001uh good evening everyone uh what's today may may the fourth be with you i'm wearing a a death star t-shirt myself underneath nice you know i didn't want to just wear the t-shirt i figured that would be you know unprofessional so i covered them with a collared shirt uh let's see um miss jojenski roll call please sure mr gripper here miss helen here and mr white here mr chairman you have a quorum great um oh let's see i'm just making sure i get the all rise for the pledge almost sounded like there was music for a second 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 and i remembered all the words this
002time i forgot that one time i was uh i was out and about uh before the meeting and they were having a car show down in front of uh oh way back burger uh in front of way back and they and they had a uh all of a sudden they started playing the national anthem and they had a flag and i was like okay said stop put my hand over my hair everyone in the parking lot standing there you know why they played the national anthem i thought that was kind of cool i don't think i'd seen that before um alrighty uh dr solon oops oh abruptly um i believe that mr grippo was going to ask if we had any public comment which we do not and i know he'll be i'm assuming joining
003us shortly there he is no public comments sir hey i kicked myself out of my own meeting i guess there we go okay no public comment great i don't know oh he must have closed the window or uh something right so i guess we'll begin by reviewing um this uh new policy uh fund 41 student health services sure so this is a update to our uh existing student health services policy and really what precipitated this was not the vaccination law that's you know gone through the state although we will have to take another look at that of this policy when formalized and so i don't know that we need to necessarily move this forward today per se but one thing i did want to bring to your attention that we were looking to include in
004this policy everything you see highlighted is updated so we met with our nursing coordinator uh nancy stanton who has really done yeoman's effort the sharon has had more engagement with our health policy here than than ever as well as dph and chesapeake protocols but um she advised us on a number of these areas that are highlighted uh relative to information we've pulled from from uh cabe policy so i'm just going to try and fix that or i'll ask carol to fix it let's see so um again what what you see here is highlighted um you can play with that later i guess um we just again just updated some language uh around you know who can conduct uh health assessments and whatnot what's required um under our health assessments can i jump in or should
005we just wait till the end let me just say if you don't mind tim until i jump at the end this is all reflective of state law so this has been updated the vision hearing and postural screening [Music] tb testing has been updated and then the influenza piece we already state that you need varicella um which is chickenpox vaccine uh that's required now uh and that was you know in 2011 so a decade ago we have to update this uh and then the the big piece of this that we wanted to really focus on having in place before next year which is i mean we could just require it is a regulation that we're requiring it at the middle of the high school level for next year prior to board making it formal policy but
006uh i was explaining to adam earlier that one of the issues we're facing in the athletics department is that students get their physical but they expire in the middle of a sports season so that creates a risk for them and a significant liability for us as well as the fact that it creates a real um problem for the parent and the student in the middle of the sports season to say by the way remember your your uh you know physical expires in the middle of this season and then you know they are in the middle of sports and they forget and now it's like well your your child can't play today or can't practice today because and then that creates a lot of issues for the team the student athlete and the parent as well
007so we're trying to avoid that we looked at what some other districts were doing and many of them require a physical before the season starts to cover them throughout the the length of the season so um that's something that you know we really are gonna to enforce next year so that that covers the um items in the policy tim i know you had a question or more maybe yes just a couple things um [Music] near the top it mentions medical advisor i'm just curious what is there a quick like explanation what's the difference between a medical advisor and a doctor sure so the district has a district dedicated medical advisors dr jim o'connor he's a pediatrician in town he does a lot with our our school system to ensure that you know we're providing a
008healthy safe environment for all of our kids okay but he is a medical doctor is the point when it said when it sort of distinguished between medical doctor and medical advisor i just that's all i was worried about yeah yeah he's our medical advisor and we hire him as a doctor he's a pediatrician yeah okay um with regard to the uh the mention of homeless and this may just be state law the way it's written but what struck me in there it says that if you live with someone who's been in a homeless shelter i'm wondering if somebody goes to work at a homeless shelter like i don't know like a is it someone who's how do i put this i mean if i walked into a homeless shelter for five minutes and then suddenly
009it you know it sort of creates a problem for my kids who are playing sports i don't get that i don't know if you have any yeah this is uh i just want to make one clarification that this is this is uh encompassing this policy of all students that one carve out was what i that i was referencing about the 13-month physical requirement that's only for athletics but the whole rest of the policy focuses on all students basically all the time so um the and you know following the the protocol you really only need that um that testing if you live with someone who's in a who was in a homeless shelter jail or prison uh i guess it's just increased risk of infection so you need to have that testing done so i guess
010it's just the way it's i'm just this is an observation the way it's written it just strikes me as like say your your mom or dad is a cop you're living with someone who's been in a jail it's like it just seemed it seemed odd but it's probably just the wording is my guess without necessarily being the intent of it anyway um yeah i mean we can review that with nancy but you know that may be the case that if your um sibling is a uh you know incarcerated um corrections officer gosh it took me like three days to get to that but anyway if you're you know like like a parent officer you may have to have the tesla um okay uh so that just to be clear on it the religious exemption the
011stuff that's been in the headlines so we're gonna be we'll be getting to that in the next couple months or something because i don't i don't even know if it's a law yet they're voting on it but i don't yeah it was kind of tied into law it's official uh oh it has okay yeah as of april 28th it became uh official so lamont signed it then yeah it's it's done okay um let me see the in there in the down at the bottom it mentioned telehealth and those are prohibited does i guess i just my observation on that is i kind of wonder if that makes if that was written pre-coveted and it if it necessarily makes makes sense still or yeah so in um for your child to be eligible to participate in
012athletics yeah they need to be seen by someone in person the the screening um which is a a fairly uh typical physical where they're checking your breathing rate your heart rate you know asking you a number of screening questions the screening questions could probably be done virtually but some of the exam really needs to be conducted in person and so we don't accept telehealth clearance for a sports participation okay no and i i understand that completely i'm just did everybody have in-person physicals in the past 12 months i guess that's my question because i'm thinking but maybe that goes under the governor and that's a great question if i'm not positive if that was waived or not i would have to ask nancy that's a great question um i'm trying to recall you know if
013my own kids who participate in athletics i i know that they've had physicals and i think the doctor just filled out the health screening form from that physical which is permissible but um i'll ask nancy that's a great question yeah i mean it's more of an observation just but it could be under the executive order where everything gets waved to the past year yeah potentially but i don't recall that in the executive order um most of the sports were canceled and in the height of this you know uh last winter last spring and you know some participation this fall but i think by then um things had opened up so i'll ask nancy it's a good question okay okay um and so i guess in the last thing i'm just curious why do we rely
014on the ciac instead of just like the athletic director to to give us our seasons our 13-month period i'm sorry but for the athletic department i guess i should say what do you mean by 13-month period uh well it's i'm just reading it here and you know the examination is available for 13 months as specified by the ciac yeah the the um ciac doesn't specify the 13 months the 13 uh the what the ciac specifies is this season so we yeah so we belong to the ciac is i'm not aware of i mean there are some private schools that participate that'll play public schools um brunswick down in uh maybe it's greenwich participates in ciac sports but pretty much uh everybody participates in the ciac program they define fall season springs to compete for the
015state championship you have to you know be affiliated with them yeah i just in the past year i've kind of i know i'm not that big of a fan of the cia i know so anyway that's fine that's it it was more observation yeah so they they they're only dictating the season um when it starts when it ends because that's about uh fair competition so you know ciac will say baseball pitchers and catchers can start this day everybody else can start that day so that you know team x down the street isn't starting to practice three months before everybody else is giving them an unfair competitive advantage so that's that's the rationale behind that one sure no i understand i get it i got it all right thank you yeah sure anybody else with any
016questions on uh katherine you have any questions i don't thank you okay um for me uh just uh firstly so just going back to the the athletics uh portion um that is a a form that's required to be on file so every athlete has to and then that's kept either what is that wherever those forms are kept in the health office yeah in the health office yeah okay um oh health so so that's kept where like in the head nurses office okay now i'm guessing that's lock and key because it's yeah middle and high school actually it's double lock and key oh wow okay great um the office one for the file cabinet um as far as so um going to um so we don't have to alter that line um where it mentions um
017the home the homelessness line because the because there the duration was was that an annual test for tuberculosis i i have to be you know i i am not well versed in the whole tuberculosis component of this process and i you know again i'd be happy to have probably in the fall we could have nancy come back and talk about you know not only the tuberculosis or other questions you may have about our health screening protocols but i know that there'll be questions at the start of next year about just our vaccination protocols uh you know more inclusively yeah and opting out of that and whatnot so you know i don't think it's a bad idea i just really wanted to put this on the table before you today because i do intend on moving
018forward with requiring our students to be um to have their health physical cover the entire sports season before the fall season starts so i just wanted to have this conversation with you to make sure that there weren't any you know substantial objections to that component that we might need to take another look at but again you know we're following what a lot of other districts do and when i realized we didn't have that it was um pretty clear to me you know and talking with steve and nancy that you know we're creating a liability for ourselves and a potentially you know bad situation for the player and so um it makes great sense to make sure that the students physical covers the season so we don't uh so are you saying we don't have to
019move this for readings no we could uh we're not yeah it doesn't have to be moved for a reading it could it could come back in the fall or i don't think we have a meeting scheduled for june but it could come back for the fall we could have nancy come and talk about it but so for right now you're you're treating this as administrative policy or administrative regulation yeah not as okay that that one component yes okay um you know but the the other parts we have a policy already it's the yellow parts we're looking to amend and you know i think it's just important to have it in here if that's what we're going to do and that's what we're going to require moving forward and i think it protects the board um
020from liability i so it's my strong recommendation that we do move it forward but understanding that not tonight necessarily unless you know you you want to and then it's fine we can always make changes later but i just think if we're you know starting the year off next year we can we can um have nancy come back and walk you through it and make sure everybody understands every element if you feel very comfortable with it as it's written right now then go ahead and move it forward there's no harm and we can still look at it as a second reading in the fall but it's up to you okay i just didn't feel like there's real pressure to do it right now um you know i know well that i mean the thing is that
021because the law has have just changed april 28th and today is may 4th and we didn't right um yeah that shakes off well honestly yeah i don't know if this is the time to really broach that subject so i'm i'm not gonna i'm not gonna really bring it up uh but my question is in in reading through the policy there is a statutory reference to mandatory vaccinations as far as the types of vaccinations and so my question would be let's say that the legislature next year because i'm sure they wouldn't i don't think they have time to do it this year maybe they do to make the uh the uh coven 19 vaccination mandatory to attend school um that could be slipped in right under that any and any other vaccination listed under uh section
022what is it 19 dash whatever whatever it was that's where so potentially this policy represents that it i you know at the end of the day this is another one of those policies where state law trumps whatever we say anyway so it's it's essentially irrelevant right so when so since the the governor has revoked the religious exemption we have no power to stop it correct because it's statutory um you're an agent of the state and must follow state law so is a board member so um you're not an agent of the town and i know that's it's a unique situation um but that's why you know you're autonomous from the council and things like that but you know um we would have to follow state law uh and so even if and we've had situations
023like this before where we just haven't updated the policy because you know we're waiting for the legal um clarification or we know that the law is going to change and our a perfect example of this is our graduation policy you know what it takes because if you recall the state changed uh high school graduation requirements probably uh eight years ago or something and then they changed it like three times thereafter with delays and changes and stuff we couldn't possibly keep up with it in the policy it was just they would seem to be changing so often so at the end of the day though we still had to follow regardless of what our policy said the statutory requirement right this is the same thing okay well at least we had the opportunity to ask the
024question i suppose um i well you know what um i would certainly entertain a motion to move this forward to a first reading to to at least have the to cover the athletics portion um tim would you like to make the motion or um because we can have discussion after uh yeah i make a motion too based on what based on what was just said to make a motion to move this forward to a first reading okay catherine second all right uh is there any discussion on moving it forward to a first reading uh tim yes yeah um so the i'm trying to so this really relates the idea here that you mentioned is um related to sports i don't have as you know i don't have any kids playing sports at this point not
025with the schools um but i'm trying to put my i'm trying to put myself in their shoes right now particularly um what goes through my mind is the kids who they're playing a sport for the first time seventh graders i mean i know i the first time i ever did a sport was track it was like you know it's whatever time it's march hey who wants to do this sure i'll go afternoon mom can i stay after so it's it's a last-minute thing and then you've also got i mean the freshman really at any point but primarily i'm guessing mostly it'd be freshmen and seventh graders and so in terms of this 13-month um physical it's not so much a 13-month physical but getting it before the the season starts or giving some sort of
026uh leeway like okay you can do the conditioning part but not the contact or anything um is that just something that you're thinking about um making the i just want to make sure kids can get into it i don't wanna i don't want kids to go oh i miss the season i can't do it because now i can't get a doctor's appointment for three weeks and then doc the coach said don't bother because blah blah blah now we'll find a way to make it work you know okay that being will make the physical happen um the we'll make the um the form happen you know we don't allow kids to take the field the core the ice whatever the case may be um without a physical and it's a significant liability for us and a
027risk for them so you know we we inundate parents with the message that you need to have an athletic physical it we always ask kids well in advance if you want to sign up for a sport so for example i you know uh when i was principal dodd middle school for a week in the spring the athletes high school athletes would come down talk about their sports their teams the kids in the caf would be excited about it they'd sign up put their name that we would make sure that everybody gets the emails about athletics but those guys would people that are interested boys and girls would get the information about uh their parents would get the information that you need to have a sports physical so it's like you know entering seventh grade you
028need to have a physic a regular physical too okay so um by law so we have to send you home if you don't and so when you once you've had that really in seventh grade you've got the sports physical for the year because the the you know pediatrician then just fills the form out um so it's not really an issue for us um parents are really good about it we're really good about communicating and kids are really good about being aware of it and so that's not the issue it's the issue is i got the physical didn't you know i forget about when it's going to expire it expires in the middle of the season that creates a problem yeah yeah okay hey i just i don't want you know i mean it could be
029tough for a kid to do that for the first time it's you know you're growing you definitely want kids participating as much as we can we we harp on that constantly you know whether it's athletics or music or theater or other clubs or whatever without kids participating so we don't want to shut them out of that we'll find a way to make it happen okay yeah that was my only point just good faith effort to keep them yeah absolutely absolutely um is there any further discussion uh seeing none um all in favor of uh moving policy number 5141 uh to a first reading say aye or raise your hand it is unanimous fantastic thank you um on to our next item which is a policy 6159 individualized education program i believe that we had looked
030at this in detail last time are there any additional changes no sir you'll find that the rest of this meeting should be like roaring downhill because these are all like the technicalities this if your call is switching from 21 to 22 on special services uh following statutory uh um can i um seeing that there are no additional changes can i have a motion uh to bring 6159 to a second reading i so move that okay is there a second there is a second mr white thank you is there any discussion all in favor of moving policy number was it 61.59 to a uh second reading all in favor is unanimous let the poor guy spit it out kathryn okay our next uh items are um for uh policies for a third reading um 3170 3300
0313326 33 26.1 and 41.45 um assuming uh i don't want to assume are there were there any additional changes to those policies since the second reading no sir no revisions um okay then can i have a motion please to move those policies to a third reading i'll second it okay so we have a first and a second yes um the motion on the floor is to move policy 3170 budget implementation 3 300 expenditures spending authority purchasing guides policy 3326 paying for goods and services policy 33 26.1 payroll procedure and authorized signatures and policy 3541.45 student transportation insurance to a third reading and approval from the board um all in is there any discussion all in favor raise your hand is unanimous fantastic um and then we have some uh a couple of items in the
032other section of our agenda dr solon yes so um the the next two items are kind of more informational um the student activity account uh you know vin is working with as i mentioned i think maybe at our last business meeting uh the new auditing firm just completed their audit and we've set up a meeting with one of the auditors to get more information about student activity accounts um and unfortunately that had to get pushed back from i think today to thursday but i should have more information on that soon and then the other item i'll just share my screen really quickly with you is that um the state has um adopted a law which requires districts to create a minority educator recruitment plan um for diversity and uh non-discrimination so uh you know we've
033had a plan um and strategies in place and take it right from the beginning but you have the link i don't know that i have to like scroll through this so you can read it but basically we have to adopt a plan and so over the summer we'll create said plan what we have been doing is aggressively advertising regularly in the national minority update um to try and solicit um teachers of colors or professional teachers of color uh any any position really to apply for uh for positions we've done things this year unique with meriden in terms of the affinity group we've [Music] advertised and tried to solicit uh more diverse candidates through job fairs and that continues so we will formalize a plan um but i just wanted on your radar tim go ahead
034um so i you've had you've had something of a plan in place for years now correct yeah we've been working on diversifying our staff for some time i think this you know past two years we've really um ramped it up you know kovit has kind of put a wet blanket over a lot of our efforts you can't go out to job fairs when they're all virtual you know and it's kind of stinks but we're looking forward to uh getting to that as soon as we can so what what i'm wondering about is uh let me see so my understanding is one of the difficulties you've had in years past has been that a lot of i mean cheshire cheshire for years has been a majority white town right um and you're looking at recruiting you
035know people of color um but a lot of times when you've found them correct me if i'm wrong on this a lot of times when you've identified people made an offer or something they say well i want to go back to my hometown right and you know cheshire seems nice but first of all it's hard for us to get people to apply which is why you know in through my work with southern that i've been doing for four years now um we recognized that there just aren't many candidates of color uh graduating from our local colleges entering the the teaching profession i remember hearing that of all the admitted students that expressed the desire to select education as a major there was one black male at southern but you know we uh collectively is education
036need to do a better job of talking up education as a profession uh in the black community and you know getting kids interested and frankly i mean and that's the other part of the work that's going on uh that we're doing at southern is to try and provide greater access to resources to entice students so like geez if i can get a scholarship to go to college for this that might make it easier on my family and make it more enticing um and so you know they they received a rather large endowment at southern and dedicated a lot of resources to recruiting kids um candidates of color into their school of education which you know we certainly applaud but it's a a long process you know if we're identifying high school students that we think
037would make great teachers someday man you're six seven years out before they graduate high school get a college degree you know internships and perhaps a master's degree so it's a that process it takes a long time to cultivate that but one of the issues we as you said tim in the past has been that um we're hearing from you know just the work that we do at southern when students graduate they want to give back to their community the same way that our kids who graduate want to give back to treasure and you know actively seek jobs here so we're trying to break that and you know make it more enticing for for other candidates to come here so with regard to i'm just thinking about you know kids returning to their hometown so you
038have people who apply you have you know kids who grew up here and then they so you have do you have any active outreach to you know to students of color who went through the cheshire system and say hey come home yeah i mean i know that i know they come i know that i definitely know they'll come back and apply yeah there's not a significant i'm not waiting for them to apply but actually outreach to them right i i'm not aware of um any significant number of students anybody of color who's graduating from treasure high school and entering the field of education i think that's part of the problem okay that's that's not the first choice is education and i think you know where there are uh larger numbers of black uh in hispanic
039students um our effort has been to try and make that make them aware that this is a real option for you that you're you're wanted in this community in in as an educator you can make a difference in kids lives and we're trying to encourage students at that high school level to enter college considering education and so that's that's where the efforts been most recently sure sure and i'll just go out the affairs and recruit people but you know a lot of where you might walk past cheshire at a job fair because you grew up in new haven and you want to give back there if you know john paracino is at the job fair calling you over hey you know well let's talk about employment you know it's it at least gets a candidate
040to open their eyes and consider us where they may not otherwise but when you do it in person you lose that opportunity i don't thank you thank you for that and and so i don't know the um i don't know the ethnic or racial composition of the faculty or the other staff but i'll just point out that you just mentioned uh black and latino and i'm just going to add to that there's i mean asian you know south asian indian type and i would just add all that i think specifically what i'm thinking about is i can't remember her name but she she was advocating something in the past year she was advocating diversity in the past year and she was um for um i'm guessing she was based she was of indian descent american
041you know cheshire kid or whatever but that's just specifically like what i'm thinking about i mean there are kids out there who are concerned and um not she's an adult now but um anyway that's where i was coming from just outreach to our own student body at some point right yeah i mean yeah sure thank you um just a quick question do we advertise out of state yeah the national minority update uh is a a national publication and we you know have advertised there for what like two years now carol so it again i i don't think the pandemic has really helped our efforts uh to get people to come here and to meet with us to see things it's yeah it's um you know just for everybody it's it's been a downer but i
042hope that our work with the affinity group in meridian too may um not that i want to pluck teachers out of meriden wouldn't do that to them either but you know if somebody makes the decision that they would want to give cheshire a try that'd be great or maybe you know [Music] a black teacher in that group is an intern and is looking for a job and they meet one of our teachers in that meeting and they're like oh maybe maybe this is an option for me that would be great too so we've tried things to provide some more outreach that's a resource for our black teachers um but also you know could be a way to connect and draw more teachers in right so i just know but believe it or not uh our
043teachers salaries are extremely competitive especially compared to uh teachers from other states so that's why you think maybe you know especially with a lot of you know population movement now after covid that uh you know right you may find more success and i'd be happy to send our people going to those states to go to a job fair for a school that you know graduates people that are educators um but you know you can't do that so yeah anyway yeah because yeah because there are many states that uh where teachers unions uh don't even exist that that aren't they aren't as strong as they are here and they they may find jobs here more enticing um catherine did you have a comment well i sort of did but because you know i just i've been
044on this this is my eighth year on the board and we have talked about that our efforts to recruit um minority candidates you know all the time and it sounds to me like this is you know this is not just a cheshire issue this is a across the board sort of issue because if you can't get kids to be interested in the field of education then you just you know that that is much more of a structural global issue um and but i know that jeff has been like committed to trying to um you know do whatever he can to draw people to cheshire and you know i don't know what else you know it's not like this is the most exciting place to live so you know telling you know getting somebody you know
045younger people may not it's going to be a tough draw anyway if if we're thinking people would move here from out of state um but hey you know i i think we should be doing whatever we can do um i will point out though that if we at the time that we can in fact do in-person job fairs if we're thinking of sending our people to other states that's going to cost money and we i don't want to hear anybody you know in the morning during the budget season that we spent too much on you know travel or something because those are the kinds of things that um could work but then we have to be willing to pay to get that done so um that's all but you know i think overall we've always
046done what we could do to attract candidates of color to cheshire um and we'll just have to keep trying because i i do think really important and you know i i think that you know we've tried some creative things and it sounds like you're you're still trying creative things with meriden and southern and um so yeah i guess the problem is that hasn't worked right and so you know you have to go back to the well and try something different yeah and that's what we're trying to do yep so um so the plan is that that plan you showed that's the plan that you're going to be submitting to the state or no you know what we'll do is draft the plan to share with you oh okay an option yet all right very good
047tim you got a final question yeah uh not even a question just an observation which is i mentioned it before um well two things first of all compensation matters um but compensation doesn't necessarily have to be cash or salary and what i have mentioned before is hummuston if we do not end up using hummuston as a school i i i would i would like to see it turned into housing even possibly you know for municipal or school employees i know this would be a massive lift and i don't see it happening but i think it's you know if we end up doing other things would if if we're not going to be using hummuston as a school i think it could be converted into housing and we could use it for something like this for
048attracting attracting young professionals to the cheshire workforce that's it okay if anything gets creative thinking tim [Laughter] it's i mean it's tough that what what is this what does a first year teacher make jeff 42 45 000. uh a little more yeah a little more than that okay still i mean it's going to be difficult for anybody to be living no it's to be living to be living on your own you know i mean it's one of the reasons to move back to be near your hometown is there's a good chance you can probably live with mom and dad family for for some time i mean i'm just being realistic about it you probably have large numbers of first-year teachers across the country who do something like that not all many of them um because
049the salaries are not going to be that high but if you could help in some way with housing i i think it's i think it'd be something it's definitely something that i would consider again i think the lift is probably too big because of union contracts all sorts of stuff but i'd love to see something like that happen well i don't think housing really has anything to do with union contracts but anyhow go talk to the town council yeah planning and zoning about this right um okay so um there is uh no nothing left on our agenda is there any new items that uh well no that's it there's nothing left on our agenda so i will uh entertain a motion to adjourn i so move that all right mr white to you second second
050all in favor it is unanimous thank you thank you everyone and we'll see