001welcome to the first ever treasure for education online meeting mr. Nazca we're going to have a call for for mr. Griffin Oh Miss Helen miss Howard miss ham here is Harrigan here mr. Martelli here mister peres Janie dear mr. white okay mr. Chanin when you have a pawn Thank You Carol we're gonna actually stand for the pledge allegiance I think superintendent someone has a flag for us to uh to look at while we do this awesome yes stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I want to thank the board for joins us evening I noticed rather something new for us but given the advances situation we had a me give an update to the public and have some discussion on the Kovach 19 virus so that's why thank you often joints this evening before we begin
002I think we all need to think clearly everyone in Cheshire Public Schools and our great town for the incredible patience and support has shown us over the last two weeks to say this is an unprecedent event is an understatement I cannot everyone involved for getting us through the last couple of weeks things have been upended so to speak but the babies operate we exclude closures a lot of parents are working from home and the asserting around all this I think church public schools employees or cons come together very very nicely in the knowledge and thank you for that and just a little background about this meeting tonight last week governor Lamont executive order relaxes some of the treatment formation requirements so it gives local governing bodies and boards some flexibility to me electronically whether we
003do it via video as we're doing tonight or conference call so this is our first attempt at that so we are making history so if it was you joining us your infamous at this point this is our first online meeting ever and possibly more to come depending on a situation on bulls our format this evening is a regular board meeting agenda format which allows our call the commentary and questions and we're allowing the public to send in questions Vino same as the last time which is including the agenda that email addresses cps co vid 19 a Cheshire Dyke k12 dot CT that us and we'll be monitoring those questions as they come in with that being said mr. superintendent Solon its return over to you for your report thank you very much chairman farad Jeannie
004and I would just certainly personal knowledge I appreciate the accolades stowed upon everybody in our school system I just want to echo that and you know I appreciate that all of us all of the board the full staff community our students in particular I mean it's not just a shift in education for us it's an absolute change in lifestyle so you know as you mentioned you have parents that some are going to work some are working from home our kids are kind of trapped and out of their routine this is absolutely unprecedented and it's taken an incredible amount of effort and patience to do what our entire community is doing but again I am so proud of the way that everybody has handled them selves and you know look forward to making the best of
005this difficult situation and hopefully turning this into a positive memory for our community in the way that we pulled together and work through this collectively and I appreciate all the board's efforts toward that end so thank you guys as well just a few updates as a matter of fact this one I literally just got off the phone with our town manager mr. Kimball before this meeting and all town parks have been closed in effective 7:00 a.m. tomorrow including the dog park the playgrounds at our schools the athletic fields in an effort to limit you know people coming together and improve our social distancing that decisions been made so I asked that everybody watching please heed that request and stay away from the parks in the fields and maintain social this thing saying the better we
006do that the quicker we can get through this the governor has made a decision to close all Connecticut schools through at least April 20th where his words so we are in this for the long haul we've got another several weeks of remote learning and thankfully our school system has prepared for that and we feel like we're in a pretty good place to continue with remote learning now that being said April Break is an issue that that comes up and I mentioned it our meeting a week ago this past Monday that we're retaining the April Break kind of strategically as a holding place for the moment and the reason we're doing that is is really kind of twofold one of the things we're looking at is collectively across Connecticut what's the likelihood that the governor will
007continue to keep school closed for a even longer period and the other is just to look at the emotional and physical health of our students staff and community so if it turns out that you know we are having a lot of illness with staff and with with students the likelihood is greater that we would want to rich retain the April vacation to give people a time to kind of recuperate if we seem to be holding up okay and it looks like perhaps the remote learning will carry on even beyond April 20th I think that what we would prefer to do is take days off the end of the year if people can't go outside anyway we'll maintain our routine if again if it seems like the emotional health of our our students and community is
008in a good place to do that alternatively we'll examine other options like even just taking a few days off so that decision we hope to have made by April 3rd so next Friday so that people can have a little bit more time to plan unfortunately it's not like vacations are in order for that week but we still want to try and get people a little bit of a heads up on what the overall schedule should look like this also has impacted many of our major school events things like plays and trips and it's getting into at this point where we're even looking at you know things like proms and potentially even our CHS graduation or other promotion ceremonies so what we're in the process of doing now over the last you know week or so
009we've been starting to look at these events and is there a way to postpone them and still give our students the incredible opportunity to perform in these events or to attend their prom these are lifetime memories that we really want to try and hold on to for our kids to the greatest extent possible so for example with proms we've been working with venues to find dates and June is an alternative we have already had conversations about having an official graduation remotely on the last day of school which would be June 18th at this point barring April Break change and then having a more of a ceremony in the summer if we have to on a volunteer basis for students and I think most students would want to participate in that although once they've graduated we
010can't force them to but you know certainly welcome their attendance and celebration with them they deserve it so we are trying to plan for some of these really important social community and educational events and we're pushing those back as much as we can to still have them happen are all of our school field trips are canceled through April 20th unfortunately nature's classroom starts up shortly thereafter and that is I would say in pretty significant jeopardy we have been working with nature's classroom and you know we'll be communicating more out to our parents next week a decision on the 8th grade trip to Washington DC that trip occurs though Wednesday Thursday Friday but before Memorial Day weekend that we will also make a decision on that next week we've been working with Nations classroom the tour
011provider they've been incredible with us and so we're looking to make that decision next week if it again if things don't dramatically improve in the next you know week or so unfortunately it looks like many of these events all those events will have to be cancelled anyway I want to remind everybody in the community who's watching that our website we built a website specific to remote learning so if you go on our homepage and click on the link for coronavirus right at the top of the page you will see all of the communications that we've sent home I've probably sent a communication to parents eight out of the last ten days I'm trying not to be overwhelming but keeping people kind of what's what's on tap for tomorrow kind of thing additionally you can link
012there and find all sorts of information about technical glitches how to support your your child and your family's emotional health through this process technology if you have a question about technology one of the questions we got through CPS covin 19 was can my elementary school students still acquire a Chromebook yes if you go on to that technology tab on the coronavirus page you just simply fill out a form and somebody will be in touch with you we even do house calls we do deliveries on those so if there is a need please reach out that website for technology education and food services I know vanill talked a lot more about food services we move on I also want to encourage you if you haven't already you can follow us on Facebook Instagram or Twitter and
013we provide regular updates there as well as some cool things that are going on around town for example over at Norton the other day some students had written in chalk on the driveway we miss our teachers and that was just really awesome and it meant a lot for our staff and I tweeted that out as that our official page so follow that and you can see some neat stuff remote learning as I think most people would imagine has been our I want to say only priority because we are looking at other things like health and food service and things like that but it has been a significant priority we have 4,200 students learning from home now so everything else is kind of gone by the wayside unfortunately but we have poured a lot of energy
014into trying to make sure that our students have a real positive experience and their families feel like this is a worthwhile time for them and I know that we solicited our parents through a survey yesterday and I want to just take the we had more than 1400 responses already and about a 24-hour period which is incredible and I know Marlene will talk more about that but I just want to thank everybody for that that helps us focus on like I said that priority of making sure that we're providing a great remote learning experience for our families and particularly our students obviously I also want to thank the town in Chester Pat they've been tremendous partners for us we speak regularly so for example today mr. anciano myself town manager the fire chief more Esposito from
015Chester Cod others were on a conference call and what we're planning for is what-if scenarios and so we all you may not see things at the surface level but we're all working together to make sure that if the town needed school facilities if the town needed school resources that we would be there to support the town as they've been there to support us through all of this so you know that's a pretty comprehensive overview there of just kind of a generic entry point I know miss Solano will be going into a lot of the remote instruction stuff and mr. Massey on will be covering a lot of our facilities and financial implications and a lot of other items but I just want to pause here to see if members of the board have any questions
016for me to this point thank you Jeff that being said do we have any members with questions he's the first to the buzzer yeah thank you thank you for that thanks for the update Jeff I appreciate it and I again applaud you on the work you've been doing for the last few weeks I think it's been fantastic I'm speaking as a dad rat right now with my daughter and what what what I've seen and what's happening so thank you for that let me see with regard to you mentioned the April vacation before and I'm wondering about you were talking about absences I'm just curious do you happen to know off the top of your head like what is a typical number of absences that you would have for teachers and you know throughout the year
017in April or students like what the baseline number you have that's normal and then anything above that would be abnormal I'm just curious sure sure thanks it's great to see your daughter in the background too and we miss seeing kids around all the time but you know I think it would be a little bit misleading to look at what would be a typical number of absences because everybody's working from home so you know I may call out under certain circumstances because I don't want to get in and maybe you know get other students sick or whatever but I may be okay to work from home so this is kind of uncharted water for us and we'll have to maintain strong communication with our teachers we and that's why we have our nurses working right now
018as well so that they can track ok who's been quote symptomatic and how long I have they been symptomatic and what do we have to track for them to support them or who's going to be out because of something not related at all to Coe bid or something I broke my ankle in the backyard or something then I could probably teach online but not if I broke my wrist you know so these are really unique circumstances that we're trying to work through but we are going to monitor that and right now knock on wood we've been pretty good and all of our staff have been engaged in no he's been missing time really okay thank you thank you two more just two more points I think under the topic of Cove vid as I mentioned
019to you Jeff just before the meeting I probably for this weekend I'm hoping for this weekend to call a meeting of the Personnel Committee we have we don't know what could happen people could become incapacitated including you the superintendent principals things like that all at once and so I'm hoping to just have a meeting with a general discussion without getting into too many details but a general discussion of succession planning for everyone who were all your staff and then also more specifically you who would it be who would the board who would you recommend to the board so that's just a comment for people to be aware that it is on our radar that we need to have that discussion in light of the circumstances and then the last question I have recognizing that the
020number one issue right now is public health at the same time I also you know think about the economy and we want things to go well and people to have jobs and stuff and so I'm just curious do you have any sense at this point when you might be doing some day-to-day work aside from specifically all the co vid related stuff and I can give you a specific example I can give you that went through my mind it won't surprise you it's like solar and I don't want it that's not my specific point right now but I do I do want other things to continue I don't want everything to just you know stop and to the extent that we can have things continue that's what I'm just wondering about from your perspective do you
021see any light at the end of the tunnel right now to be frank not right now the way that such a dynamic situation at the moment it doesn't seem like we can string three days together without something new showing up whether it's planning for emergency services or enhancing our remote learning as well as I think that's gone you know we're still really trying to prove it for our students but I would hope that you know over the next couple of weeks we will start to see the light that you're talking about and start to pay a little bit more attention to something beyond this if this is going to be the new normal okay thank you thanks to him faith raised around that so faith you have the Mike Hale and Jeff and team again
022congratulations on all that you're doing I cannot thank you enough for your efforts just curious in with we know Cheshire's testing numbers I think we have one we might I haven't read today's numbers but without violating HIPAA laws do you have any reports on any within our school community who have tested positive for the virus that you've heard of I know that there are four folks it seems preliminary in Cheshire testing positive now if they're in a you know they're in our community period so the at this point I had this conversation with Mora yesterday that because we've been out of school at this point as long as we have been chances are that into a very high probability that if somebody ends up with the covet virus that they will have contracted it after
023they were out of school so I'm not concerned about community spread in our school community unless you know people are gathering outside of school at this point if I could have just one follow-up totally totally different direction you and I have talked about the graduation and the play and you mention it and I'm so glad that we recognized we may have to do spread into the summer months I'm hoping that this is all done just once again I just re-emphasize the note the idea that this will then become a huge community in bet event and so please involve us all of us because we want to see these kids have their ceremonies and I you know perform that play and have that prom so I'm just saying we're here and we're ready to help thank
024you you know I know our students in particular really appreciate that support I'm sure our whole community does but I received regular emails from our students hopeful that these things will transpire and unfortunately you know school whether we're in or out is really out of my hands at this point but we want to see that move forward and we'll definitely solicit your support hopefully we'll be able to do that thank you thanks babe Andrew do you have a question you or just kind of thing I'm gonna thank you.thank thanks for you got they know mrs. Lana's gonna talk about the remote learning aspect this in a second it sort of you mentioned April break I'm glad that it's not being changed this point I do think the kids could use a break from the computers
025I know I know my two daughters have been literally in their rooms for most of the day every day engaged with the exercise and so forth they're trying they're working breaks and break up the monotony that so I think by the time April Break comes around you know it'll be welcome even though we can't really venture far away I just think miracle technology for a few days is a key and the other thing one that is on other Bourget notifications and there's a lot of discussion going on between board about chairs in the district ensures you're aware of there seemed to be a 50/50 split so far as I'm seeing on a commentary where seems like half the school districts have adjusted their April Greggy to reduced it to a long weekend and the other
026half have kept it unchanged I think the districts that got a later start than we did with online learning I had to make that change with able break because they're already gonna run into the end of June so I just want I burned out because not because we're any better off than their school district but the once a kudos to your team for again the ball rolling so quickly with remote learning I think that give us a little bit of a head start especially known early on that there might be more closure so good had good call there and good call the break it's when uh you know thank you for putting the kids uh you know social needs first thanks any other questions from the board before we turn over to miss alone see
027there's not Marta Marlene you have the mic hello everyone first I really want to say due to the parents because we've always felt that our parents were partners with us in students education I think probably parents more than anyone would say that they really feel like partners now with children being home every day so we're really grateful for parents as partners in this we know that people are working from home and that we've got people who work in the medical field and they have their kids home with them while they're trying to do all these things and we we really really appreciate feedback and their support as we go down this journey into remote learning so thank you very much I also just that you know really give some credit to the fantastic team that
028I've been lucky to work with Kevin Hanlon as our k-8 curriculum coordinator Tom Lee walk in Scott Conway who are our tech integration specialists been building this right along with us our teacher leaders and the Rams and then our technology sure Mike papa and B Jacobs in getting all the Chromebooks into the hands of every student who needs one so with regard to remote instruction wanted to just review the tools that we're using our platform for this is Google classroom and then we're using Google meat which we're all on tonight as as part of the board so teachers are able to have this tool at their disposal to use with students either individually or in smaller groups it gets a little more tricky when you have many students in at a time they're also able
029to use something called screencastify which records video or at snippets of videos that they can then push out to their students via Google Google classroom and then of course school messenger which probably will look too different to parent but it means that you're getting emailed enables us to do large batches of emails at once so that's would be the foundation that this lays on as far as access to devices right now we have 2400 students with one-to-one devices that are our treasurer public schools Chromebooks and our tech integration specialists and our tech department we are supporting those students and 600 staff members with this remote technology we have a tech support web page set up for both friends and students so if there's anyone out there who's having difficulty with a Chromebook you can go
030right to the tech support page and enter a maintenance ticket and we will either we can swap your Chromebook out we can walk you through things there's also some videos available to parents and students unhappy some of those tools if I just want to reiterate what Jeff said earlier about that continuity of educating their of support materials out there for parents including some tip sheets on what parents can do at k3 level at the four eighth level and then at the 912 level so a parent who who was loaded device also was given a phone number if that device isn't working we have a hotline set up where they can call in to a phone number that we are checking regularly here at school as far as intervention we are working with our with providing
031devices to all of our intervention staff which is a pharisee support tutors our kindergarten is our first grade is our special education II's also we want to be able to help students in this remote learning environment trade assist extent possible and so you have our school counselors and school psychologists and our speech and language therapist ot and Pt reaching out to parents and students either via email or Google meat or old-fashioned phone call to see how we can best support and those staff members are also in communication with classroom teachers to be able to figure out which students may be struggling and you'd need extra support during this time per our state guidance upon our return to school we would reconvene any BT meetings that would would need to happen but the state has asked
032us to hold off on those we were doing those in those first couple of days when being changed fast and we got some new guidance on that of course we're always you know available for any kind of communication outside of the PPT when we get back to school those PPT meetings will convene reconvene and we'll identify any regression that students have had and we'll make a plan to support them so are some of the information about remote learning in a nutshell I really want to say again thank you to the parents for all the feedback they provided us up until right before this meeting we had 1419 responses to our survey and while we're not finished collating and disaggregating all of that data it really is looking very positive we asked questions about whether or
033not they feel parents feel that they're getting the right amount of communication from teachers and its interests k3 we had 89% of parents say they were getting just the right of communication with 5 percent saying too much and 6 percent saying too little so I think those are pretty good numbers what we asked out the right amount of work on computer we had roughly 75% tell I'm sorry 89% tell us that it was the right amount and then the split between too much and too little so we will like we are targeting that majority that most people are feeling like the amount and the cut the amount of work and the the amount of time on the computer and the amount of remote learning activities we're giving kids our meeting students needs it's gonna put
034a little farther down we also queried rk3 parents specific with a couple of questions because as you know we did not deploy Chromebooks in K through 3 we sent home little kits with white boards and illative and both some lessons and so we were asking them what is their families to do there have the ability to have their child view some instructional recesses on either a computer or an Xbox or a Smart TV or a cell phone or an iPad and 94% said yes we have that mobility and 94 sent all said they had the capability to help complete 10 to 20-minute work on a device so good start giving them some more online instruction pipe worked day so that's the thing to hear because we needed that information and/or make some changes moving ahead
035in grades 4 through 80 then of parents that communication was just fate 74% said the amount of time on the computer was and 70% said the world just right and again in most of those too much and too little that was they kind of balanced each other out at nine to twelve similar positive results of course when you're getting into that school there's a spec munication typically so because the students are already up and running on Google classroom so that's an area where we might be looking to have some additional parent communication a linking home which i think would certainly be helpful also the amount of work 66% just right 13% said too little 20% said too much so we're going to disaggregate that a little bit more find out is this by a grade
036level and it'll I think help us to to do even to just continue to improve this process this won't be the last survey that we do we intend to survey for students with some of these same questions and to survey our teachers on a couple of other things and this will be the last time we survey parents either if we're looking at this across the long haul we're going to need continued feedback from our from our packs out there next is the state testing update and we've received word we've gotten a waiver and the smarter balanced and the next generation science teams will not be required this well the IT he are going to be working with the college boy and looking at your dates that might be available for students who need to take
037that and our advanced placement classes much of ding or at least one those tags will act become an at-home test they have modified that so that tests will be taken at home the last part of my report is just to let though about all the staff that we have can work remotely we have I've got daily meetings with our tech engine specialists both in the morning and a day with bi-weekly technology meeting to make sure that we're getting those devices into the hands of those who need them and so being both teachers and and students and any of the tools that were using we've got daily teacher leadings taking place with the RAM so that we can continue to plan for instruction for the next few weeks and we've been meeting daily with our administrative
038team too so needless to say everyone very used to using Google I think we're a week or two ago we didn't have that mix for I'd say we have a whole lot more now so that's my report for you to take any questions Thank You Marlene does the board have any questions go ahead out thank you can I can everyone hear me okay excellent so Solano I'll begin with actually making a comment to all the parents out there as a parent who's who's been helping the home school effort here I'm fortunate enough to have a partner to also split the duties but I was I guess just wondering is there any support for the single parent or anything like that where you know the what if the parent needs to work if they're perhaps a
039first responder or anything is there any support for for the child that the school system parent can provide or is that something sort of out of our realm and I have several other questions out there so Tony I know if you want to you know put me back in the queue or whatever Thanks so Adam that's a really good question and I would say for any parents in that situation flexibility is our is the middle name here so communicate with the teacher we are happy if the child is doing that work at night if they're doing it on Saturday or Sunday that's part of the blessing of remote learning it's not that you have to do reading from 8:00 to 9:00 every day or from 10:00 to 12:00 it's really flexible and the assignments are
040we're working to make sure that those assignments in a way are given time and multiple days to complete that we want to take that pressure off parents and we want to take that pressure off kids this is going to be a much more fluid situation than you're handing your paper at X time so the key to that is going to be the communication between the teacher the parents and the student thanks running go ahead oh okay thank you so um I guess the friends throughout the you know the United States and I've been touting our system as one of the first who sort of you know I congratulate you it seemed like it was about or you guys like that I guess my question is because it seemed like a lot of other states are
041sort of in the opposite direction I just wanted to reiterate does all of the work that the the children are doing does it actually count because there are some states where their work is where they're just having children do work so that they can you know I guess stay educated but it's not actually counting towards anything and it seemed like that that's what we're doing here is that everything that the children are doing it actually means something and that the the the teachers are our keeping track of what the children are doing and that it actually is they're working towards their education so that no one has to repeat for next year or no one has to make that type of decision so I would like to say that it all counts in the big
042scheme of things and I know that and Jeff would probably add to this that across the state superintendents are getting together to really talk about grading and to make some recommendations to the commissioner but we are practicing some of the grading policies that are in place but again with with uber flexibility and knowing that a lot of what was in those learning toolkit was some of it was review we want to make sure that we get those basic skills down and they're strong but also know that when kids come back whenever we come back we'll be assessing them and as a district we're gonna have to monitor and adjust our instructional path to make sure that we get to where they need to be because it's a huge disruption and if when I ask another
043one then I'll turn up a Katherine and we can jump back to you my bad one more you had several oh no I'm all set thank you exam by Katherine Europe okay thanks mr. chair it's really more of a comment that a question that I had when you were speaking I mean about the you know parents but the partnership between the parents and the children because they're both home you know the parents are working from home or whatever it just struck me that this may be a bit of a silver lining that this is an opportunity that I don't think many parents get to experience which is really seeing what their kids are doing you know what the curriculum looks like it just it's a view of their children's educational experience that I don't think
044many people have gotten the benefit of I know I I didn't so I think that's just fascinating and obviously it's you know it's created a very optimistic view from parents because of the results of the survey that you're starting to see you know that parents are really feeling engaged and you know the communication is where it needs to be and the amount of work generally it just sounds like it's it's really been fairly positive to the extent it can be experienced so far and so but I was just struck by that thought I would have loved to and well I'm home with my child you know really getting engaged in their learning so that's well thanks if I could respond to that one of our questions was what type of support do you need to
045support your child at home and we had 459 parents say time management 460 456 that understanding curriculum content and so I want a reassurance that they do not need to the curricular content experts that we we will take that on and we will help with that but we're also happy to explain things because if your child comes home and it's fresco home when your child is home and it's frustrated with what they're doing and you're looking at that saying well I remember what eighth grade you know what that topic was any math or science you know that's okay you don't have to explain it and understand it you need to help them advocate for themselves and say well let's sit down and send your teacher an email and say that you know you need help
046understanding that I think it's a great time for parents to help their child build those independence and self-advocacy skills so it certainly is unique that was a great observation you know is it was so obvious that even noticed that my wife and I being home and our kids working you know in their rooms upstairs we do check in periodically so I think Marlene may be one of the reasons you get time management I'll cook them content is probably because pants myself feel that the kids a little bit more about the subject and that we used to back in the day so maybe we're trying to leg up on what they're learning so we don't seem to - haha far behind in the topic but I will say there's a good storyline for as a parent
047we do get the experience a little bit more what they're experiencing and you know to get a chance to vent and talk more and so we'll take advantage of while we can it's easier for some families not for others or sharing you know maybe two computers among score people I know that happens to some households but that's a great observation I believe Andrews next then Anne and then Adam again so I Andrew Europe thank yours want to congratulate Marlene van and Jeff and all the parents everyone out there we've been having our lunch waves together here in the kitchen and today I was lucky enough to be allowed on a four-way group chat with four of my daughters friends over five total and overwhelmingly they are enjoying this they feel supported I'm sure there's people
048out there who might be not having his creative experiences they have but one thing that I witnessed on day one my daughter's a seventh grader at Dodd is they encourage the kids to get up do a quick workout and then shower and get ready as if they were getting ready for school and she has done that every day so I work from home primarily anyway so I've been kind of following in that in that routine as well I'm so again I just want to say that I know it's not perfect I think that all of our lives are kind of changed but I think we're doing a great job and I was on a conference call today with a project and there were several people whose kids are just starting to get into the remote
049learning next week and so I definitely have bragging rights to say that we've been doing it for over a week a week in a day today so especially thanks to everybody out there thanks grant you and your up you and if you're speaking your mic is muted I just unmuted thank you and thanks Marlene for that report very eye-opening I just wanted to add that your Cheshire Public Schools is not alone with the call for more time management skills because certainly on many of our students at the college level that is what they are calling out or especially in their first year in college as well and it's it's really a big thing about going to remote learning is you are responsible for getting yourself into the into the virtual classroom into the online activities
050and there's just the lack of having that person standing over you with eyes on you it makes a big difference but it's remarkable what Chester Public Schools has been able to do and so congratulations Jeff Ben Marlene and all the principals and everybody that's been working so hard in this effort it's it's a lot you guys are doing a great job and I just want to say thank you thank if there's no other questions about waiting I want more yeah I know Adams next Adam and then Tim am europe thank you yes so I just wanted to comment firstly that my son's in third grade and I was impressed by you know it really gives a great sort of depth to the report card I'll be around when we online learning is when the report
051card for I believe the second term came out and happy to say that he did very well but to know that how prepared he was with the classroom instruction and how his teacher had him really know a lot of the materials at least in this first week where they at least he seemed to have a depth of knowledge to be able to carry himself through this first week of this very difficult transition and how he knew already knew how to use the their I guess there are a couple of assignments that were on the Chromebook how we knew how to use the Google classroom already and that was a learning curve for me I was like wow I didn't know you knew how to use all this stuff this is really great and so and
052and on top of that my wife and I had a video conference with this teacher today and he you know he was able to check in and we are able to ask questions it was a great you know 15 minutes of it was still face to face conversation and I was you know really great to see how we're able to use all sec knowledge II so quickly and that's a testament to Marlene and to your staff that you know we're really able to get up and running and that you guys really had a lot of this sort of in the hopper already I guess and it's really good to see how it's been put to great use so I guess my question is and I sort of asked his teacher for today and so that's
053why I asked you now is so as we I know that you you guys had sort of prepared you know a two-week curriculum when do you think that parents can see that that I guess addendum to that have you are you I'm assuming you're in preparation now now that we're going to have to go out through I guess April 20 at the very least do you have a timeline as to how those things are going to roll out and and what exactly parents should expect for that continuing education yes so basically the day that the kids at home with all of that material we were already busy trying to build what we knew was probably going to be more than two weeks so that is what our teacher leaders and Kevin Hanlon and the team
054that's what we're engaged in and what we've been digging up our suite into since since that Friday that we sent everyone home with those materials and we'll be communicating to how we're going to get these materials out to everyone and so we have we have a good team to help prepare those and I don't want to guarantee that they're going to be delivered but they in parents hands before you you need to put them in front of your child thank you thanks Adam Tim you have a question thank you yeah I'm not sure what people can see on TV I actually had to step away for just a couple minutes because my son started my four-year-old son kind of needed to step away too I say that just because I may have missed a comment
055so Tony you feel free to cut me off if you already crossed if you already discussed this briefly and also it's it's just our world that were it's our world that we're living with just wondering trying to think I'm lost my train of thought for a second with regard to with regard to this is really a lot for parents one of the one parent contacted me and talented this week and mentioned that one high school class was well structured and the teacher would have all the students log in at the certain time and Marlene I know you mentioned this briefly about logging in and having the structure and the parent said that was great and I agree however at the same time some teachers probably have little kids like I'm dealing with and daycare has
056disappeared so you cannot simply send your four-year-old to daycare and so this is really just a request on the part of parents to recognize the situation in which some teachers are finding themselves and to just try to take that into consideration they may not some parent some teachers may not actually be able to have that forty-five minutes if their kid is coming after them you know anyway that's really it just to be understanding of everyone involved in this and I do believe that our teachers by and large are trying to do a really good job and I think they are doing a good job but the circumstances are just difficult thanks Tony now tennis a great point I I just want matic assume when we say we think the parents that we realize teachers of
057parents so these are parents too so yeah I know it's tough for someone especially if we have you know single parent households it's a juggling act really I just thought I think thank you for a great update I I know you in particular was a Solon and Kevin and a lot of folks have been working around the clock every day and a number of things I still picture you in Jeff's office last week you know elated we're gonna be through details I'm sure you're the same thing at home so so thank you for you and your team's help on this and for the audience you know as I was listen everybody's comments it may sound like we're bragging we're not bragging I think if people tuned in the hairs thinking this and positivity it just
058that there's been a lot of positivity around this by no means are we perfect but I think it is a pretty huge feat for Cheshire Public Schools to get this upper running quickly and I had to be equality and Oh looky that momentum so I do want to just acknowledge everyone start work one one quick thing I was probably one of the less than 5% parents said that said my kids had too much homework at the high school teachers have reached out to us and I tried they got a email from DARS history teacher yesterday's checking in so they are doing outreach in fact my younger daughter her messaging wasn't working on her phone for a good part of the week so her book club was able to reach her teacher was concerned and absolutely
059contacted us mission was ok so there they're looking out for everybody appreciate you know that that that care they're showing us just one one idea that can different parent the other day I just share this with Jeff yesterday but one parent said is it's going well but it seems that at least the high school may in some classes kids can use more interactions directly with the teachers and when Marlene talked about you know it's kind of difficult to do when you have 20 to 24 tiles of students on Google meet at one time I could see the challenge in trying to have that happen on you know call just thought me possible to schedule some one-on-one time weeks doing during the week maybe 20 minutes or 25 minutes just to have FaceTime on the teacher
060I think even pretty under grades I think some of the kids do miss the direct contact they have with the teachers and I'm not sure how much time they can dedicate to doing that but it might go a long way and this parent mentioned that if it's a technology problem that he has a friend that works at echo360 that's all for up to service free for educators as a possible option so I think he has an email on that but other than that that like what I went unsaid is we are getting a lot of feedback a lot of good ideas so keep up the great work again thank you to your team and you know we'll see how this progresses more forward Ronny I think that's in the your update correct yes I just
061want to thank you all for live comments and let you know that this is not perfect this is not what we all want we are going to make mistakes along the way there's no doubt or doing something this big in this vast but having your support and and having so many positive things and by the community really very much appreciated so thank you Thank You Marlene I think up next we have about a report from mr. Massey Anna Thank You mr. Perry Jeannie good evening everyone so I'd like to start with a little bit of an explanation I know the board members know that we have a school security and safety plan that covers many things it's a large document one of the sections in the school security and safety plan did cover a response
062to large-scale outbreaks however I will tell you that this is not what we were expecting to see this year so you know the one thing and I'm only gonna try and thank the staff and the managers one it's but you know the staff here in the schools you know certainly the teachers and the administrators our custodians our IAS you know our nurses all our managers they've been amazing everybody has responded extremely well and I think that's helped us keep things on an even keel because clearly the school system is not shut down by any stretch of the imagination all we did was took what we were doing inside our buildings and pulled them outside of our buildings and so we're doing everything remotely so with that said the first time on the agenda would be
063an update on school breakfast and lunch which is a grab-and-go program that we're doing out of Dodd Middle School we've never done this before in Cheshire um you know many school districts do offer a summer lunch program we've never done it so we had to ramp it up pretty quickly and it's going very well so I I do want to spend a couple minutes to explain how this works we had to get a waiver from the US Department of Agriculture to offer this program and so we're serving fully compliant USDA reimbursable breakfast and lunch were serving and distributing food three days a week Monday Wednesday Friday so Monday Wednesday would distributing breakfast and lunch for two days Fridays were distributing breakfast and lunch for three days Friday Saturday Sunday so this is tomorrow will be
064a fifth full distribution day and just to put a little perspective around what we've done by tomorrow we will have served sixteen thousand two hundred twenty two meals using this grabbing and go update and there's a this there's plenty of details beneath that that shows you day by day how many meals that we're serving per car but it is a quite an accomplishment to be able to put that out and it's been pretty flawless we've even figured out how to reduce the wait times as people pick up their meals throughout the day breakfast is very structured under the USDA so breakfast includes an 8 ounce milk a fruit such as apple slices fruit juice and a 2 ounce whole-grain lunch is an 8 ounce milk and entree such as a turkey and cheese sandwich dragon
065juice which is also known as vegetable juice and a fruit such as an orange so when we're talking about breakfast and lunch it's you know it's very very structured it's packaged and and it is reimbursable under the USDA so every breakfast we serve we're reimbursed a dollar 80 for every lunch is three dollars and 41 cents that is intended to cover cost of food cost of supply and our labor whether or not it will cover us fully is its to be determined we haven't gone through those numbers but I think it's important for the board and the community to understand that that is that is reimbursable so it's not out of you know out of pocket from the operating budget next week we are starting to offer lunch items that can be heated at home
066and this is an announcement such as shamrock shamrock shaped chicken nuggets and corn hot dog nuggets so you know those lunches will be packaged and people you know community members can heat them up at home this is available for all children 18 and under not just students of the Church of public schools we we do want to make a couple of acknowledgments you know first Madeline and Aiko who is our food service manager she has been leading the effort and I wanted to share some of her thoughts she said the teamwork has been amazing the staff from the other kitchens so that's a food service staff that worked at do little or Norton or at the high school they don't get to work together but under these conditions they they are working together and she
067said that this work at Dodd has brought the entire team much closer together so she was really pleased about that custodians and IAS have been terrific the nurses from our nursing program are there daily they're doing safety infection control they're taking the staffs temperature at the beginning of the work day and at the end of the work day they're also helping to make sure that we're distancing and doing everything that they need to do from a nursing perspective and when they're not doing that they've actually been helping to prepare the food packages so again an incredible team effort and also officers our SROs Dave Mahler and Gretchen events nee has been there with us inside the prep area as well as helping direct traffic so it's been going great we want to thank Doug and
068Andrew Wade of Wade's dairy we don't have enough area to store all the milk so what Wade's is doing is they're delivering milk and a truck and they're leaving us the truck with the refrigeration unit on so we can keep the milk code so you know we want to thank Wade's and Wade's is our milk contractor also Jerry nappy and bazoo dough's because they lent us a trailer like you see on an 18-wheeler and that's where we keep the refrigerated meals that are prepped for the following day so again if we didn't have that trailer we could not store all the food that's been prepped to be served so there's a big thank you for them and then we want to also thank Jim from Chester Tricia it's a nail he's provided free lunch to
069the food prep team this past Tuesday so a lot of community effort a lot of staff effort to make this happen we did have some excess milk and we were able to actually donate that to the Cheshire food pantry this week and the last thing that I wanted to mention is that bus drivers these are the Board of Ed bus drivers are delivering food to medically fragile or disabled children families that need to get their food delivered if they're ill or if they're on the quarantine for coalbed we don't have any of those yet but you know we will make those deliveries of the lunches and breakfasts to people's homes and all community member has to do is contact either their school or the food and nutrition office so that's the update on breakfast and
070lunch again probably the biggest add-on thing we're doing you know we're certainly supporting all the remote work but this was an add-on for us and I can pause there mr. Perry Jeanne if you'd like if there's any questions on that yeah you need to come for air for a couple seconds so okay no in all seriousness and thank you for that update on the food service operation and we do have some questions and your first thank you it was a it was a hand yeah I'm ready and first then Adam sorry hi then thanks for the update I actually have talked with a parent or two about the the food process and just wondering you make it sound as if we're not taking any kind of a hit to our operating budget by giving out
071the food and I'm just wondering why that is so I mean I think it's the responses that I'm hearing is this is great that we're doing this but we're offering it to everybody and their siblings even right and so how is is this all being subsidized by the national agriculture department well the shorter answer is yes the reimbursement that we get of the dollar 84 for breakfast and three dollars and 41 cents per lunch applies to each meal that we distribute so you know that that's why the we had to get the waiver from the USDA which which we did apply for and receive and that authorized the payment under the program now whether or not the reimbursement is gonna cover all our costs this is what I was saying you know we won't know
072that until the end so but it definitely helps us to provide the program we won't profit from it but no I wasn't thanks man you explained it when you said I had forgotten that we put put in for that waiver it's the same waiver that school districts use for the summer you know breakfast and lunch programs that paint so there is a reimbursement that's provided the only thing that we don't know is the the reimbursement typically comes from the USDA through the state were paid monthly under the scenario that we're operating under we're not sure and the state's not sure if the payment is going to continue to come through that same mechanism or if it's going to be reimbursed through FEMA you know as part of the emergency declaration but either way they'll be
073a reimbursement the only thing that would be different if it's through FEMA is we're going to wait longer to get that reimbursement so we may have to cover some of that out of our operating budget but it's too early to know for sure okay thank you that answers my question and I think it answers the public questions as well at least the ones I've been hearing thank you very much I knew you had it under control I just wanted a little explanation okay thanks thanks again Adam you're up and then faith thank you Tony hi VIN so my first question is are are you do you track who is coming in for the meal at all like since is it all just you know do we know if it's all students do we know if
074it's people who you know children who don't attend Chester Public Schools and then to piggyback on that is there a possibility that if you were tracking that I know you know a lot of kids have their lunch accounts that they would use for hot lunch and stuff would there be a possibility where the money from their accounts could be used if they're coming for a meal in this fashion a great question so we are not tracking who's receiving the meals parents can go online and we ask them to go online to just let us know that they're reserving a meal or multiple meals but we are not using any of the students school lunch money we're not required to under this program in fact that the program is intended you know not to follow that
075process because there is the reimbursement through the US USDA so really the reason that we're we are taking names is just so that we know how many meals to prepare which you know we're getting it down to a science pretty much you know there are actually more meal reservations then we distribute so we've been able to keep up with demand we've never run out of meals to hand out so far preyus an unrelated question or you want to put me back in queue are gonna roll go ahead okay thanks so so it's sort of an unrelated matter one of our whenever we discuss finance at other normal business meetings we're always talking about you know our outplacement costs and so I'm guessing that since everyone's sort of in lockdown does that cost go away or
076do those students still how do we manage those students in this situation like this so the costs don't go away those out placement centers are providing remote services so the the question will be you know if there will be a discount off the normal billing because they are not providing services in the center and I don't have all the details obviously Tracy Hussey would be able to give us more of the details on that I did prepare a pro forma of what the koban saving or increased expenses might be and what I assumed on the out placement cost is that you know for the for the next month or so they'd be reduced about fifteen percent but that's just an estimate based on some of the early things that we're hearing but it doesn't go
077to zero thank you thanks and then to echo what we've said to Marlene and Jeff I just I do applaud you with how you've organized this whole feeding of the town essentially congratulations to you for that I do have basically a mess of questions I hope they're pretty easy you have applied for the waiver how long is that going to be and will you need to apply for an extension at all no this is granted for this COBIT period so as long as we need to keep serving lunch as the waiver applies okay and are you seeing any it granted we're only what one day one week in a day into it are you seeing any trends in demand either rising falling holding stable so they're increasing the number of and I'll go by number
078of cars first so day one which was last Wednesday we had a hundred eighty-five cars then 219 to forty to eighty four on Wednesday and tomorrow we're expecting about 300 if I look at the total number of children served it started at 325 went up to 597 749 811 Wednesday and we're estimating 850 for tomorrow so it's been increasing not dramatically but it has increased so at some point we will level off and again I think the important thing for us is that we've been able to you know keep up with the demand without you know telling anybody sorry you know we're not able to provide any food ok Tony do you mind if I ask a couple more or do you want me to get back in the queue okay then we'll have come
079out okay and you said real fast supply your your supply of lunch is exceeding demand what are you doing with those excess lunches if you have them are you distributing too besides the you know besides the food bank you've got prepared lunches are they going anywhere no I mean the the excess that we've had we've been able to keep refrigerated and use it on the next distribution I mean we're distributing every other day so you know at most the food is prepared one day before okay and then for school lunch money there's real school it's a regular school lunch money lunch money are you reimbursing families for unused school lunch money well your that money sits in their account until the end of the school year I can go over to the next year if
080they have students that won't like high schoolers at 12th grade if they graduate they can get that money we fund it or they can donate it so right now have to do anything that money's in the Student Activity account Service Student Activity count back okay thank you you're welcome thanks faith Europe now I'm good to me sorry I just put it doriga Ilyas next no problem sorry any other questions before we have VIN continue I see as there is none just to remind the public if if there is a baby watching this live on YouTube the public questioning commentary is coming right up after Vincent's update so any questions you have we'll be checking that email account shortly thank you then go ahead okay the the next series up updates will be much briefer I
081promise the next item we have is Human Resources staffing and remote work just a couple of updates first of all from an employee point of view I do want to say from the HR you know perspective we do have a couple of employees who can't report to work because they have childcare and they also may not be able to do remote work so we are obviously working to assist them if they have vacation days or personal days employees are allowed to take those we're excusing those employees and to the extent there's some government programs that are made available we'll certainly take advantage of those as well but so far it really has been a handful of employees and you know we owe it to them to do everything we can as far as the bargaining
082units you know there were memorandums of understanding as the board knows that will Point Place for the teachers and the instructional assistants and the other bargaining units which includes the administrators secretaries and technicians United custodians you know we're all in constant communication you know with the with the bargaining unit groups there were no issues everybody is rising to the occasion so you know we're very very pleased with how things are going from that perspective the the progress we've made on making arrangements for all staff with the exception about building maintainer and custodians they're working still in all our buildings they're not working remotely but everyone else is able to work remotely at this point we work through most of the details you know of any kind of software permissions that we had a grant and
083that that's going very very well for us and you know we we just started remote work you know governor announced it Friday and so we've been working remotely since Monday with all our groups other than than the teachers who've been you know educating remotely since last week the other thing that if employees you know because we are managing through you know remote work there are times that employees if they don't have an assignment from their supervisor we've assigned them through Safe Schools training that they can do online and so there's a long list of training that's been assigned and we're exploring some other potential training opportunities such as Google certification some specialized programs for the instructional assistants so you know that as we get into next week we'll be able to define those plans a
084little bit more specifically but at this point all remote employees are able to do their job effectively to the extent we have staff working in the buildings and and you know we do at central office we've been rotating some staff through we're making sure that people are doing social distancing even in the same building we are using this Google Hangouts meet to make sure people are apart from each other washing hands you know sanitizing reminding everybody you don't touch your face and staying at home when sick so you know so far so good so that's the update on HR staffing and remote I can either suppose I'll talk about facilities of maintenance next I'll be picked quick pause any questions on HR times Kathryn you're on mute if you're talking if you're talking you're still
085on mute you oh she says never mind we'll work it out sorry any other questions if Karen jumps on after she will well so facilities are maintenance the building maintained errs you know are reporting daily I mean they've been great in shifting priorities and shifting work assignments you know we pretty much have three building maintain errs you know working at odd to help with the food prep right now they're actually you know doing the things that you would expect and moving boxes they're loading the trucks unloading the trucks doing the things that you know enable the staff to get those food items prayer for the day I we are suspending our daily cleaning services which are provided by performance environmental as of tomorrow obviously we don't have any students of the building and and very
086little staff and we're making and keeping in close contact with with our key vendors including performance they stand ready to provide special services so that if we need to do and invest disinfection of a building you know they stand ready to do that but they we are suspending service tomorrow our building maintain errs and going forward will clean the bathrooms in the common areas until we reopen the buildings so that that does result in cost savings for us we've placed across all our campuses closed signs so if you drive up you'll see you know in the driveway although it's not blocking the driveway so that you know some staff what deliveries can still make it through but we have put closed signs due to the pandemic at all our sites and as Jeff mentioned tomorrow
087morning at 7:00 you know we'll be closing down the fields as well so you know we'll be showing up those signs we're also reducing building energy usage obviously less people in the building's so we're gonna try and save some utility from there and you'll see that there'll be minimal lighting at night in our buildings as well not to the point that it's unsafe but again just trying to reduce our energy consumption and in order to try and keep things moving I know Tim to this earlier but we do have some summer work that's planned major projects so we did hold the pre proposal walkthroughs for the Cheshire high school ad a compliance project last week I was pleased we saw six prospective bidders show up the window replacement project we had seven perspectives prospective bidders
088and then earlier this week we had the walkthrough for the school security improvements the man-traps at our buildings and we have five prospective bidders show up for that and we have not forgotten about the solar energy consulting that we agreed to hire ECG engineering before I did hear back from ECG I should be able to meet with the representative next week and again we're trying to keep those things going and I'm hopeful that we get good bids for the the three projects the three major projects that are out there and you know hope we could start because we know schools ending June 18th you know we've told those those bidders that they could start work as early as I believe June 22nd is the date if we end school earlier we'll try and start earlier
089so fingers crossed on that one that's the update on facilities thanks I think tim has a comment question for you Vincent yeah thank you Tony I know that the public health is I said it before and I appreciate you mentioning it public health is number one and at the same time we've got to keep people employed so if you know whatever we can do I appreciate that trying to make any of the projects move forward stuff that we will end up doing anyway stuff is delayed but I'd rather have people working or back to work as soon as possible I think most people would like that so anyway Thank You VIN for doing that and I know I know it's incredibly difficult right now but whatever you can do thank you as we're getting more
090organized I think next week it's not that things gonna be back to normal but we'll be able to focus our energies one were out of the mode of just gearing up to be able to do the remote work at least I'm hoping thanks Vincent Catherine you have a question yes can you hear me here now yes okay going back to the human resources then it might be helpful if you could just explain what the general purpose of a Memorandum of Understanding is so that people know what we're talking about not the details but just sort of you know why we might have needed to do that the best way to describe it is a memo Memorandum of Understanding takes the contract that we have with a bargaining unit and in this case adds a dimension
091of you know how we operate and I'll use the teachers as an example working and teaching remotely is not something that's outlined in the teacher contract so having teachers teach from home has a whole different set of skills and requirements so you know some of the things that are outlined in that memorandum of agreement you know talk about what the remote learning process will be the compensation is not changing during this period you know how they're reviewed was you know a concern for the teacher because it's difficult to review remote learning although we are doing that to some extent so just outlines an amendment to the contract that's temporary in this case thank you welcome thanks Vincent I think you have one more section operating budget or I had technology support just a couple of
092things I wanted to pepper because I know Marlene talked about the support you know we did move from a swap out that was being done in our schools and at Humiston we are now if a student needs a device swapped out you know we're prepping it here and actually using one of our driver to deliver it to the students home just so that you know we minimize contact the the actual number of tickets that our technology assistants have opened and up close has been pretty remarkable the technology assistants are providing a lot of remote support to parents and our staff we opened 80 tickets and we only have two that are open at this point the others have been completed and the two that are open work from today all the systems have been running
093well Google's been a little slow off and on but overall you know doing well and then last thing I want to mention is for our main office phone lines because we don't have secretaries in the building we're not answering calls live however we've updated all the greetings at our schools anyone that's calling the school will be able to leave a voicemail and our secretaries are checking that voicemail box you know regularly throughout the day so voicemails are being collected and returned and responded to as needed during you know regular work hours but that's the tech update I'm just gonna move into payroll accounting and accounting cuz it's pretty quick tomorrow is a pay day we did get payroll completed the next payroll is April 10th and work has begun on that I mean clearly you
094know keeping payroll running is an important aspect of what we have to do we do not outsource our payroll it's it's done by internal staff and that some of the staff who's been working at central office the next payroll will be based on scheduled hours for all staff with the exception of our daily substitutes you know the daily substitutes were advised and given information on how to apply for unemployment I think it's interesting to note that we've already received unemployment notices from the Department of Labor which we need to complete and my point is that the Department of Labor seems to be acting pretty swiftly on you know completing their end of the process so one we receive those we have seven days to respond and we've not gotten a lot but we you know
095we have responded to the house and then the other important function that we have to keep running is accounts payable so we do have two accounts payable clerks you know they're working in office or remotely on rotating days so that you know we can make sure we could process purchase orders and vendor payments as we need to so that's the payroll and accounting and I'll pause because the next and last section is operating budget thanks tens I think Adam had a question for you thank you because the governor I believe had deemed construction as an essential service or profession is it safe to assume that if you get good bids for the projects that you were talking about that regardless of what happens to the remainder school year or whatever that that those projects will
096be able to go forward and be completed before the beginning of the next school year yeah absolutely you know again I'm certainly hoping that by the time we get to when these construction projects would begin in June that you know things will be relatively back to normal but you know if there's one advantage to ending June 18th it's that we can get the project started you know before you know July get the abatements done in the schools and complete those projects I mean it will give us an opportunity to get a lot of work done not only the major projects but also some of the minor projects that you know how building maintain errs do or you know we hire our contractors to complete besides these you know three giant projects that we have thank
097you sure thanks Adam I think faith has a question for you yeah yeah I'm just real quick I may have missed this Tony I mean I've been have we had any layoffs other than suspension of contract services we have not okay all right and then I'm just a related are you gonna discuss what's going on with medical insurance claims in the next section I don't have a medical claims update for tonight I don't think we'll see any of the you know the claims until well I'm just kind of thinking out loud here a little bit so it's it's March 26 in the March 20 in the March month of March claims which we won't receive till about the 10th of April we may start to see lated claims but it's probably gonna take a couple
098of months before we start to see any claims specifically related to the pandemic thank you yeah course our fingers for that one they hope you won't see any exactly for their sake exactly thanks faith I see there's no other questions VIN you can continue on okay so the operating budget I really wanted to touch on just a couple of things what I what I did and I will email this to the board separately I did take a look at you know what would be the impact if we stage shutdown for you know the month of April you know what would the impact to the operating budget be and you know I'll start with the bottom-line number that I came up with is you know net cost reduction of about four hundred seventy eight thousand dollars
099part of that comes from not paying substitutes because we don't need substitutes at this point I think an important point to mention is you know I estimate will save about $75,000 in sub cost however when any employee goes and collects unemployment and assuming the substitutes are eligible we are self insured for our unimportant unemployment claim so essentially we're paying for unemployment so even though you would save $75,000 on the substitute line we would have to encumber and increase our unemployment line and I figured it would be about a 50% unemployment claim payout I mean it could vary as much as highs up to 60% but you know you spent you save 75,000 but you're gonna increase your unemployment claim line by thirty seven thousand five hundred so you know that's one of the things that
100you know I I'm not sure that we've talked about that much in recent years with the board because we do have a line in our budget for unemployment but it's not been very high because we've not had very many unemployment claims over the years but it is self insured and it would come out about our budget if we did have high unemployment claims so there's a downside to laying people off it is a savings but we're not in that mood that mode the other area that I you know I estimated savings on and this is a big question but you know obviously working and teaching remotely we're not running any of our buses Decco is a service provider so I assume that you know we would have one month of contract savings I assume that
101we would not have any of the field trip runs that we do normally during this time of year and I assume that we would save about 50% of the of the cost of our run so that would be $172,000 again that's for one month so and there's a you know several other mostly minuses reductions as I did this analysis again I'll send it to the board I just wanted to give the board a sense of what I think the savings would be for this month the bus contract issue is a big one and you know it's my understanding that there's been legislation proposed that the bus contractors wiii be paid in full they 180 days even though they wouldn't be running a hundred eighty days I don't know you know if that legislation was truly
102proposed and and how that would go but I have been in touch with the CFO of deco a couple of times you know we agreed to keep our conversations going so that goes position at this point is you know they they're actually waiting to see what happens if anything with this legislation but they're willing to certainly you know discuss it and you know figure a solution that would work for everybody so that's kind of the operating budget piece that I wanted to give and and I did want to also mention I know that we had touched on it at our last meeting but the opportunity or the possibility of taking advantage of the unexpended budget carryover of two percent I think it's something that would be helpful you know to to us as a as
103a school district that we can carry over some of our unexpended funds it certainly would help us manage through you know the early part of the summer because we do believe that will be related costs to provide compensatory special education services if nothing else but there may be other costs that I just can't identify yet that we would have to carry over so I'll pause there thanks Ven I'm the carrying over or the operating budget the 2% I know there's a general statute on that recommendation is either finance committee and probably most likely or policy a guarantor finance take out that discussion sooner than later you know get our eyes dieties cross you know I'm sure you understand what that is and I'd also like town have an idea that this may be coming and
104because we haven't talked to them yet you know and understand Lee they have their hands full themselves well we have the school district they also the rest of the town and then I know right now among the things that bill open as the 2020 2021 budget process it's kind of mumble right now so by the time we get to that hopefully have some kind of general discussion with them and see what their thoughts are was I'm sure didn't ask us soon what we're thinking about our own expended budget what they might look like we'll talk about tonight so you know I'd ask Adam if he doesn't mind putting a fan's committee meeting together or just I'll talk with you then he gets some more detail you sure the board but I think we do need
105to talk about that soon before you let before you start at Tim had a question Tim you still have something I yeah good yeah thank you thanks Tony then with regard to you had mentioned you know we get out of school on June 18th knock on wood and the construction season begins my only request is that you keep in mind what I do think is a real possibility which is we don't even go back to school this year and then just think about just have it in mind as you're you know negotiating contracts to whatever extent you could the possibility that you know some school districts are in school until June 30th well we've got this win to a time that other school districts don't you've got some free labor you've got have you got
106some free time for your people can we get a better rate or something like that just don't don't assume it would start after June 18th right now inside a contract next week because schools might be open who knows open for construction that's all yeah understood I keep telling people I wish I had a crystal ball right now I could make such good decisions thank you thanks - anything else that's it really yeah sorry know me facetiously I know there's a lot to cover and for the folks that may be watching I don't mike has any stats on our YouTube live be curious on that but I can't again really do justice the amount of work that Vincent and the team are doing behind the scenes as it said earlier even though the doings may be
107tiny closed still running a fully functioning school district and he's dealt with a lot of mo use and contract that lost oh thank you Vince on anything a lot of time into this so I'm really impressed you kept it that's short considering what you've been dealing with the last two weeks I mean as a compliment before we move on I actually do have a few questions from the board don't run turn over to public Q&A but Adam has a question and we're behind that so I just happen hi VIN I know we were just talking about that 2% carryover just so it seems like this virtual eating thing is among is working out pretty well where we may be able to conduct some of these subcommittee meetings in your opinion of which being I'm chair
108of both policy and Finance at which meeting at which subcommittee do you think should be called at this time thank you I think it's policy because right now the board doesn't have a policy around the unexpended funds carryover it's really not so much a finance question at this point but if we take it up a policy there's plenty of sample policies from other school districts that I was able to find online you know the statute it's pretty straightforward and that you know the big thing really is is gaining consensus of the board and making a request to the fiscal Authority the Town Council does have to approve the carry over so let's go policy okay and that's so then I'll contact with cabe and then some get some guidance on that to see if they
109have any draft policies there thank you thanks I thought we had more question but actually was nothing from Mike so meanie who by the way when I thank Mike for putting this whole live string together for us and working through a technical back-end and he's with us so far tonight so thank you Mike but Mike's just indicated you may see so much pop up that we've have 250 people we're watching us live I fans the most we've had a board meeting almost ever so good job Mike forget us up a hundred Vincente any more updates that you have or any more question from the board before we turn over to public commentary no I do not thank you for your indulgence and patience and all the assistance that you've provided as a board it truly
110is appreciated and and helped us you know get through at least the first part of this tough period thank you yeah and I guess we're not over but I think there's some people meant on this so I thank you again for all your work and your staff isn't [Music] - go on - I'm just watching the comments here make sure there's no more questions all right we're gonna go on to public question-and-answer so mr. song and even washing the email account do we have any sounds like we do that's a shaking your hope yeah we do and I I really appreciate people last Monday and again throughout tonight's broadcast sending in questions I think it's interesting as they watch some board members say I have a question and then they they kind of retract it
111as it gets answered potentially there's some of that going on tonight via email as well we had a viewer asked parent ask about special needs progress and I know Marlene addressed that one of the typical terms we look at we know in education that's often used at the end of summer is regression recoupment and so you look at to what degree did a child regress what sort of supports are they gonna need to you know recover or recoup what they've lost and so that is going to occur across our district for all students when we return but certainly in our special needs population right now we're in close contact through their providers through the special education teacher or case manager is in touch with those parents I know miss Huskies sent out several letters to
112parents I just read another one to go out tomorrow so we are you know like pretty much everything we're trying to maintain close communication and that's the best way to make sure if you're if you have a concern about your child or you have a question about anything please reach out to us you can always use that kovat CPS koban 19 email address if you're just not sure who to write to those come directly to me and and Carol Jasinski and my office and we get that stuff routed to the right place one question we had is why aren't high school teacher streaming videos in real time and I think Tim addressed it to a certain degree where we have a lot of different things going on for our staff during the day some are
113streaming in real time and there's a little bit of a you know testing process that we have going on how is that working is that working for our students those that are getting streamed in real time I was it not so we're in the process of kind of shaking that out and we're going to adapt more as you know to meet the needs of our students so we are definitely looking at streaming in real time we have a number of teachers doing that at this point we'll end of year course assessments be modified and I know Marlene talked about our state assessments the smarter balance the SAT those assessments have been waived science for this year the end-of-course assessments we are definitely going to be considerate of what our students have experienced so I know
114that will be flexible depending on you know when we come back again we'll have to assess you know what where are our students what do they need and I am more inclined to think that our students would be better served by providing more instruction than more assessment at the end of the year if we can if we're back in session Tony you talked about you know I don't sound like we're bragging here or anything but we did get a very early jump on this and we have a number of folks who have recognized that fact we and not just the fact that we got an early jump on this from technology and the learning tool kits in grades K through 3 are scheduling our communications and the fact that Marlene and in Kevin Hamlin and
115our curriculum team we aspired to really support students doing some review initially and then moving forward in our regular curriculum so I know some other districts have kind of been in a position where they're providing alright well maybe this will just kind of get you through today and I don't want to disparage anybody with the idea of busy work but we've really tried to focus on flowing with our curriculum and just the other day we were asked by district administration magazine which is a national publication they interviewed us about what are we you know what are we doing so that they can kind of set a template nationally to so other people have taken notice about the work that's being done in our school system will remote learning satisfy Connecticut State Department of Education requirements
116per grade promotion was another question that we had and absolutely is the answer to that question the CSD the Connecticut State Department of Ed has been very clear with us about providing the appropriate supports so that our students may be promoted and you know like I said our our work is very closely aligned to the curriculum so I have even less of the question than perhaps you know in some places where that may not be the case I do again want to just give a shout out to our bargaining unit they recognize their leadership laurie delcor in also the teaching leadership with John Redford those guys immediately recognized the what our priorities were to educate our students first like like I said earlier that's our primary focus how are we going to take this centuries-old
117institution of brick and mortar learning and transform ourselves into a remote learning school system and Laurie was very patient as we work through that process with the IAS and right to the point where I think we were signing the MOU last week she and Maryanne Kish another member of the leadership team in the IAS where they're helping serve lunch so they were very invested in variable and I really appreciate their their patients as we focused initially on providing direct instruction then food and feeding all these kids and they were right there helping out so thank you to Lori and her team with the IAS and I know somebody already gave a shout out Tony I appreciate you acknowledging Mike's ala meaty but that man is always there for us you know always there to film
118whatever you saved my butt more than once or twice with an oddball cord or whatever you needed from technology so he spends a lot of time prepping for this so that we can have 250 viewers and I really do appreciate the effort Mike puts forth and I know everybody on the board does too so thanks a lot that was that was pretty much it that we had for questions thanks Jeff not surprised we had a lot of questions tonight because I think all the board members have been receiving a lot of questions as yet you Jeff I know a lot of coming in through our website for online learning so it's nice to see that the constant flow of information coming through and just for just a couple more shot outside then they got forward
119to the board w4t Jeff I've received a few emails from parents thanking the teachers specific teachers in fact so it's nicely the post engage the parents and engaged and not sure if you have more questions while trying to stress us out but before we go to a motion for adjournment is there any any other comments or questions from the board members before we adjourn for this evening no one's tired as well huh Oh Michael what up Tim go ahead yeah Jeff I had mentioned I'd mentioned calling a personnel meeting this weekend as soon as this weekend are you aware of any legal drawbacks or anything to doing that I mean could we meet on assuming we're the three of us the four of us are available and Mike hopefully - Mike saw me the four
120being the three personnel meeting personnel committee members and you Jeff is there anything holding that back making that illegal or difficult or anything um I know that everything has been relaxed with the current circumstances so my inclination would be no but I will double-check that okay we'll check that first thing tomorrow but like I said my inclination is that that's not gonna be a problem okay so I'll probably I'll probably look for something for Saturday or Sunday which would still be you know 24 hours notice anyway so it wouldn't necessarily be an emergency meeting or anything like that just a rushed meeting thank you tonight I appreciate you bringing this up it's you know something we really never think about until now and really the topic is succession planning you know and again I'm marching
121Jeff on a screen it was pretty healthy to me so well you know so far the staff looks tired but number two is away number three is be good for us to get a refresher on that I've never had to deal with the only any veteran board member how to deal with that in the past so kudos to you for bringing that up and I won't visit that being a long long meeting but will pan out so thank you Tim on that was there any other comments from board members I I did get one other questions the question was about supporting primary use with our IAS we have been working the last couple days to try and employ some of those I is so that we can get more support in the early primary grades
122as well to answer questions and support those students do thank you any other board members any other comments before we just want to say I've just gotten a notification by somebody who has said that their teens are well-rested these days and this brings us to the school start times issue that I think we need to bring up again when things begin to settle down it might be really interesting to see what happens in this climate where our students our teenage students aren't getting out of bed and getting on a bus and trying to get to school by 7:30 maybe they're actually doing a better job at their studies when they don't have to get up and out of bed until 8 o'clock so we might we might revisit that in light of some opportunities that
123might come out of this whole what can only be described as a fiasco right now it sure is thank you and we'll definitely keep that on the forefront any other members that want to come out awesome oh not in their mine so that's about it for those they've been watching thank you on behalf of the board administration CPS and I want to appreciate your patience this has been almost a two-hour meeting hopefully how the information on a lot of stuffs been covered if you did have a question you couldn't get it in or you think of something after this meeting you can still eat me all that email address will still respond to it you can always reach any board member you can reach a superintendent it's even so please keep the information flowing the
124more communication we have the better this is going to be for permanent also that being said is there a motion to adjourn Andrew buzzer so Andrew seconds all those in favor aye unanimous thank you everyone thank you Jeff and team and again appreciate your time on this and sticking out the meeting is adjourned I've had a versatile gavel I would actually get it right now