researching these options and now we want those options then we're begging you to allow excuse me we're begging those of you who are charged with making this important decision to now listen to what the residents want perhaps we should consider a pre-referendum to provide the details of both options to the voters and ask which one they want to see put to the final referendum please let the residents voices be heard and allow us to be part of the decision-making process thank you um is there any uh additional public comment this evening seeing none i will close public comment thank you okay next up is reports of standing committees mrs ham curriculum okay the
028curriculum committee last met on september 13th we after some juggling we finally got a workable agenda and we'll just move through it we heard from miss milano um marlene solano about the first ever curriculum writing institute that took place in late june approximately 80 teachers took um took advantage of the or participated in the um institute that was led by consultant linda van wagnen um we then moved on to um the um we kind of finagled things and moved one item on and we moved right into then the um basic skills and the ngss assessment data and i'm sorry it wasn't included in the uh agenda for tonight so i did send that late to you all just so you could take a review or have a review of it and i think you all
029have it um overall the the uh third or eighth graders did very well in relation to the other schools in the uh district regional group uh and they uh we performed or actually ranked third which is wonderful we did discuss at considerable length the performance in the eighth grade um which was slightly off kilter from the others and then um also looked as i said at the ngss assessment data um moved on to a review of an um overnight field trip during spring break that high schoolers will take april 7th through the 13th no need for approval since it's an in-country field trip we reviewed the state assessment calendar and then [Music] finally moved on to new business which was um approving um flexibilities for implementing the ct guidelines for educator evaluation 2017 for the
0302021-2012 school year so um we will need to make a um have a uh the board will need to approve that tonight and um then but it was unanimously approved by the committee so um that um ended the meeting it was very timely and expeditious and we're done so um i do well um i'm just gonna see does anyone have do we want to take the motion first or we want to see if there are any questions on the report or um i figured we'd uh go into the motion and have discussion okay so the recommended motion is moved that the cheshire board of education adopt the flexibilities of the fundamental requirements of the connecticut guidelines for the educator evaluate evaluator 2017 for the 2021-2022 school year is there a second yeah and uh is
031that a hesitant is that a second or has it make a point of order that it looks like that this that we have an educator evaluation and support plan report by ms solano is that part of is that after the motion okay great then i second the motion thank you okay so we could just always pull the motion back if you want if you need to okay all right all right so now we are in discussion um so are there any uh questions on the motion well if possible forgive me i jumped the gun a little bit if we could hear uh the evaluator the um report from ms solano and then that will facilitate the questions okay um then i believe since you made the motion you can retract your motion she's i'm just
032asking for an explanation oh does it i mean it yeah i think we have um okay then let's do that great thank you marlene well thank you so uh last year there had been some the commissioner had given us some flexibilities to which we adopted this year there was another set of flexibilities that was also put out there for districts to adopt and this is what we spoke about at the curriculum committee meeting and really if i were to give you the bottom line on the process is that rather than formal announced observations that are pre-scheduled going forward we would have more frequent unannounced observations also with feedback and both written and verbal feedback also what was missing last year was an end-of-year summative rating for educators and this year the flexibilities would include an
033overall rating or an overall summative evaluation so the committee of teachers that looked at educator evaluation met and reviewed these flexibilities they agreed that they would like to proceed and adopt these um according to the state we need to bring that forward which we did through curriculum committee and and then it comes to you to say whether or not you are also in agreement that we should adopt these flexibilities and that is what the motion is about and what we'd be looking for your support on tonight thank you you're welcome any question hey mr white yeah i just want to put this in my own words so what you're looking for is what has happened historically is announced evaluations so the teachers knew you're gonna be coming through the classroom and now it's unannounced is
034that the gist of it prior to covid um there were different schedules that teachers would be on and some of those included formal observations the rest were informals so this now puts everyone on the same give or take um on eliminating formal observations and making them informal and unannounced okay so i'm just i'm just trying to guess as speculate as to how this works teachers it probably makes them a little bit more nervous when somebody walks in the classroom but it's probably a little bit more of an honest take on it because they didn't you know you want to put your best foot forward and if you know someone your boss is coming to see you you're probably going to be thinking a little bit more about it this is just more keep some on
035their toes a little bit more but i think in a a good way um for a positive reason so i mean i'm i'm comfortable with this thank you you're welcome any additional comment um i just like to say i'm also comfortable with that um i guess my i guess my question is i guess i kind of missed it was this um negotiated or is this per per state statute or how did this come about that's a great question and actually the commissioner released flexibilities both last year and then again this year so it was at the behest of the state and they're also working on a newer type of teacher evaluation process going forward which we haven't we're not privy to as yet okay so then perhaps next year we'll have something revised that's what
036they're signaling okay great thank you if i could ask one more question um just to make sure so as i understand the process you then will be applying to the state department of education for the flexib this um this change yes is it just an automatic approval or is there a chance that it will not be approved um highly unlikely that it would not be approved since it was generated itself by the department of education exactly exactly and when would you get that pending our approval tonight when would you i would probably do that tomorrow morning mr white thank you adam so i do agree with this in principle at the same time i just want to i hope that you will be if a teacher flubs because they're nervous just take that into account
037is that you will be doing that like trying to look at a bigger picture because something like that could happen and it's not necessarily you know an indictment of how a teacher operates and teaches educates throughout the year that's that's my only caution on this i'm just going to show you my face for a second yes and there are frequent observations for exactly that reason we're not going in for a one snapshot in time we're going in and observing talking giving feedback going back in so that this is really um we're going with a growth mindset that we're all going to grow over time and that's why we want more frequent sessions more frequent evaluations thank you yeah no i think it makes a lot of sense and i could see some hesitation on the
038part of the teachers but i think with the way you're describing it to me it makes sense that it is on balance positive for the long term for you know across the board for all the teachers the teachers were really very supportive of this and like the idea of people coming in frequently okay versus the very formal process okay thank you is there any additional discussion on the motion seeing none i'll call for a vote all in favor it is unanimous of those present thank you all right it's my turn um uh mr maciana was unable to attend this evening so i will uh read his uh preparation um so this is a finance financial report um as reflected in the above summary through august 31st 2021 our approved budget for the 2021-2022 fiscal year
039is 77 million 1052 dollars and we have expended and encumbered 52 million 566 296 dollars through the first two months of the year while the vast majority of our encumbrances for uh for payroll and transportation have been entered there are additional encumbrances and adjustments that affect several account categories including payroll and outpaced outplace tuition and some grant offset adjustments that will most likely be completed in september at this time there are no major variance concerns to report we expect that there will be lingering uncertainty as to the extent of covet 19 pandemic related expenses especially for student and staff health safety and protective needs such as tent rat rentals intraday cleaning as well as purchase of ppe and disinfecting supplies while these safety related expenses are not expected to negatively negatively impact the operating budget
040they will reduce the funding that is available for learning loss and academic needs that we intend to allocate to the two available elementary and secondary school emergency relief esser grants that total one million three hundred thirty seven thousand seven hundred six dollars as detailed below um let's see esser grant esther ii grant uh 559 dollars to be used to buy uh 9 20 and the arp esser 898 147 dollars to be used by september 2024. uh we will continue to monitor and report on our budget and the status of the ester grants as uh use as the 2021 2021-22 school year progresses and that ends his report um i don't think i had too many questions on the actual line item budget for myself um mr grippo if i may yes i know one thing
041um vin is he and i discussed this earlier in the week um he wanted me to be sure to point out is that the we've worked with the town and we've moved our workers comp coverage from kerma to travelers as of july 1st and the good news is we have very significant savings as a result about a hundred thousand dollars um you know unfortunately with the delta variant there were some overages that we didn't anticipate so the good news is there's you know automatically a bit of an umbrella there to help us so um just wanna he asked me to make that point thank you um i'd ask if there are any questions but i don't think i'd be able to answer them so uh-uh mr white please thank you adam um yeah and so
042maybe it's for jeff but uh i'm just looking are we are you gonna discuss the medical benefits in a minute i'm sorry if i'm jumping yes sir all right never mind okay um up next is the medical benefits report always the fun one yes um let's see how do i correctly read this um i'll do so we had a medical benefits reserve beginning of on 71 of 890 thousand 312 dollars plus a one-time direct contribution per town council one million five hundred thousand um let's see to date uh we have a contribution of one million uh six hundred forty thousand um interest in received other adjustments i think we discussed at prior meetings um so uh july 2021 we had a claims of uh one million one hundred forty three thousand nine hundred dollars um
043and unfortunately and as i believe uh per our budget byline we budgeted um geez i forgot off top of my head it was like 800 was it 900 900 000 a month so we're over in july and in august the claim number came in at one million one hundred thirty one thousand nine hundred seventy seven dollars um for another overage for august um so as of right now after uh deductions um we now have a uh total medical benefit reserve of two million one hundred fourteen thousand three hundred thirty five dollars um at the budgeted burn rate of 900 000 a month that's 2.35 months we are currently not in line with that i i stand corrected actually we we were anticipating claims rate of 900 000 a month we budgeted 815 with the infusion
044of 1.5 um is part of our budgeting process so i guess it's both right our budget amount is 815 but the the anticipated claim rate was 900. either way we were over that number yes 815 or 900. yes uh mr white you uh had a question yeah thank you yeah i'm just wondering so this is my second summer on the board really looking at these numbers uh does the summer tend to run high or is this an indication of we're right back where we were for the past 12 or 24 months running high on everything the the summer actually can run a little bit higher because when first of all you know last year coming off of covid yeah we were anticipating a rougher summer and then when teachers don't you know have school every
045day they try and schedule um you know simple procedures over the summer so sure you know we're hopeful that uh september again you know the we didn't just uh magically come up with nine hundred thousand this is uh a number that was given to us through our consultants so we're hopeful that it'll you know kind of come back down okay thank you but yeah there is a trend higher in the summer okay yeah thank you um are there any other comments on medical benefit trust report okay um i know we've discussed that ad nauseam over the last what 18 months about how we could perhaps better project our expenses or but uh so as of right now what's the status quo uh that being correct that is okay thank you um that concludes um my
046report on finance and now i will uh go into um policy so on policy met on tuesday is that right tuesday last night oh that was last night wow okay and so uh we reviewed um several policies as we would at a policy subcommittee meeting um uh so first um was uh policy number uh 4118.11 4218.11 nondiscrimination in that policy there was a change per statute this policy deals with non-discrimination equal employment opportunities and in there was let me just make sure one paragraph was added to the policy per statute defining race says race quote is inclusive of ethnic traits historically associated with race including but not limited to hair texture and protective hair styles protective hair styles in quotes includes but it's not limited to wigs head wraps and hairstyles such as individual braids
047cornrows blocks twists bantu knots afros and afro puffs um so after considering that paragraph the policy committee moved to a first reading of this policy to the full board and for consideration by the public which will be on our website um and then um we moved on to a second reading of policy number 4000.1 slash 5145.44 personnel certified non-certified title 9 and students title 9. um dr song julie at least give a little explanation there sure um the office of civil rights had issued revised guidance under the trump administration of how to manage uh a sexual harassment complaint and um it's a much more complex process than it had previously been and so there's there's still actually a lot of review of this process and a lot of conjecture that it may actually change again
048in the not too distant future now that it's been utilized for a little while but the law is still written this way and so we're going to continue to move forward and codify it as policy we've had to follow it as law for a year anyway and we're just going to reflect that in policy and if it does indeed change we'll change to to meet the new law and um so after a robust discussion um where we established that this clearly was federal law and we were bound by it um we also discussed the um i guess the the structure that was built in for hearings and and i forget to put enough persecution but the prosecution of potential issues and um where this um uh handles issues that potentially may rise to a crime
049or may not and there's a just a robust uh infrastructure involved in this that we may or may not agree with but it is federal law and therefore we are uh bound to follow it um and so um the uh the policy committee unanimously uh moved uh this policy uh forward um uh to a second reading for the full board um this policy is also on our website for uh public consumption uh it's um if you want to you know need some sleeping material it's a 37 pages so if you'd like to review it please go ahead there's lots of interesting tidbits in there when you consider that it could deal with potentially students in our high school so um finally was there any additional comment on that at all no okay um finally uh
050as our as our meeting wound down um we discussed a uh a draft document regarding a civility code um and i think at the end of the day we uh all said that we were curious about it i think that's an accurate depiction of our conversation i think there are a lot of things that i think concern us as far as application to public comment and or first amendment rights that uh dr solon was going to just kind of look into and see what were the what was the um uh implied application of such a code so we sort of left it as a curiosity it's not uh anything uh there's no there's no motion or action on this at this time mr white thank you adam yeah the civility code it uh it caught
051me off guard when i saw it i just the number one thing that went through my mind it just saddens me that we as a society whether it's cheshire connecticut the us maybe around the world i'm not really sure that we're at this point where we're even discussing being civil i've got a five and a seven year old at home and i'm not it's not easy especially my boy um but it's just it's so upsetting it the online uh and this is not everybody i don't mean to say this is by any means any sort of indictment of everybody as a society or anything like that i think it's probably a relatively small minority that's extremely vocal and not civil and it's really it's really disappointing because i think we can make our points uh
052clearly and we can behave in a civil manner you get upset with your elected officials consider running for office um that's how i see it and anyway so i appreciate the superintendent suggesting this but this is just this issue goes so far beyond in my opinion the issue is so far beyond this one particular code that he even suggested that's it thank you this is him okay and please i think i would just ask um dr sullin could you just uh give us just a really brief synopsis of what a civility code is who it affects is it is it a code for for the schools or is it a code for um the whole school system does it affect the students the teachers the staff the answer to that is yes like you know
053it can be whatever we want it to be and i think you know when mr grippo called it a curiosity i think that you know accurately reflected the just the conversation that we had last night that you know uh as mr white just said you know it is a little demoralizing to think that it's it's relevant um but this goes back actually you know a year plus ago that uh to be honest with you tracy hussey was one of the first people that discussed it with me and before she she left to be the pps director in oxford and um so we've kind of been sitting on it a little bit um and it's just uh it is a kind of a guidepost for you know our decorum uh is a is a school community
054uh it's not you know law it's not policy necessarily and but we're not sure what it is and we're gonna solicit some other communities see if they have anything similar and we'll talk about it in policy it's not even something that's moved forward as a policy at this point but just a consideration thank you very much that helps miss him um i would just ask if there is anything in writing if perhaps the whole board could have a chance to review it um and give some feedback because this isn't you know this is a pretty serious issue and i would say too that i get really uncomfortable with imposing codes of any kind civility first amendment whatever many districts are exploring right now these are virtues that really should be taught in the classroom from
055get go and one would hope that i mean i think we've seen incivility in the last few weeks we know it when we see it a not so sure that we need a code to tell us what not to do and um i would just you know ask that we take that into consideration and um just uh not respond to immediate uh flare-ups and and take a more measured response but again bottom line is i would love to be able to see in writing if there is something um what's being proposed also if i could thanks mrs hill um i just want to clarify that this was something that um superintendent solon just sort of presented as something that we might want to start thinking about so to you know there isn't a policy to
056to look at it at the point where i think you know if it gets through policy and there is something that to present to the full board obviously everyone's going to be able to see it and comment on it but it was really just it felt more like an informational kind of discussion and i agree with tim that it's highly unfortunate that we have to think about whether such a a policy might be needed but you know i don't think we need to to get anxious about it because it was really a very preliminary just you know this is something do we want to think about it do we want to get information from other districts on what they've been doing does it make sense so i wouldn't you know i just don't want people
057to overreact to what it was that we were talking about last night so that's all thank you and um you know just from my point of view as i said before um there were a lot of sections that i think all of us made us feel very uncomfortable or they uh they really encroached upon a lot of uh a lot of things uh whereas as far as expression of speech and that kind of stuff that that made us all a little uncomfortable um so that's why we sort of just left it where it was um and if you do want to see the discussion uh it was uh filmed and i believe is on youtube right to to watch on cheshire public schools if you want to sort of see the detail of of how
058we approached it uh yeah just one one last point which uh was important to me my initial reaction to a civility code had to i was thinking in terms of a board meeting and but it does as and it asks about it it reaches into the schools and one of the um theoreticals that the superintendent pointed out was you know the parent teacher conference with the second grade teacher and the big like you know hulking dad who really cares about his kid rightfully so but in my opinion the tenor of that meeting that discussion is different from what i expect here someone comes up here as an elected official i feel like i have a higher threshold for tempers flaring or anything like that as compared to somebody who's just a staff person so when
059when you read through it what i was thinking what i had in mind being a little bit more receptive to it because yeah i mean freedom of speech people should be able to say whatever they want but i think in uh when you're talking with staff for me as an elected official i want them to be given uh not to be given more respect people need to be more civil when they're having that conversation and as an elected official i have i'm i'm comfortable with somebody raising their voice and getting more upset with me than i would with say a staff person uh sure go ahead i'm just um you say have we had instances of the big burly guy taking on a second grade teacher yes we have yeah okay so i get would
060a code have protected would a code of stop that no no and so we do have measures when people go overboard yes okay okay yes i again i just i fear a code yeah and i think we're probably making too much of this to be honest okay this was just a conversation um and you know there's a lot of this is preliminary it best it's all where we are right now okay thank you and um after we conclude that discussion we adjourn the meeting and that ends my report for policy um let's close this here okay up next is school modernization mr martelly or miss harrigan are there any additions any updates i don't have much of an update but i can i was at the town council had a special meeting on the 21st
061year um to with the main focus being on school modernization they've authorized coliers to continue doing test fits of the marion road jarvis site i'm looking at that as not only as a new elementary school location but potential for alternative high school and or central offices also they continue to look at the property the norton school site in the south end of town different three different layouts of the buildings easement study to the rear for circulation patterns at that meeting at the end the town council asked that callers go and look to see what the cost would be for renovations to highland school to integrate the darcy program into that building which was part of the school memorization's recommendation for the first phase um cash flow projections were presented based on the average cheshire household
062with two cars and a house valued about 350 000 um there's another meeting scheduled for two weeks specific to school modernization with kohler's going to come back with the findings from the information that was requested by the town council on the board side i'm not i know that tony has had some discussions with superintendent and colliers with town council which i have not been present at so i can't provide an update on that i am hearing from the community different items as was presented here tonight so you know as we move forward i think that once we do have the rest of the information from cole ears after the meeting in two weeks i think we really need to convene with the planning committee meeting of the whole where we could sit and talk and
063go through as a board and come up with our recommendation to the town council town council is moving forward with the preferred option from the school modernization which is the two new elementary school model at this time so that's that's my update i don't know if the superintendent has anything you'd like to add to that yeah i would just say you know the the colyers is doing the um modeling at um the corner of marion and jarvis that property with the north end middle school which would be the replacement or excuse me elementary school which would be the place replacement of chapman and um i know that the council's asked for them to also look at a replacement of hummuston uh of the alternative school and central offices on that same site so that's part
064of the financial and uh i guess just logistical modeling there and we should have feedback on that soon go ahead i um i have a question um so moving i i have always thought that the benefit of having hummuston in the building where it is is that it enables those students to get to the high school for you know some class over extracurricular activities that kind of thing so if you're talking about putting them on the north end of the of town um that seems a little you know counterproductive in terms of that that need um so i don't suppose yeah it's i mean it's a little further away obviously to commute right right so that's going to add a cost if we have to you know transport kids back and forth between the high
065school and the alternative yeah i'd say probably a nominal i'm sorry a nominal uh increase you know the difference in gas between the current location and the new location okay thanks uh miss harrigan thank you mr chair um i just would like to express my deep concern that um we seem to be moving forward on this two-elementary school proposal and and not considering the um middle school proposal i think the gentleman who spoke tonight presented a very cogent and expressed himself very cogently my biggest concern is that we have not taken we have not taken this adequately to the public and gotten their feedback on the two proposals so i just wanted i just wanted to put that down on the record that i'm very concerned about the pace at which we're moving forward um
066not considering the middle school proposal along with the um elementary school proposal thank you mr martel i just you know we keep saying we haven't reached out to the public which we we have um we went through this for 18 months school monetization anyone could submit testimony during that period of time so i guess what should we do you know what we keep saying it we need to get to some what should we do should we do like a straw poll should we do a facebook survey like what do you think would be the best and i mean that sincerely because the last thing i think any of us want or anybody in the community wants is to see this go to referendum and fail because you guys have been through this we've only been
067here for two years but i know this has been like a six year effort and the school is only getting older and things are going to only cost more money and so you know the town council is now dedicating a lot of time and effort into going through the school modernization report again months and months and months and we're on that together so what do you does anybody have a suggestion as to what that should be should there should there be a a pre-referendum vote you know i guess we need to kind of nail that down so we can stop having the same conversation over and over and over again so i don't know what exactly we should do but perhaps we could have a board of ed meeting specifically devoted to discussing what options
068might be available to get that kind of feedback that we need i i'm not so much saying that we didn't reach out or that members of the smc didn't reach out or didn't make comment available but i am saying that we did not get enough feedback and whether it was the time of year or it was um the way at which we were getting feedback you know i don't know what the reasons were but i do know that we did not get enough feedback and i'm i'm a bit flummoxed as well i think you know i'm not sure how to do that but we could um really devote some time to talking about that so that we do get the community input before we do move forward because without the that community input i don't
069see how this is going to be successful at referendum and um you know as far as i'm concerned i think uh mr martell your idea of um of holding a a planning meeting of the whole after uh we have more or probably final data to be able to assess that in a public way um where i guess potentially there would be public comment at that meeting i guess that would be up to you as as chairman of of uh planning if you uh wanted that so you know when uh you and uh chairman peregini uh get together and put that together and you guys can kind of decide how that would go um you know but that there's certainly an opportunity there uh while we uh assess the remaining data um mr white you had
070a comment yeah thank you so with regard to public input i think it is really important and the process has been going on for 18 months which also coincided with covet uh so you know for the first year or whatever i i wasn't really talking to many people i just wasn't i mean maybe i'm lying around the phone i wasn't seeing people around around town or anything like that however in the past few months over the summer i i was seeing people chatting with people and school monetization frankly doesn't really come up in conversation i mean from my own experience and what that says to me as an elected official is that people are many people are probably aware of it and they're probably comfortable with it the direction that it's headed that's my take
071on it i don't know that i'm right i could easily be proven wrong but that's my that's my feeling um there are other issues that come up you know directly related to the schools masking that certainly gets mentioned plenty to me when i do see people um but with that in mind i'm comfortable with the the process that we're following right now and it has been years in the making 18 months two years i think it was actually the school monetization was formed two years ago probably in september or october yeah so i'm comfortable moving moving down the path and in terms of a survey or anything like that spending money doing anything like that i really don't want to spend any money on this i feel like this is our job as elected officials
072to make those decisions i want to make the best decision and i do want i do want a referendum to pass i do think our schools need some improvements but i don't want to spend some extra money on a survey one i truly believe that the voters elected us to make decisions for them and in this particular situation i think this is one of the decisions the direction we had i think that's a decision that they want us to make so i'm opening i'm absolutely open to listening to more people and we don't have all the information yet but i also don't want this to continue on a lot longer is there any additional comment i'm just gonna kind of paraphrase what mr neff said a few meetings ago and it wasn't that it was
073a close decision when the modernization put forth this plan it was a 9-3 vote and everything else has been said tonight it was 18 months of meetings and it keeps coming up that we didn't hear enough and i think the silence may be telling us as well um as tim said i think the community generally is comfortable with the with the decision we're going in and um i'd like to hear more from the supporters of the elementaries but they understand too that this is the track we're on so um perhaps their silence is an endorsement as well so thank you um mr martelly does that conclude your report yes thank you um my my awareness tells me that there were no other uh standing committees but if there were now would be a time to
074uh make that report okay seeing none um next on the agenda is the uh approval of minutes for meetings held on august 11th 12th and september 2nd 2021 is there a motion um i mean did you see me that's alan i'm sorry no that's this allen says um moved that board of education approved the minutes from meetings held on august 11th august 12th and september 2nd 2021 is there a second second mr martelly uh is there any discussion on the motion amendments or changes to the minutes seeing none um all in favor of the motion it is unanimous of those present thank you okay miss helen um correspondence thank you mr grippo um we have two emails um one the first one's from travis roarer who was writing to inquire about the intentions of the
075cheshire board of education pertaining to mass mandates if governor lamont's emergency powers are relinquished or revoked at the end of the month and he essentially wanted to make two points that the board of ed should take into a consideration when making decisions about children's health education and our well-being first uh he says he hopes that we can all agree that any decision about our children's education should be evidence-based and data-driven and should not be based on fear or political considerations second medical interventions i.e masks should only be implemented if there is clear evidence of no long-term negative impacts in either health or social development and also only if there is clear evidence supporting the effectiveness of that intervention he provides us with three peer-reviewed studies and then asked a series of questions which i know
076that superintendent solon has already answered and the full text of this letter will be entered into the record um we went now sorry i'm all for twitch chair there's another letter from okay here we go from ariel harrison um who writes that board has been trusted with helping to ensure the safety of our children in school responsibility that i expect you to take seriously i'm writing to ask you that you make your decisions about health and safety protocols based on the advice of medical and public health experts such as the american academy of pediatrics and the centers for disease control and prevention to do anything less would be a failure to carry out your obligations to the community um miss harrison has two children attending chapman school and makes five points it's not the time
077to abandon the tools we use to keep schools kids in school safely last year nor is it the time to ignore the advice of medical experts schools that opened without mask mandates are experiencing outbreaks and many are going virtual or adding mass mandates the primary benefit of mass is that they protect other people leaving it up to parents to choose does not make sense your decision-making process must meet the same standards we expect from our students do not simply listen to the loudest voices and number five our children are learning from what the adults do and she obviously expands on each one of those points and again this will be a you know the full copy of this letter will be entered into the record and i believe that's all of the correspondence mr grippo
078yes exactly thank you thank you all right thank you um okay moving on uh superintendents report thank you mr grippo i just want to kick things off i think it might have been mentioned during the curriculum report or interpreted that we were third in the dirk we were uh first in the dirk fifth in the state so i just want to make that clear yeah so you know maybe top three percent that's what you know so i get a little sensitive around it but i'm pretty proud of our our success anyway um school song this is uh a first for me that uh greg bell our choral teacher at cheshire high school and was approached by a few students and they were considering an alma mater song a school song so um they were asking
079around alumni and that they thought there might have been a school song back in 1961 but nobody could find any record of anything so if anybody has any record we appreciate you reaching out to the high school in the meantime they're going to start to you know craft maybe one of their own um i know there are a lot of questions about masking and everything and you may have seen in the news that the governor has called a special session of the legislature on the 27th which is monday to consider extending executive authority to the governor if that's the case i mean he's already been quite public about extending the mass mandate to february so i guess to be seen you're probably also aware that people who work in school settings are required now by
080the executive order to be vaccinated uh alternatively they may have a religious exemption a medical exemption those both have to be reviewed and approved and then ultimately you can have neither of those and just elect to be tested uh on a weekly basis so uh we have about 819 we exactly 819 respondents to our request for that information uh so 819 different uh staff members of various uh every role under the sun from coach to custodian superintendent everybody in the organization so we had three medical requests that's zero percent of our population 10 religious exemption requests one percent of our population roughly and uh three and a half percent or 29 people just asking to be tested 768 are fully vaccinated that's 94 percent of our staff so we are incredibly highly vaccinated as an
081organization and i need to credit the board for providing us the opportunities half days to make sure that our people were vaccinated and that's important because you know particularly this year if you're exposed you don't have to quarantine if you're vaccinated and that means our staff are in school more for our students and that's you know i say this repeatedly are you know really i don't want to say exclusive goal this year but one of our pri major priorities is to make sure our students have access to in-person learning all day every day and so that's you know reflective of that effort we received an acknowledgement from the commissioner of education and governor we won the commissioners award for the fafsa challenge if you're not familiar with the fafsa your children probably haven't gone to
082college yet or maybe you didn't have to go through that fafsa program but it's basically an application that supports financial aid for students and by ensuring that so many of our high school seniors engage in that process they're more accessible to aid and you know whether it be low interest or loans or just grants and that allows them to ensure that they can continue to matriculate on after their freshman year or even just get into college in the first place so kudos to our folks at cheshire high school on that uh success other than that you know our boiler installation at both doolittle and highlander are coming along um you know the 28th of september we're looking to have things close to resolved at uh highland it's probably going to take us a little bit
083longer at doolittle because you know as you may have heard vinnie in the you know last meeting we had a couple of little setbacks there but uh water mains and whatnot but uh we are coming along there so uh that that covers it for me mr chair vice chair thank you dr solon hey can i stop yes go ahead um just to clarify um i'm just reading from the um the curriculum committee notes and it just if i could just uh cheshire did rank third out of 21 districts in both english and language arts according to the notes so that's where i got that from so i'm sorry i misinterpreted and i do have a question on the um exemptions does the district have the authority to override in an uh a person's exemption either
084religious or medical yes under what conditions would you do that um if you had a uh first of all medical exemptions get reviewed by our physician you know i i don't do that then if there's a a religious exemption they if they don't fill out the correct paperwork if the information is not accurate those get reviewed by our attorney and you know i guess at that case they'd be rejected okay thank you either way though i want to be clear that regardless of whether you have a medical exemption religious exemption or are strictly unvaccinated anybody in those three pools are required to test weekly under the executive order and it's um a pcr test they have to take no it could be pcr or antigen okay okay thanks um go ahead i'll go mr white
085first thanks adam uh so jeff what i had mentioned to you previously i was i recently it was in the last couple weeks i read an an opinion piece in the atlantic and it was about masking and it was not saying in favor or or against it was discussing the pros and cons and so i'm just wondering if i could ask you a couple questions about it in relation to that that opinion piece um in in recent years or decades when it comes let me back up when it comes to the little kids so my son's in kindergarten i have a particular interest there with regard to kindergarten kids in years past have there been studies done really measuring the benefits of a variety of things that happens with kids in the classroom like facial
086cues uh in working with a teacher being able to read lip movements and things like that have those studies been done i mean i'm just taking this from an opinion piece that i read so now i just want to confirm it if things like that have been done sure i mean i i don't necessarily track those things but i do know you know recently there have been a number there have been an emerging body of research around children's ability to read emotions with masks and that the the research thus far that i've seen through yale and uh wisconsin university of wisconsin-madison indicates that you know the vast majority of um you know the person's ability to read emotion in someone else comes through expression in the eyes and that this research for kids even younger
087than kindergarten demonstrates a capacity for children to read emotion and accurately read emotion with people that are masked um you know i'm not gonna sit here and advocate and say that you know masks don't deter from one's ability to read uh emotion and that you know that's even indicated in the study that it's not the same accuracy with a mask it's it's accurate but it's not as accurate is without a mask so yeah that's definitely a you know something to to consider so the the the main point of this opinion piece i think is that what it was saying is that over the past few decades there have been studies of little kids who and it's not just facial cues it's other things marlene jump in if you know what i'm talking about but the
088point is is that there have been benefits measured studied and measured and by virtue of masking and i'm not talking through 12th grade i'm just talking little ones right now the masking by masking them that turns those benefits into a cost that has been measured again this is just what this one piece this one writer was saying um assuming that that's true the writer went on to say what made sense to me which was there is a benefit to masking i totally agree with that but the benefit of masking is not measured we don't know at this point and that's because of different masks a single ply double ply triple ply the proper fitting of a mask all these different things go into it and so what the what the writer was saying is that
089there is a cost to what we're doing with the little kids in their masking and there's a benefit we know what the cost is it's been measured we don't know what the benefit is so we cannot really say with clarity that the benefit outweighs the cost that was a simple point again i'm not i'm not defending every you know the the points the underlying points there but to me it it raised a real question and if it is if it is a valid opinion piece i think it's really important there are people you know people who came to this meeting a month ago or board of ed meeting and i you know when i'm talking to people one-on-one i see it you know i i'll see it in social media see it on tv where
090people get ridiculed and diminished simply for challenging something and it's not for being rude and jumping up and you know pointing at the governor and doing things like that i'm not talking about that uh it just gets uh this reminds me of the discussion about civility and i think it's if you want to talk about being inclusive i think you need to be respectable it's respectful of other people's ideas and it's just disappointing to me when i see people come to the meeting and i think that they are making very passionate and what seemed to be very uh valid points to me and then separate and apart i hear people get ridiculed either to their face or privately and to me that sows additional discord at a local level throughout the country and things like
091that and i just it's it's upsetting to me when i see these things you can't speak to it and that's fine the point of the opinion piece but i did want to raise it because i think that there are really valid concerns being raised by parents who are not comfortable with the masking and i'm not saying that i want to make a motion to change anything whatever happens with the governor next week or anything like that but i think it's important to i wanted to just have my thoughts on the record because it is important to me all these various pieces there thank you thank you mr white um mrs harrigan did you have do you want to make a comment or question i just wanted to ask quickly um because we've been getting all
092those emails with the um the program whereby you can submit your verification of vaccination that isn't intended for board members no board members aren't required to be vaccinated just wondering thank you yeah i guess they did have i guess i didn't wonder that for a second i was like huh did we have to don't have to submit anything you're okay okay that's that's good uh uh so uh dr zoland is does that conclude your report or do you have any additions no i just want to thank faith for clarifying that the third in the durgan both when you look at our performance in math and english and balance it out across the state and even within the derg where one in the derg when when you consider third rank third rank others may have scored
093higher than us obviously in math or in reading but when you look at there you could have been first in math and eighth in reading you know i think ours just demonstrates a high level of performance in in both so that's uh something for all of us here to be proud of thank you um okay moving on to uh old business um i don't think we have any uh there's nothing on the agenda for old business so um i'll move on to new business it says chairperson's update um so um chairman paragini uh did not provide me with uh any information for an update from him for me all i will do is um commend dr solon and chairman peregini for a very well received presentation that you gave to cabe is that correct where
094the chairman of cabe asks you um to present on uh i don't well i don't i want to i don't want to get incorrect what did you present on exactly basically it was um you know kind of navigating some turbulent times and in public meetings yes and um so uh their presentation was very well received and um not okay i guess it is a little pat on the back that uh the reason why it was well received is even though we this board has not received any formal training um part of the presentation was that um our i guess innate reactions to a potentially adverse situation was used as an example as to how to react to a potentially adverse crowd um so um i guess kudos to everyone here for staying calm and and
095i guess uh treating the audience the audience with respect uh that they deserve for for having their rep their opinions uh and that uh we were able to uh at least at that time have a mostly civil uh converse well conversation and or listen to their concerns um so um congratulations to dr solon and chairman prayer janie for that um and then finally i guess we have some upcoming meeting dates according to this piece of paper here october 7th is the board of education open forum meeting and i believe that is the location is to be determined and perhaps even the format is to be determined it sounds like yeah we were i mean typically we have a very intimate meeting where people are sitting closer on tables yes and we realize that you know
096covid you know kind of prohibits that so uh i was discussing with chairman peregini earlier today that uh he suggested we look at what maybe some other formats and how to facilitate that mr white yes yeah i mean uh we've got tents at the schools i i for one have no problem with like say a saturday meeting something like that a saturday morning if it you know hopefully it's not even so much the the day of the week it's just the the distancing i guess and we will figure something out so um next up is the uh it's october 18th it's the curriculum committee meeting 7pm central office boardroom and october 21st is the board of education business meeting uh 7 30 p.m town council chambers and let's see and i guess upcoming community events
097september 26th is school partnership meeting um i don't know what that is uh if you could want to expand on that that's um that was uh actually a meeting that we held earlier this week school business partnership meeting that was i don't know some morning this week at 7 30. the 21st actually all right 21st sorry about that okay well so that happened already um and then october 11th is columbus day schools are closed in central office yeah that didn't happen yet no that didn't happen yet no um okay uh that's all i have on this agenda so i guess that means i can entertain a motion to adjourn mr white sean jones oh so many seconds the motion is seconded um all in favor all right the most the meeting is adjourned thank you