001okay good evening we'll call the regular meeting of the cromwell board of education to order at 702. alessandra could you do roll call please john are you on the line he just joined thank you john no problem we're just doing roll call here she will not be joining us tonight okay thank you okay uh approval of agenda relatively light agenda tonight is there a motion to approve the agenda motion by catherine is there a second second by deputy commented questions hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously okay uh celebrating our faculty staff dr macri good evening everyone um first i would like to invite mr cockel andrew cockle our high school principal up we cannot possibly thank our school nurses enough for the work that they've been doing over the
002past what is it a year and a half it feels like five years but um mr cockle in particular is going to be celebrating one of our very special nurses yeah i'd like to uh have nurse jen come on up uh just stand uh you know next to me here as we acknowledge her nurse jen is what we affectionately uh know uh genevieve stayed as uh so it is my privilege and honor uh to rock to recognize cromwell high school nurse uh genevieve stade nurse jen has been with chs since january 2020 and instantly made an impact on our chs community little did anybody know how the role of school nurse would be transformed by march of that same year she is extremely knowledgeable detail oriented and is the consummate team player more importantly our
003students feel safe coming to her office when in need nurse jen has immersed herself in our chs community and our student body has responded to her warm personality running the nurse's office in the age of covet has become at times a thankless job thankfully for chs we have a level one trauma nurse who is unfazed and calm under pressure when not consumed by contact racing she makes great efforts to attend football games and other athletic events this recognition is not about one singular act instead it is an acknowledgement of appreciation on our behalf for nurse gen we've been in many high pressure tense situations um you know and i know i speak on behalf of administration and staff and saying there's no one else we'd rather have working beside us in those situations keeping our
004students and school communities safe so with that said i would like to congratulate and acknowledge nurse jen agreed nurse jen please accept come on up yeah go right ahead no but um you know i really appreciate all that you know you all have done the board of ed and enza um you as a leader um you know have have made it very easy for us to um you know share some of our stresses and difficulties and you know i really thank you for um all for helping us um kind of get some assistance um and you know better caring you know for the community and for our students so thank you [Applause] on behalf of the entire board thank you very much okay next okay next i'd like to invite mrs kochiola to celebrate faculty
005and staff absolutely good evening everyone i would like to call nas up up to the podium please come on over my friend i can't tell you how honored i am to be able to bring this young man to the podium and certainly i will also give a nod to his two coaches who are here as well so why don't you guys come on up it's coach bosworth and coach murphy and they are all a package team and i'm going to explain that in a moment so one of the um cross country meets nas was on his way boy he was making time he was doing awesome and he's running and running and i have his coaches there they can give you the details and a young man from another town another team suddenly started to
006struggle he couldn't breathe nos stopped which would have meant ruining his time in his place in the meat stopped helped that young man i had choking up help that young man get across the line and then get the help that he needed so i just want to just show what great kids we have in cromwell and how proud of him i am that what a character and that's going to serve him well the rest of his life so i thank you and you are awesome [Applause] so um i'll give you the details of what happened so so when i was running i was entering my second lap and there was a little decline and i was running down it in front of me i see another team i mean i see another member from the
007other team he was on the ground like this and then i said are you okay and then he said i was having trouble breathing so i went around i went back to get coach fosworth and coach murphy to tell him what happened and they got help and then i went i ran back to him helped him get on the cart so he could get medical attention and then even though i did end up getting last place not getting a good time but it was right because at least i knew that i did something good so that's basically what happened thank you i also want to commend coach bosworth and coach murphy and if they want to say a few words simply because they've built that kind of camaraderie and that climate for their team every
008morning they would leave me information about the meat and it was so great they would say well you know they start very positively well you know we competed yesterday with so and so even though we didn't really [Music] i want to tell you about the mvps i want to tell you about the heart of the team i want to tell you so every morning our students were able to hear okay maybe so you didn't succeed but look what great things we did anyway so coach bowser with coach murphy thank you so much for doing that for us yeah so just real fast i just um just first of all i'd like to say thank you to uh principal coachella for incr for recognizing us tonight and we appreciate it and i want to say a
009special thank you to our of our athletic director scott penny for his support during the season it is just such a privilege to work with this particular group of student athletes they work really hard and they truly care about each other as you can see every day we try to install just a love of running and encourage them encourage our team to do the best they can every day and at every meet and every practice and most importantly coach murphy and i really try to teach her at least our athletes support each other so just thank you just to reiterate how honored we are to be recognized here as coaches for the cromwell middle school cross country team it really is it's wonderful to work with these kids they're so much fun the practices and
010the meats go by so quickly because it just it's action all the time the as coaches we really try to focus first and foremost about the importance of being a caring and supportive team member whether that means doing something that nas did or just being there for someone where they might not be having their best day and letting people know that they can they can be their best if they try and we want them to also develop as a competitive runner we continually talk to them about where they are when they're in sixth grade all the way up to eighth grade the eighth graders set a wonderful example for these kids and we're hopefully moving them on so that they're thinking about going on to the high school so that they have that in high
011school it's also it's also really special that we get to spend so many extra hours with these kids after school we really get to know them we get to watch them mature as runners and as as individuals their personalities are all over the place and that is what makes it so special and also it's an opportunity to really get to know a lot of the parents that you might not ever see unless you're having a conference or there's a phone call but this is really all about the wonderful things about their kids that they really want to see and talk about so i think it's really important um and that's pretty much it it's been a pleasure and i hope to continue on doing this thanks nash you did wonderful this year [Applause] i don't
012know if you guys know but charlie is our new cms representative and he is also on the cross-country team well thank you nas for representing cromwell so well and making us so proud so if you would like to take a photo with your coach and miss kochiolo you can certainly do that thank you again okay uh to correspondence correspondence no no correspondence i'm sorry okay um public comments before i read the rules of public comment are there any members of the public who would like to comment going once going twice sold okay no public comment a report from student representatives no student reps tonight uh reports of liaison from town council on board finance i saw steve i don't think john is john here no okay floor is yours steve uh first first and foremost
013congratulations nas fantastic job that's leadership buddy way to go excellent job secondly uh i guess as important town would like to recognize jeff metrulo this is likely his last meeting i'm sure he's hopeful this is his last meeting at this point removed lately fingers crossed right but uh dedication your dedication and uh you know your work ethic uh for the town we absolutely recognize you and we appreciate all that you you've brought to the community so thank you jeff um just one quick uh i don't know i've been in con i've been in contact with mr cockle we've been working on a community calendar uh it's actually been placed in the hands of the senior capstone project junior capstone project it's going to try and coordinate the town hall the sports the board of ed
014all the different meetings try and put it in one location so that if people are trying to organize plays and band concerts and trick-or is that it can be a treat program through the capstone project for the juniors or seniors that particular year so i'm hopeful that i'll have something maybe by december end of december beginning of january is probably what we're talking about maybe something like that yeah it's a year-long project so it's it's a it's a work in progress but i think it's something that's uh that people have been asking for uh historically and i think will be a huge asset to the town of cromwell going forward so thank you jeff thank you we appreciate you before you step down any questions for steve no okay thanks and obviously a pleasure working
015with the town council and i've been going to the town council meetings as the board of ed rep so i've always enjoyed that and thank you for appreciating thank you thank you okay uh superintendents updates and responses to bui comments action items from prior meeting dr macri so quickly um it is a bittersweet evening i feel i'm starting to get a complex this is in three years my the second poor chair that is is divorcing me however as mr fortenbach just said it has been an utter i i cannot explain the pleasure and i am so thankful for uh chairman matrulo and for everything he has done for all of us during the pandemic um i've spoken about his level-headedness his uh incredible availability even when he is so busy taking care of his family
016and he has such a demanding job but he really thinks about every single solitary child it's not only about andrew and matthew that we're about to get it's about every child in this district and everything is so thoughtful and i just really truly enjoyed working with jeff chairman patrullo and i am going to miss that dearly so on behalf of cromwell public schools he has done this for eight years so he really would love to give someone else a chance but it has been an honor to work with a chair of such integrity honesty and just true passion for everything that he does with compassion so on behalf of the board of education cromwell public schools all of us we have a little present for you so that you never ever ever forget about your
017time with us thank you very much i appreciate it too kind it's all true darn it [Laughter] so if anyone i'm not sure if anyone wants to say anything okay okay um we also have lindsay murley who is with us for four years she's not here this evening we do have a little um my family laughs at me because i call them prizes a little prizes a little something for lindsay as well she has served on the board of education for four years um again i can't thank her enough she was part of the hiring committee when i became superintendent very level-headed always advocating for what she believed was right and for all students and i'm truly going to miss her as well it's i know it's time to give other people chances to serve
018but it'll it'll definitely be a great loss and i would like to also thank um board member lou menendez who stepped up to the plate at a time when i don't know if many people would have stepped up to the plate to become a board member during kovid it was difficult and he really advocated for things that he felt strongly about and i'd rather have someone on a board who feels strongly and is convicted to the music and the arts and everything that he feels very passionately about and again advocating for the students and being one of two of our board members who no longer has students in the school system um he did this truly because he wanted to so i thank you very much mr menendez and hopefully we'll be seeing you in
019other uh aspects in the town and there's a little something for you and that is wow great thank you very much okay old business none uh new business reopening plan update dr macri okay so we'll start with the real good news um so it's i i just want to um read and i we meet every tuesday as you all know you're probably sick hearing me saying it with dph the connecticut state department of education um nurse hanson and i'll call nurse hanson up to the podium as well just in case you have any questions um and as soon as we have that meeting um then we meet with our local um which is usually myself ms hansen kelly maher whoever we need to add in and mr salneshi so we were given um advice there's
020three different epidemiologists on those calls and we take what we learn every tuesday and we implement it and we've done a pretty good job at really listening and following the guidelines one epidemiologist was very vocal about having a full day 10 quarantine a 10-day quarantine for athletics and not letting the kids come back to school if they test out on day five and one felt that maybe we should look into this more so some districts um were following the 10-day quarantine because it really wasn't all that clear and others were not so after um our our meeting this morning um it seems like both epidemiologists are now on the same page which was very helpful since one is the boss of the other one um and we are making some changes and we keep making
021changes to quarantining procedures as we meet um every tuesday and then look at our data and we'll talk about our data that is uh not very good right now um in cromwell and in in the public school system but first i'll read this to you this is our quarantine strategy effective we're going to start today um positive cases whether you're vaccinated or unvaccinated you quarantine for 10 days with no test out option and i'll send this email to you i just got permission to forward it to you sal wanted to review it with um town manager first vaccinated closed contacts do not need to quarantine unless they're symptomatic and if you're symptomatic then you follow what's about below not vaccinated closed contacts available to school in activities if sports related the following as stated in
022the csde dph addendum 5 is placed into effect individuals directed to self-quarantine are excluded from participation in team athletics or other group extracurricular activities for a full 14 days when diagnostic testing resources are sufficient and available which they are as right now a quarantine period of 10 days with a negative test result on day 8 or later from team athletics or other group extra curricular activities is also acceptable continue daily symptom monitoring for an additional four days which makes it day 11 through 14. if any symptoms develop immediately self self isolate contact the local health authority and health care provider and then lastly um obviously if you're symptomatic whether you're not a contact vaccinated or not vaccinated if you're sick and you have symptoms that are aligned with and you decide not to receive a
023negative test you would have to quarantine for 10 days or get an alternative diagnosis from an md we are going to um provided household contacts can isolate so if you are able to and in some situations you can especially with older students they stay in the room their four kids their meal gets dropped off at their door and they have their own bathroom um they can isolate from the rest of the family um you can there test on day five and if negative the household contacts not the positive person can return on day eight if isolation from positive household contacts cannot be maintained you must quarantine for the full 10 days so this will be sent out to families tomorrow it literally just came off the press and was reviewed and nurse hanson is here
024to answer any and more in-depth questions and so is kelly maher and then we could talk a little bit about our coveted rates um and why um we've made some decisions um especially in person parent-teacher conferences is a big one and why we kind of waited until the last minute because i kept waiting for the data to change so nurse hanson if you want to just follow up and give a little perspective on what's going on right now sure thank you i'll go over the active positive cases we have right now uh so at ecs we have no students or staff that are positive at wise we have seven students and one staff member at cms we have eight students and zero staff members and at chs we have three students and three staff members
025so as [Music] far as staff quarantines we have um this is in in this is excluding the positive cases obviously so zero staff members um quarantining and then as far as students that are quarantined in each school we have ecs has 13 with says eight cms has four and chs has two so as you can see you know the schools that are eligible for vaccines um are you know exempt from from quarantining and that helps with the amount of kids that are quarantining they have much lower numbers in fact i did a quarantine at chs the other last week and um all the close contacts were vaccinated so no one was sent home so that was a good thing and we've had heard no sort of we do recommend that they test between day five
026and day eight and no one has come back with a positive result so that is good two weeks ago was not such a good two weeks in cromwell we had 32 positive cases in a two-week period which was you know a large amount of kids and very concerning it has slowed down last week wasn't as bad and this week has been so far okay but you know that two-week part period was exceptionally hard on the nursing staff and um you know obviously uh we you know we were concerned about transmission but it seems to be leveling off and i hope that continues and we heard good news today from the fda that they have approved the pfizer vaccine for the younger age group 5-13 and i'm hoping that that will certainly help our kids at
027the younger age groups and we won't have as many quarantining if parents do opt to get their child children vaccinated so i'm happy to answer any questions that anyone would have um so quickly in all the decisions that we make we try to think of the risks and the benefits what will we get out of this and what could we lose out of it last week the week before we were in a pretty bad place uh to the point of where our nurses were working 15 hour days and probably 15 hours on the weekend 20 hours at some point in our administration um as well with 32 positive cases over you can only imagine and over 400 students quarantined so i have to make a decision parent-teacher conferences are coming up next week i really
028like to be consistent across the board with all decisions i didn't want to make people wait anymore so made a decision to have parent teacher conference virtually because i feel that the most important thing that we could possibly do is make sure that we keep our students and our staff safe so that we can come to school every day so i did hear from two parents and everyone else i'm sure you hurt me for more but i feel that as long as i keep that in mind those are the two things that i keep in mind in making these decisions they're never easy we can't really lose our hope is that we get through this and we don't have another another uh variant and our families and our students will be welcomed into the building
029as soon as possible we are trying to do things for our kids field trips um that are coming to me that sound pretty realistic we might be taking a little bit risk but i i weigh out i think about the what the kids will gain from them and we have been doing some of them everything is treated individually i look at every single solitary thing and then i consult with nurse jillian with mr neshi and with other superintendents as well to make a decision so i think we're in a good place let's hope we stay here because the last two weeks uh we're really taxing and jen and jillian are shaking their heads um please don't leave me i've begged them not to leave me us but i can't thank them enough for their commitment
030and i know the administration feels the same and i feel the same way about the administration it's immediate the calls between the nurses and the administration and then to the families we're a well-oiled machine and i'm very proud of it so thank you i hope you understand um why we had to make that decision it really is in the end to keep our kids in school thank you um could i just ask a question on the new quarantine policy so so we have potentially two sets of you know two rules applying to the same student one in his his or her capacity as an athlete and one is a student so if a student is an athlete and is a close contact as a result of sports you go through the sports side of the
031tree but that student could still return to school after day eight if they test negative after day five but not participate in sports so you can return to school not sports and then you have to wait out wait out the quarantine period for sports that's correct okay just wanted to clarify uh catherine um so i do i do understand the difficulty that we had a few weeks ago with the number of cases and everything it was very taxing on our our nurses and and everyone involved i also however in light of all of that i do believe that we could have done conferences and kept them distant without being virtual we could have been socially distant in those we have parents who have never set foot in their kids schools and they are in their
032second year of those schools and it's very hard to make a connection and to support your child when you cannot meet with a teacher face to face i really feel that we are doing a disservice to our students and our parents and the teachers and trying to create that community involvement to help our kids get back on track by doing all of this virtually it was very difficult to do them virtually last year i didn't feel that there was a good connection made and i feel that we should have worked a little harder or re-evaluated maybe not work harder but just re-evaluate how we can do it and do it in a safe manner i know other districts had i had heard of what how they had done it successfully where we wouldn't need to
033quarantine anybody if there was someone who did become positive we could have let two parents in it's very very difficult to support a student when you cannot meet with that teacher face to face and i feel for those parents who have never been inside their children's classrooms or inside their own school even and it's been year two that they're in there i understand your perspective i do trust me i know i live it every day it's frustrating as a parent of students who are here i'm frustrated that i can't meet my kids teachers again in person it's very frustrating and i know other parents are feeling the same way okay can we um just throwing an idea out there like revisit this and for the second marking quarter i don't do we do i said
034that in the email that i had sent that we would definitely um revis this isn't forever no it's just right right now do we have conferences at the in like the point of the year so we could potentially do in person and if if cases are very low and nothing is happening and we feel safe and it doesn't it doesn't mean that we can't have something where parents could come in and meet teachers and do something right now we are saying no because of the situation but that could change and it could change in january or february and we don't necessarily have to wait um i would have to pay the teachers and everyone they want you to know that they're contractual i would most likely have to do that that's something that we could
035do but um if there are parents who really would like to meet with teachers face to face and the pandemic is slowing down and we have they have a reason where they you know whatever their reason is we will i will let everyone know when that is allowed a parent always has the right to request an in-person meeting with teachers all the time the only reason why that hasn't happened is because of covid but if those restrictions are loosened then we'll go back to normal and they could request a meeting and it doesn't have to be let's wait until parent-teacher conferences it could be at any given time and i and i i i do understand it's frustrating it's not easy to make these decisions like i said i i try to outweigh the risks
036and the benefits and in this situation i don't do it alone but it is the decision for now but like i said it's could it could change and people could make their own appointments and that would teachers will never say no to parents if they would like to meet in person when it's safe to do so anything else catherine yeah okay thank you uh dipty hi um so there are districts out there they're doing smaller meetings like ppt's in person is that has there been any talk of doing that in cromwell it depends on the ppt so a lot of parents actually have expressed um that they like to contin they they like this they don't have to leave both parents can attend um it's been very helpful to them so a lot of people
037have chosen to continue that if a parent would like a ppt in person we would we would accommodate um we would just have to prepare ahead of time because right now we don't have big enough spaces for the entire team to be in one room so it makes it a little bit more difficult because contractually teachers are finished at a specific time the biggest spaces are the ones that we have for students our conference rooms are small so it makes it more difficult but we try to do our best to accommodate um especially um with teachers and staff members who are comfortable and are vaccinated which is something they share with us sometimes and not always so everything is looked at individually as far as pbts okay thank you okay selena oh and then lori
038sorry i just wondered if um when you're revisiting things if you've been able to revisit things that are like for instance the restroom still has sinks closed off and stalls closed off is that something that's still necessary because if not it seems like that's something we could do to create some more normalcy just little things like that if we're able to locker usage things like that anything else lori yeah i'm just wondering the impact of parents participating in virtual versus in person just speaking on the experience from open house the classes that i joined in i was on set on several of them i was one of maybe two parents one of three parents and i just noticed a lot of parents didn't join on and i just didn't know if that was because you
039know in the past when i've come to open house it's been pretty crowded so it was a it was a big difference so i'm wondering for conferences if the same thing is might happen so you're saying that they're signing up okay because okay because i was going to say if that happened again with the conferences would you consider if there were parents that really wanted to come in and have that face to face if you would allow that the parents have been actually many parents have been really happy with it we did not see a decrease in participation correct me if i'm wrong i don't believe that i was i am i remember asking um but for open house definitely i mean i don't know what other people saw i can just speak on my
040experience there was nobody it was awkward do you mean compared to excuse me compared to last year's virtual open house because i did notice last year's virtual open house had a lot more parents than this year's virtual open house so i my question is are you asking is this year's conferences a lot less sign up than last year's yeah well i didn't do the virtual i had trouble last year getting out i was having i wasn't able to log in i was having trouble so i'm comparing open house this year to in the past when we were here in person you know you would the halls were packed with parents to to go to uh you know to go to what the way it was this year there was a couple times i was one
041the only one then there was another one i was one of two one of three and it just was weird and i is that because the parents didn't want to go virt didn't do want to do it virtual or i don't know like it was that like that in all the schools i i don't know i did experience that as well lori it's not just you i do remember that feeling like i was one of four people yeah open house so i the reason i'm bringing that up is just i didn't i didn't know if that was going to happen again with conferences too because then you're really losing so much interaction with parents that's crucial for the success of the students so i agree with all of what you're saying i have reason to
042believe that we have a big constituency of people that if we had open house or in-person conferences they wouldn't show up because they'd be afraid to come to with all those people um it's just the decision for now like i said if things slow down and we have parents could always make appointments to meet with teachers no one's ever going to say no and it doesn't have to be just a parent-teacher conference time it could be all the time because as much as uh i know you don't want to hear me preach but i'm going to say it anyway being involved in your child's education coming to parent-teacher conferences is really really important however the research doesn't say anything um about the families who you show up for twice a year once a year it's
043all the time it's being in constant contact and communication for whatever works for the teacher the i'm sorry most of the time it's for the parent um it's always it's having that constant communication whether it be via email the nice thing now is you could you can zoom with someone we we have the capacity to do that in schools um so it's that it's that constant the one or two times a year isn't really um going to make that huge of a difference it has to happen consistently so hopefully i hope that with the boosters children getting vaccinated we'll be able to open up the schools sooner rather than later uh luke thank you um going back a long time ago when i used to do parent-teacher conferences i can't remember how long ago that
044was but um that was um to build that bond with the teacher the parents it's it's it does help i mean it does help i'm off for that that personal i think that personal attention is very important i remember being being part of it and and that was i think an asset now my question is is it is the decision the administrative decision to do uh the virtual or um is it more of an administrative decision based on what's happening today with with cases are there any restrictions that come to the state i know for a while parents couldn't come into schools so is that part of that decision does that fall within those state guidelines for parents not being here or is that just an administrative decision all everything that comes from the state
045with the exception of this is a recommendation and right now the recommendation continues to be to keep people as much as you possibly can out of buildings and not in putting in more risk than absolutely necessary that's the recommendation i thought about it mr kuckle called me 16 times we kept having this dis discussion um and i kind of waited until the last minute and then when our cases went up to 32 in two weeks it just didn't make sense to me it didn't make sense to me i i want to get our kids in school i want to keep them here i want them to participate and i know the parental piece is really really extremely important and i believe it takes a village to raise a child but i don't want to risk
046teachers being out or kids being out because of something that may not be necessary but in two months it may be fine because so many more people are vaccinated and it doesn't mean we have to wait until the spring we will revisit in the spring for sure but if it if if it's safer in january and february and they you know we could have people in schools i think that's just as important and i'm sure our teachers will work with families to accommodate them but as far as it's an absolute no no um it's not it's up to the locals as far as how much you you know what are the risks and the benefits next door there's only i think they had five cases and didn't do any contact racing over the last four
047weekends meanwhile my nurses our nurses were not sleeping they were contact racing continuously sadly it's moving along to some of those districts especially on the shore we're seeing it transitioned to where they're getting many more cases and it's past us um and we hope it stays that way but i don't know i don't have a glass ball i don't have a crystal ball i wish i did i don't know what can happen next week all i know is that these ladies here who are doing work 24 7 along with our administration they can't i can't continue to burn them out because then they're not able to perform for our children and that's really important for me to make sure i'm taking care of my staff and looking at the pros and the cons and weighing
048the risk and the benefits um believe me i want it back to normal as much as anybody believe me i want it back to normal as much as anyone else i know that um just follow up um is typically the parent-teacher conference run over how long of a time span normally it's two days two days yeah so is it possible to look at a somewhere like a middle ground meaning um are there any other things that can be done i know catherine mentioned you know spacing for instance the room when you're doing a parent-teacher conference is between a teacher and a parent right individually or parents in us in a room depends on their grade levels right yes i think thinking outside the box a little bit are there you know have there have you
049explored any other scenarios where it may bring the safety level up with the social distancing or some of the the screens that they've used in some of the schools to make you know teachers feel or give the perception of more safety or or something that can be done to kind of get the parents face to face but this is like for me to uh chairman matulo or you know in the same room having that dynamic without putting people in additional risk so that's that's something that could be explored and maybe obviously it'd be smaller smaller segments right so maybe that could be done over a couple of different days additional days so just just thinking that it so would you like to i could we could do that and we can ask teachers and staff
050to stay and it would be a very very large expense to the district that we don't have so remember my teachers our teacher everyone and except for me um is in a union and had i have contractual obligations so if we were to spread it out over a four or five six day period then i would have to we would have to assume payment for teachers at their cost um it's something to look at weighted pros and cons to me that isn't um when i'm looking at our budget every single day and the ot that we just paid out for the cases it's a lot of money to me it's not a wise way to spend our money i'd rather spend it on our kids um that's one thing uh the reason why we can't
051do the you know we've thought about all of that the shields don't the research on the shields they don't make a difference and it's very difficult with teams if teachers are meeting with a team of teachers right and uh we don't have one space for all these different teams to meet with teachers i wish we did but we don't ideas yeah believe me well your your answer was your question was have we explored yes but i i've gone to several several parent-teacher conferences because i've never missed them i have never they're always spaced every time even pre-covered i was always spaced out from a teacher i never sat close to a teacher i mean nikki and i sit closer than i ever said to any teacher in any parent-teacher conference i went to so that's
052where i don't understand why we're not doing it in person because we're all going to be socially distant when we go in there the only person i would be close to would be the other parent i brought with me so i i that's where i'm frustrated because i trying to get kids back on track and and it is important that parents are always involved and a huge piece of that is meeting with the teacher and meeting virtually is not at all the same not at all and i i really really feel for the parents who never mind seeing a kid's classroom heavens have put in their kids school that's very very difficult so it's something that i just i really wish we we did better with this one uh nurse hansen and selena i just
053want to also speak to the traffic in the school so when you're in parent teachers conference conferences especially at the middle school and the high school it's eight minute segments right and the parents have to wait in the hallways so we're we all we're not just looking at the classroom itself we're looking at like what's happening in the hallways and um and i i think you you it's very hard to understand when you see 32 cases in a two-week period what that does it's it's it's alarming so and parent conferences are nest next week so a sort of addition a decision had to be made somewhat quickly and it's not fair to do it in the middle school in the high school one way and then at the younger levels a different way and it's
054i i think things will turn around i'm very hopeful i mean i don't have a crystal ball either but i can already see the benefits of the vaccine in the middle school and the high school so i think you know i'm sure the cdc will look closely at it next week and hopefully we'll be on the track to getting these younger kids vaccinated and we'll be you know even if it's not everybody right not everyone will sign up for it but i think we're going to be in a much better situation very soon hopefully selena i was just going to agree with nurse hanson that it's next week we can't change it for next week but it sounds like going forward you'll reevaluate it but my question was just isn't there some new legislation where
055we have to offer the virtual option is that for conferences and how will we do both so the legislation is if a child so for example is i'm just going to use an example it's medically fragile and has a note that says they cannot come to school and they must learn remotely and they have an iep and we have to offer parent-teacher conferences more often like i think it's like every six weeks or something so that they could connect with the parent because there's remote learning it's a different okay so not just any parent can just request a remote meeting no so in the future that's something for us to think about um do we you know i don't know like for some parents it's been a blessing and for some people it hasn't been
056so do we want to give parents the option of doing virtual and not virtual but that makes it very difficult on the teacher because there's no time in between because they're so no i just misunderstood the legitimacy yeah it was not that was not related to that i know what you're talking about now catherine so um as we talk about the amount of stress that went on to our nurses and our last board of ed meeting with the contact tracing and everything at our last board of ed meeting you said that our nurses will no longer be doing contact tracing for outside sports that are not related that are not under the cromwell public school umbrella like maybe the travel soccer teams at the youth level or basketball or even parks and rec why were
057we doing that in the beginning i understand that there may be some overlap but unless the student is in the school and has been positive or or another individual has been in the school as a positive where we have to contact trace within the school why were we doing it even though they're a cromwell public school student for that person that individual when it should have been done at the town level and not at the school level that should not have been put on our nurses so i'm just confused as to why mr neshi didn't have his himself and others working on that from the town level and that it fell upon our school system it's a good question we've talked about that many times as well the town has one person in their health
058department which is mr nash he had a covid interventionist that did assess assist us at times then we were working really well with the athletic teams for a small amount of time last year it was pretty simple you you have coveted you're quarantined these are your days same kid you're calling the parents anyway the message is the same this year we didn't really anticipate that it was going to be as difficult as it was as soon as we anticipated that it would be we had to put it back on the town and the coaches to really do that work which just happened this year last year it was we were calling the same kids anyway and we were giving one date and um jillian if you want to just chime in and tell your perspective
059as soon as we realized that it was but if a student if let's say there was a a team let's say a soccer team that outsider outside of our school district but all this majority of the students because a lot of times there may be a correct student or a private school student all majority of the students are criminal public school students and so we're going to make all those phone calls no they make the calls so it goes back to we still have to make calls to the families to let them know how their child is going to be educated right so it falls on them the coaches to make the calls and some coaches are were adamant which is they didn't want to tell the kids that they can't come to school and
060then mr nashee got involved and said you have to tell this family that they are quarantined from life that means school this isn't about his job though as the health coordinator he told the coaches that the some coaches didn't want to he spoke to him his job to tell the players that they couldn't no his job is the coaches have to have a process in place he meets with the coaches but you could call him and talk to him about that i don't want to talk for him our with the problem with us with this year too is that not only are you quarantined but then it used to be you automatically knew you'd go on to remote it was a pretty easy simple thing now it's a little bit different so making sure that
061we contact the parents and the students to let them know how they're going to be receiving their instruction um it was it's very different this year in a lot of ways was much more difficult than last year um that we did not anticipate and i don't think you can anticipate it we're not the only district um we did our best to hire people since the beginning of the school year to support there's no one out there no one wants to do this because you you're we're we're asking you to work weekends not you know we were trying to be i was trying to keep everybody in school and i was trying to keep everybody safe and um you know you never when you're damned if you're doing you're damned if you don't that's the situation
062right now forever it's not just me there's 168 other superintendents that we're damned for doing we're damned if we don't i wanted to keep every single solitary child and adult as safe as we possibly can and we continued along those lines and some people parents don't want to know that their child is a close contact they want to keep coming to school and some parents literally if you don't let them know that their child was that there was a positive case in the school that day um are very unhappy with us so there's no you know we're doing the best the absolute best that we can i'm proud of what we're doing we have been able to stay in school i never will be a perfect superintendent um but we're doing the best that we
063can um and that's all i could really say i think you have to also appreciate like just some of the circumstances that we have that so every you can imagine there's lots of outside sports athletics in different towns and and in cromwell and they all have their own way of dealing with the quarantine and they're not always the same and they're certainly not the same as what we would do and so um and some of them don't even have protocols any protocols whatsoever so when you ask them to give you a list of who was in close contact they say i'm just a volunteer coach i i you know so and you have to i can appreciate that because if you have kids and you volunteered you know that you didn't sign up to contact
064trace as well um your child so i'm sorry yeah so what if your child is you have to think of it this way too the first grader whose child was exposed four days later that child becomes positive they're sitting next to your child now they're three feet apart which is why we did see some transmission and it was it was because of what was happening on the outside that it was coming in on the inside so as a parent now and i have some parents in this room that i've spoken to you knew your child was getting tested you knew you sent your child out on the field you played and then the school had um didn't really do anything about it either now you're upset too because you put your child's health at risk
065and then your child's out for 10 days or whatever the time is so we try to do our due diligence um it's not a perfect science i wish it was but it's not and my goal is to remove some of the pressures on our school nurses and put it back on the town where it actually belongs and i understand that there's going to be overlap but i just want to make sure that that we're really looking at a situation and saying hey this really isn't the school's issue we have to reach out and tell kids how they're going to be educated in parents but it's not our job to do the contact tracing and and we mark down what day they can come back to school and if it changes then you need to let
066us know that that didn't that didn't seem to be the case when you had when we had talked two weeks ago no we they were doing the contact tracing the coaches have always been doing the contact racing and i say always they were always responsible for doing it whether they did it or they didn't do it it depends on the coach it depends on the team the conflict could could sometimes be when nurse hanson or nurse jen um call the coach because they're volunteers the coach saying i'm not going to do it and then we have to call mr neshie and say you need to call this coach and have a conversation with them because they're saying they're not going to do it and we're not going to do it but that takes that interaction
067right there the back and forth but that's where it should have been from mr neshi to the coaches and he's not our school nurses to the coaches he does do that but the parent when a parent is so for example if your child's on um gets is is has coven you and they're on a sports team you're calling the school when you call the school you're calling jillian to say because all positive cases go to jillian hanson right so you're calling and you're saying my child is positive oh and by the way they happen to be on the baseball and the soccer and the cheerleading team and it's then the nurse's responsibility to say okay you need to contact that coach so in the past um there's been conversations between the nurses and a lot
068of the coaches because they know each other um it didn't wasn't a problem until some of the coaches started saying we're not doing it we're not keeping attendance we're not doing this that's when we specifically said we're not doing any communication except we need a list from those coaches because those kids are coming into school so in order to cross reference and check all the school nurses all the principals need a list of the kids who are on those teams because we need to know if they're showing up for school or not showing up for school i guess because we're not in a consortium health district it's operating a little differently than in other in other districts school districts when you have so just i just happened to know because i lived there and i
069taught there and i worked there you have health departments with four and five people and then they have millions and millions of dollars that the health department not the school system is allocating for contact tracing to help the community it's so different we don't have that we don't have that option we're a small or a small community the dollars i don't get to tell anybody how to spend the arp dollars except for our school system we have so many needs we're spending all most of our pieces money to get our kids emotionally well and academically you know my point we're getting overburdened when we shouldn't be because of our health district that just we need to push back on the town for that okay go ahead [Laughter] make the call i get it anything else
070i just want to make clear that i am fully supportive and i think our nurses have been doing an outstanding and i know because i've spoken with both of them multiple times that they're doing an outstanding job i just want to make their lives easier if we can because i don't agree with the way the school system has taken on the burden much more than when the town really should be doing it i agree with you anything that i possibly could do on this end i have done i believe i have two nurses in the room and i believe that they agree with that where in other districts the superintendent isn't even involved i've been very involved i've offered support we've done everything that we possibly can that is in my control i try to
071solve problems that are in our control in my control and are and if they're not in our control i try to find resources to help our people there's sometimes there's not much more i can do um it was scary for a couple weeks um we did none of us expected that nor did we expect to see any remote transmission which we we truly believe came from the sports teams carpooling and possibly the lunchroom to be continued okay all right all right um item b action approval of the minutes from the october 5th 2021 special meeting reference a is there a motion to approve motion by jen is there a second second by celine any comments or questions hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions catherine's abstaining and lou looks like you were not at
072that meeting so abstaining um okay otherwise the motion carries unanimously uh next item uh action approval of the minutes from the october 12 2021 regular meeting reference b is their motion to approve motion by jen second by dipty any comments or questions hearing on all in favor aye opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously okay review and possible action school calendar 2022-2023 references c and d dr macri sure you have two calendars in front of you um you did ask me to go back and look at starting school on the 29th for students um i'm sorry for teachers starting school on the 25th and 26th for the students so they have a shorter week i changed the we dated the wednesdays we called them one hour early release days and half days are half days so
073i made those changes which calendar would you like if you'd like to vote on one it's they're both right there for you okay so just uh just to recap so if we start on the 31st is the first day of school the last day of school was june 13th without yes taking into account that's correct catherine i can i do a motion to approve a calendar in reference d uh which is starting on the 31st for students sure motion so this is that emotion is there um is there a second is there anything else that's changed that's material that yeah just all right pause for one so we have some questions so lori do you have a question just to clarify so are wednesdays going to stay the way they are now with the 125
074release is that the plan for next year too oh yes the ones in purple the way it is this year right are the early release ones and except for one at the half day except for when it's a half day then it's a half day so it'll always be either early release or a half day on a wednesday or parent-teacher conferences that could be in her yeah that could be that that would be i have to thank you it'll be one or the other on a wednesday yeah let me just double check unless it's a vacation wait i want to make sure i'm looking at the right one hold up unless it's a vacation week yeah the 12th the shortened weeks don't have it yes like september um the week of september labor day and
075the following week don't have the early release so there's a few ones so there's some that are in there that are not really released or half days okay so that's just gets okay so so in september there um the seventh would be a full 225 dismissal and the following wednesday would be two on the 14th yes so seven you wouldn't what's the reasoning just just because there's so much going on and we don't really want to start off that way and then we're trying not to do every single solitary one okay i'm sure our teachers would be very happy but at the same time just trying to balance out all the needs so i just want to say thank you very much for changing what they're called yeah so half day is an early release
076because early release early dismissal was yep so thank you thank you you're welcome uh jen it just looks like good friday's wrong on both of these i think it's this is which the seventh is 2023 2023 good friday is the seventh april yeah april 7th is good friday of 2023 yeah you you have it as the 15th but that looks like a saturday okay we looked at this okay we don't care about the other one let's not even look at that one let's look about the at the june 13th one so i make sure alessandra and i get this right okay good friday is to be highlighted um yes because we have to do 183 days so that would make the 14th the last or day i'd i'll go back and have lisa and i
077looked at this so many times i don't even can't even tell you we didn't catch that so i'll count them through the seventh it's wrong on the calendar it's wrong it's not the 14th it says april 15th but that's actually saturday yeah april hold on a second april 15 is not it's april 7th are we positive in 2023 it is good okay so do we always have um so would the with the recess go to the third from the third of the seventh because do we usually we don't usually have an extra day like that on the right sometimes sometimes this way yeah it does happen this way which means then we'd have to change i'll double count the days again we've counted the day so many times but it should be the last day
078of school then would be june 14. if i can yeah the snow days will be yeah it could land on a friday right good catch jen uh anything else john selena did you jeff we looked at this today too why didn't you india i need to have you sitting there with it selena did you have a question um okay okay so this is ready so do we want to move on this now or push it back okay we can always adjust it okay so um katherine do you want to remake your motion for approve um reference d yep the new last day of school being on june 14th there's a motion is there a second second second by selena any comments or questions hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously
079all right subject to change as always all right moving on policy second read and possible approval transgender and gender non-conforming youth policy reference e so you may recall we had some discussion on on this at our last meeting and there were some questions on specific provisions since then i know dr mackery has had some discussions with um area experts and has a couple others scheduled in the coming days so we don't yet have the benefit of that to incorporate into the policy um so i think it would be best to wait to get that feedback before voting on this um so i don't know dr mike if you want to give an update on what you've discussed thus far um the conversation that we had is uh regarding policy 5145.53 and it's d page d
080so i did get um and i still have other people that i'm contacting i spoke or emailed and we have uh to we're going to talk with tony fariolo um he is the director of youth and family programming at healthcare advocates international in stratford i asked the question we asked the question his response was good morning as far as non-binary students and gender segregated activities the student should be asked what they feel most comfortable in as far as sports is concerned the cicac is very clear non-binary students will be on the team where they feel most comfortable they cannot switch mid-season but can in the next year if they need to and then i feel that this practice should be followed for all segregated activities all gender segregated activities then we also have glaad who
081is glbtq legal advocates and defenders who have been giving us some advice as well um and there was some disagreement between the person that i just talked to about and them um their advice is they're first they're so grateful this conversation is happening um and he just had a few thoughts they had a few thoughts rather than telling the children they would need to choose a gender i would recommend asking them more directly would you be more comfortable or feel safer which is what we put in the policy sharing the space or doing this activity mostly with boys or with girls this way you are not authentically inauthentically asking them to choose the gender which they identify but then again some of the thoughts where i'd be interested to hear if others think this is
082a workable approach or if you think it's all different from just asking students to pick a gender even though it might make people uncomfortable the policy piece where i get lost was the point highlighted by tony by your choices fixed for a period of time i worry about the implication for the young binary children who may be struggling to find footing while it might feel safer and more comfortable in a boy's room or one day the opposite might be true in the next day um so this person would like us to continue having um an ongoing conversation but also said for um he's especially worried about the dynamics of the inconsistency and how it might play into a situation where parents and other students are objecting i don't have the answers to any of these
083questions i'm raising but i would love to see a policy that counts for children who are finding their way in a sensitive and understanding manner so it's not going to be a perfect policy my recommendation was and i'm talking to other people this week as well um i'm not taking this lightly obviously i am meeting with different people who will and people are going to have different opinions and advice um you don't have to vote on it this evening like like jeff said um the change that i was asked and then getting these two people's advice is that basically you and they agree the lawyer and the trainer agreed that you must pick a gender there's well you have to pick something so we need to make sure and that is hap would happen with
084training of teachers and administrators to have that conversation with the student and ask in which they would feel the most comfortable making where they would like to be that is pretty much what both of them said and so we chose that wording and that's what i'm bringing to you today so i like i said i still am talking to other people um if you'd like to wait that's fine um but i'm comfortable with this language um but i'm you know it's i think it's important for you to have an open discussion with each other um and let me know how you'd like me to move forward thank you uh questions uh lori yeah i have just a question and a couple comments so i'm just going back to the minutes from last meeting where it's
085referenced it says second read and possible approval and then it says uh mr matrillo stated the policy committee had two readings with the policy so um i guess my question is this so i am on the policy committee and jeff as you know i missed i missed that one policy meeting that this was discussed at and so we usually have a second read at the policy committee level so is this accurate saying that the policy committee had two readings because that's not is that is that accurate we did have two reads and and deputy catherine can you know correct me if i'm wrong but part of the discussion was to bring a policy to the full board to get the full board's input and if there were suggestions or comments then it can go back
086to the policy committee for further review okay you know just because it's sort of a novel topic we wanted to get everybody's input before you know we voted on something for you know at the end of the day so that's sort of what we discussed in policy and yeah i know you were not at one meeting but we did have two two reads i'm not sure if you were yeah i don't remember but yeah it was on the agenda twice but and the committee brought it to the full board understanding that people might have comments on it and you know it may need to be revisited or revised so i appreciate dr mcary did a good job at the last meeting you know explaining everything to us and i do feel as though as a
087board we need to have more information and com conversation about it i don't i don't know if we really talked about it enough and yeah and if everyone's questions were answered i don't know if everyone agrees with that or what everyone else thinks yeah like i said i know dr mack was talking to others on this issue so i think it makes sense to get as much information up front so that we can make an informed decision so i i would again i'm not going to be on the board for much longer but i would suggest that have the discussions have it go back to policy discuss it and any and any other board member can present comments to the policy committee to consider when they review the poll when they review the policy again
088my suggestion selena um when it does go back to policy just my one comment is on the second paragraph i still continue to think that clarifying that that's intended for faculty would be helpful because it's just really broad for the ages of children that we're dealing with i i just don't agree that it should be in there for the student population i'm sorry the second paragraph under purpose under this policy sets out guidelines sorry on the same page we were just on the intentional or persistent refusal of respect to gender identity yeah that statement so the intentional or persistent refusal to respect as soon as gender for example intentionally referring to the student by name or pronoun that just um okay so you would like is everyone just wondering if that's if it's intended for
089faculty if maybe we can specify that because when you get into certain pronouns it's very confusing and to hold a first grader accountable for it can be difficult right the only thing i want to bring your attention to but we could add it if that's what you want is intentionally like someone's doing it intentionally how can you really know when you're silly or kindergartner right you're not like that's my thinking is that you would never say that a kindergartner was doing or unless the kid you know what i mean that a kid would do it intentionally even fourth fifth grade i think it still can be very confusing i'm fine with saying that because at the end there's still protection under bullying and if i was a fourth and fifth grade teacher i love kids
090more than all of you i'm sure it's just as much um but it could very well happen it would be naive for us to think that a student would not bully or contin or another student would not do this that would be naive for us to think um but it doesn't really matter because it's protected under the bullying policy anyway um and that would be investigated by the principal but for us to think that a fourth or fifth grader would not intentionally do that um is naive i just want to just make that and i'm not just i'm not saying that that couldn't happen yeah i'm just saying it's also it could be perceived in a way that it wasn't it's just very subjective that would be that if someone that would be covered in
091our bowling policy there's all kinds of stipulations in bullying on that second um paragraph um and you had mentioned at the elementary age sometimes kids feel one way one day and feel another way and they're kind of finding their way so um i guess other kids some might intentionally do it but some might oh yeah if you know you are one what you're feeling one day what you're feeling next day it's very confusing for the other children around them also to um you know to be punished by yep i completely understand and i do believe that children are not given punishments without full investigations or consequences i'd like to say and honestly we do a lot with restorative practices and positivity and helping kids learn from their mistakes versus other things especially when it comes
092to bullying lou no there's i know john made a motion last meeting but there was no no second at that time so um so again my recommendation would be for it to go to the policy committee i think it's an important discussion to continue having people have you know questions and want more information i think that's a good thing um so but you know the new the new board can decide ultimately how to i'm sorry john yes please go ahead okay um so i i think this is sufficiently important that we board and the should committee wants to make changes there is absolutely nothing to stop them from bringing this up for an amendment uh i think i was a perfectly fine with the addition of this policy [Music] uh adding the word intentionally as
093described by that it's in there it's already there john okay celine i think you were asking to make it clear that that was just for faculty right right so i guess um i guess i'm just i'm confused because this now has gone through the policy committee twice it's gone through us three times so does like what other questions are there i'm well from the policy committee's perspective again i think the idea was to bring it to the full board for everybody's consideration i know the full board it was on the agenda three times but one of those times it was we had the class rank discussion which so we really didn't discuss it so i would say it's been on twice but just to address your point so this emotion is there not more conversations
094dr mackey you have uh you have more conversations scheduled with any professionals i do i have one more scheduled for tomorrow afternoon um and um i would like to have even though i had some communication i i would like to talk to tony in purse uh you know over the phone um yeah and i'm i'm meeting with someone tomorrow afternoon um so we don't want that meeting i think that's important i personally feel that's important i mean too much information is not enough in something this sensitive and is there anything else but is there anything else that you no i think you're i think besides no i think these two things i think what you're what we're doing um with what you're doing is doing the research and asking i'm not a professional in this
095so i think what you're doing is the correct way is to get as much information as you can so we can as a book well not i i mean uh it's a viscous table to make an informed decision um not only us but public um so that being said thank you i mean i think that's important so um i know which way i'm gonna go so as you all know policy is under your jurisdiction i can i research it i give you the information i tell you what i believe is best practice um i bring it forward and then it's up to you to tell me how you would like me to move forward for policy not for parent-teacher conferences but for policy dewey noted worry so potentially information that you gather on these meetings
096in the next couple days could impact what we're voting on so i that's what i i want just a little bit more direction from you if so if it goes back to policy are we going to look at everything are we still really talking about just that paragraph and the paragraph below because my conversation tomorrow and is going to is really focused on those two paragraphs so that's i um assumed the rest of the policy everyone was okay with and i was just going to discuss on page d under names and pronouns i was really just going to talk about gender segregated activities that paragraph but now i will talk about adding for faculty in in that component as well is there anything else that you would like either policy or for me to ask
097when i talk to people who have greater expertise than i do just i don't think that it needs to go back to policy i think it's it's enough we're at this level now let's just would that kind of be going backwards i think so we're all involved in the conversation now to send it back to policy then have it come back to the full board seems but i i feel like what leave it at the board level then you'll come back to us with the information from this your conversation and then okay and only regarding those two things at this point yes okay and i think sorry up to your point lori that would certainly be more expedited so that's fine that's fine uh catherine uh sorry yeah john go ahead and catherine go ahead
098uh i'll declare the captain um so if if we voted on this as is right now um and and dr macri comes back with different information we could always amend the policy correct yeah i mean that's needed so and and does it need to go through the full first read second reader policy first read second read i mean i would think that we could just bring you straight to the board for an amendment but to at least get something voted in as is right now i i am on board with that um i do like the changes that have been made to it okay uh actually let me go john and then jen good john okay so i'm glad i referred to katherine because i said what i was going to say much more articulately
099uh i think at this point there doesn't seem to be any argument on the structure the bones of this and that the information that we would have would make changes that i would describe uh as policy or an event and i think that we owe it to these kids to start take a step and basically i may not be a member of this board at the next meeting and i would like i would like to have a chance to be on record supporting this policy thank you john jen so yeah i'm in agreement i don't want to sit on it too long i want there to be a policy in place if we need to amend it at a later date then we can amend it at a later date okay lord i just want
100to follow up on one of the questions sweeney asked last time just to clarify this isn't going to lead to [Music] not being able to use pronouns and you know that that's am i correct so right now um legislatively there is nothing in set in legislation that says we must not use pronouns if something was to come out legislatively as a public school entity we would follow a mandated legislation policy um i believe that everybody should be addressed how they would like to be addressed um are we going to sometimes like that paragraph says gender segregated activities where it's going to happen um the conversation with the child who is not um non-binary you know will have to make a decision um and it has to happen very empathetically and and with people that this
101this child trusts do i believe that we're going to end the use of pronouns all day every day in classrooms on teams and everything i don't believe that to be true i know that there are people that would like that to happen um at this point that is not where we're at nor are is there an obligation legislatively my job is to bring to you i bel i believe in this policy uh to support all of our youth it supports our students that are non-conforming transgender however legislatively if that was to change then it's my obligation to bring it to you and then make that change uh with the law to abide by law right now it is not in law uh that we are going to eliminate it all together that just isn't going
102to happen and this policy says try to the extent possible to try to reduce or eliminate the practice of segregating suits by students by gender not just for this policy but in general we've done a lot of made a lot of assumptions of what boys can do and what girls can't do and i think this supports don't make that assumption in it in any which way or form but to your point is is this going to happen and no one's going to ever use he she um and just always use they in a dress i know and and the child should be addressed as to which uh pronoun they would like to be addressed by what about the boys and girls selena had asked about that last time too well our teacher is going to
103it's it happens still uh you hear it less and less and less as you walk through teachers are getting trained um they're using words like uh friends um they're saying everyone they're saying my wonderful students to be more inclusive that isn't i don't believe just because of this policy i think it's just become natural over the last five ten years in education that we um are very careful about that will it's will it end and teach will be teachers be reprimanded and no that's not going to happen it's just some teachers just don't use they've already changed their practice and it's i know i referred to my students as friends okay friends we're opening whatever laura your question is is this policy going to prevent like make teachers not no that's that's not the purpose
104of the no it's it's i understand we'd like to if i could just say something when you asked or is there something else in the policy that you wanted to discuss with the um the experts and i think in that paragraph under gender segregated activities where it says school should reduce or eliminate the practice of segregating students by gender i i just would want some clarification on what that means like if if a student is transgender gender non-conforming i think the other side is students that identify as boy or girl should be able to identify that and and the classroom shouldn't become like neutral for everybody i guess is my point so how do you how do you balance those two competing interests both are both important which is sort of what i would like
105to see clarified in the past so i i guarantee by talking to these two people and who we will talk to tomorrow i would probably say i'm 98 accurate is that if there is a child that we know of and that sometimes we don't know of but if there is a child in the classroom that we are conscious we we know um does not identify and is uncomfortable with the terms boys and girls that the teacher is going to find something that everybody is comfortable with um i believe that teachers do that naturally all the time not just about gender but about everything they're very conscientious about talking about uh if the student was to lose a parent or a grandparent like a very that's our job as educators um can will that teacher perhaps
106use not choose not to use that to help the child everyone feel comfortable it's kind of like the universal universal design of learning when we're making decisions for students with special needs so that all students can we're making decisions that all students can access and feel comfortable instead of just saying we're doing this for you but we're not doing it for anybody else well if that's really work it could work for everybody else why wouldn't it work for you that's kind of what we're trying to that's part of the training i'm not gonna lie to you that's that's part of the training um i'm sure jen's received it and she could talk about it a little as well um if you'd like to that that is part of what we try to do as educators
107to make everyone feel included um if if there's no known student non-conforming student in the classroom or in the school which i believe at this point we most of our schools we have some idea will the teacher perhaps continue to say boys and girls they might there's no um there's there's no ill intent and there's no discipline if the teacher or staff member or whoever continuously addresses a boy who wants to be a girl by a boy and he he he and says i'm not ever going to call him a she then that's a whole different story that's completely different um and i'm i'm pretty sure that's what i'll be told tomorrow and i um that's why i i don't i think like i said you can tell me what you want um but to
108the extent possible kind of always gives you the it's to the extent that it's possible um but it doesn't have to like i said you tell me what you i can ask and i'll bring you back the information that they tell me um but having conversations with these people like these two people i i feel like that um they would probably say should stay but i'll ask anyway and i'll bring that information back to you um i'll go back to the same i think we're in the right direction i think we're moving in a direction that i think everybody's passionate about in many levels um i think again you just stated your words were these people will probably agree there's still a gray area that i personally am not comfortable with i respect everybody else's
109opinion obviously also we we have a new board coming in and i think this is wouldn't be a bad thing to get fresh fresh eyes on this we have a good basis good foundation it doesn't have to be pushed back for months it could be pushed back to the next board meeting but i think it's important to get dr mackey we get all our information we make an informed decision there's a lot of passion behind this and there's still information i think needs to be gathered i think the the intent is there i think we're all in agreement of what's best for the kids but i think the professionals that need to have input in this i think it's very important and that's where i'm gonna i'm gonna leave it so thank you dr mackery
110okay anybody else yes john there's an old saying not to decide is to decide uh i as a point of order uh heard two comments that sounded like they would qualify us sorry john you were breaking up there a little bit uh can you john can you repeat that sure i heard two statements that i believe could qualify as second my emotion and i asked the chair to make the explanation whether or not there was a second i know i'm not sure who's this who the second party would be i'll second it so jen jensen okay you accept that second time okay can i just clarify do you want me to um add four faculty john your motion set as is am i adding for faculty or just as is not adding faculty and i
111just want to make sure i'm my emotion is as as it is okay as is john now so there's disagreement people are shaking their heads now john just just add it with faculty john can we can we read the paragraph again please so the paragraph reads the intentional or persistent refusal to respect a student's gender identity for example intentionally referring to the student by a name or proud pronoun that does not correspond to the student's gender identity as a violation of this policy and the comment was to limit that so that it applies only to faculty not students because i don't agree with limiting it to just faculty so then there's a disagreement okay so [Music] is there a second to john's motion so john's motion is as presented is there a second to john's
112motion but the policy as presented let me say that once there's a motion a member of this board can then move to make an amendment and we would vote separately on the amendment or it can be moved to table so so there's a motion on the floor to approve the policy as presented is there a second there's no second john so can i make an emotion now to amend it sure okay so john's motion except adding in that paragraph about the intention or persistent refusal that something that states it's specific to faculty so there's a motion to amend john's motion so that the paragraph i read applies only to faculty and not students yes john let me correct you here there is no motion to amend my emote there is no second for my emotions
113right ken has made a motion to recruit something different from what i from what i move so you need a second on that motion okay so there's no second on your motion at all and we don't need to do any action on it so i make a motion to approve this policy with just a modification to the intentional or persistent refusal paragraph adding that that is specific to faculty by second it's a second by catherine so before i would like to would like to propose an amendment to the motion go ahead john i propose that we remove the reference to faculty from the motion i prove that we remove the faculty from them can't we take a vote on what jen proposes is there a second to john's motion there is no there's no second
114to your motion john could i make a suggestion not to belabor the point but on the people can tell me no but in the gender segregated activities just to because there's going to be further discussion on this deleting that first sentence and just leave the paragraph sit by itself in situations where students are segregated by gender or do people feel strongly opposed to that until we get further further input i'm sorry so i'm agreeing with lo who agrees with me [Laughter] well i don't know how to procedurally play out we'll get to that point there is a second to to jen's motion which is catherine so this would be sort of a motion to amend that so jen please can i comment on that sure so um i mean i do feel that schools should
115reduce and eliminate the practice of segregating students by gender like there's no reason why there should be a boys line in a girl's line you know you can count off by one and two and there could be a line one and a line two they're you know i'm so i'm i think that whenever possible that should be something that is at the forefront of a teacher's thoughts because there could be a non-binary student in there who has not come out and shared that and now are you know feel not feeling great and so any i mean there's there's lots of times i think maybe when students are segregated by well and i get i don't know maybe not as much anymore but in the past there was lots of times when students were separated by
116gender and i think it should teachers should be more conscious of that and they think they are now but i don't think that's necessary to eliminate no i appreciate that i guess my concern is i i just haven't thought of every single possible scenario where students would be segregated i haven't been in the classroom in years so just i wasn't sure loop i mean we we're going back to the it seemed to we're spinning our wheels here because we keep going back and having differences in in in things that we're not sure about so i'll go back to the same thing until we have all the information i said i can't make emotionalities emotion on the table but um i mean i i don't think it's so okay no okay but parts of it do
117reflect state statute correct well there's a there's a motion on the floor which has been seconded so if there are no other questions or comments we'll move to a vote sure so the motion is to approve this policy just with the addition of in that intentional persistent refusal paragraph making it specific to faculty is that clearly [Music] is going to intentionally do that it is practical to believe that a 16 year old would and i think that 16 year olds and 15 year olds can can be cruel and that we can send them a message not to do so the response is john is that there's a point for my amendment what was your emotion john my my motion was to amend that to remove the reference to faculty i'm sorry i thought we did
118that already but we didn't so there was there was no second dude i asked if you would ask for emotion for a second i did john and there was no second okay jen john the reason why we want to add faculty there is because we feel that while yes a 16 year old certainly could could do that this policy seems to be more directed to faculty that would be an instance of a 16 year old bullet bullying a student would be covered under the bullying policy so that's why we feel this is more faculty related and and i appreciate it and i understand that it really but it will accomplish what you hope to accomplish i wanted to send do we noted okay so there's a motion on the floor and there's a second any
119other comments or questions if none will move to a vote no okay all right all in favor aye do hand raise opposed abstentions so the motion carries one two three four to three so fourth oh five to three sorry yes he voted john you voted yes right i voted yes what's the matter does he understand john you you understand we're voting on on jen's motion right yes i absolutely understand that we were voting on james motion okay enthusiastically vote yes okay so motion carries five three two five three so for faculty is included yes and leave that first sentence and yes okay but i'll still talk to them yes okay all right okay board committee reports policy committee there's a report attaches reference f the date on here uh policy committee was on october 12th
120now october 5th okay [Applause] and facilities there was a report attached as well and there was a meeting today correct anything to report just that we're hoping to meet and present to the town on november 10th at their next town council meeting dr matthew did you want to add anything to that no we um the presentation is pretty much done um i guess my question is um i will send the presentation to you to look at if we do have a meeting i'm sorry i i let me start this again i would like to show you the presentation on november 7th before i present it to the town council so that you see it before we go ahead however it is a little bit it's about 15 20 minutes and you're going to i'm hoping
121that you attend the meeting that um night with with me so that we can all attend together um would you like to see it ahead of time or do you want me to just leave it off the agenda for the board meeting send it to you and you can ask me questions it's very straightforward it shows the the piping it shows um you know the operational things that are just so expensive i have pictures information um and then i also have programmatic things uh that we that we could talk about which way would you like me to go that's my only question however you see fit however i see fit okay okay well i mean i guess it's up to the new board too so um i mean that's the seventh so our next board
122meeting is the seventh and then the ninth oh i'm sorry our next bird meeting is the night it's gonna be before the day it's just the day before i was hoping that you would come anyway you know as board members come and support um and i'll send i'll send it to you so you can look at it it's really just outlining why we needed a new school operationally um i don't know actually they're not sure are are they in session i've been going on or live yeah the couple times i went it was live so so i could i'll just show it the night of the board of fight i don't think you're gonna have any objections but i'll send it to you ahead of time okay okay uh topics for future agendas notes i'm
123nothing to add today is there a reason there's nothing for december like probably budget i would assume we spend a lot of time on budget but we also are going uh what are we doing data november okay so we have data presentation in november um december we start talking about budget but we do have a meeting in december we do okay but you can cancel it if you see fit um it's usually like that okay okay comments updates announcements from board members and administrators administrators catherine we'll start with you um yeah i think ever since you announced you're not running for your election i've begged you to stay so i am very very sad that you are this is your last meeting and i've really enjoyed working with you on the board and i'm just
124you could maybe change your mind again i don't know never gonna give up and uh lou thank you for stepping in in such a trying time for everybody and i wish you the best of luck i've enjoyed working with you and i wish you the best of luck in your upcoming election so thank you appreciate it i don't have much more to add but thank you both for your service especially yeah all that you've been through thank you you're welcome and thank you to lindsey nahir and lou as well and on behalf of the board we'd like to present jeff with a small token of our appreciation for all that you've done to guide us through this pandemic um you've represented us for the past two years as our chair and before that policy committees
125and so many meetings endless amount of meetings so you've been kind of the guiding light and the calming presence so really appreciate all that you've done and you'll be really missed i appreciate that thank you thank you everybody um first i just want to say good luck to all the candidates and all elections it's it's not easy being a public servant nowadays so i'm grateful for all of you continuing on and those that are running um i just want to thank the town for entrusting me with this position um it's really been an honor of my adult life to do this um and i really encourage others to get involved um if anyone's still watching i've learned so much and um both just how the town and the schools operate and meeting new individuals um
126but you know for me i think the biggest thing sitting in this chair which is not something i was ever angling for was just like learning empathy i think is the best way to say it i've i've really learned to see both sides of of the equation um and i think that's made me a better parent husband and a lawyer too to be honest so i want to thank all board members i've served with past and present including everybody sitting right here um i hope you feel i've been fair and never stifled anybody's voice or debate i really tried to have this be a fair and open process so thank you again for listening to me and putting up with me um thank you to dr mackery in the administration for being patient with me
127because as again i didn't realize i would be stepping into this this position but there was a steep learning curve and i appreciate everybody just being patient with me as i got up to speed and finally thanks to my wife and kids um when i was first elected i had a one-year-old and now he's nine and have a four-year-old so i missed a lot of bedtime routines and they never complained so they always had my back including my wife who's a teacher who when i first ran she said what do you know about education so i says a lawyer i said well that's a clean slate you know i can start start fresh so she was always my support and was always there when i needed to bounce an idea off of her so thank
128you and i'll shut up so we can all go home and maybe i'll come to a board meeting and do public comment but don't count on it but don't count on if you have me back so thank you again uh john you're on the line forget anyone you're on the line john so for those for for those colleagues who are voluntarily leaving the board i want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve with you has been a pleasure and for those who are up in the air about whether they're going to be on the board i wish you the best of all possible one you said and i wasn't sure if there was something to follow thank you dr macrae i'm sad enough it's a sad day everybody's pretty much said everything
129so i echo and i really enjoyed working with you jeffy did a great job and good luck lou and john and selena and uh look forward to seeing who our new board's going to be [Music] first of all i want to thank the faculty and staff because they make our job easy dr macri your job i wouldn't want it for all the money in the world you really have a passion so thank you thank you the board members those running and those are going to stay i wish you the best um chairman matulo um you were the first person i spoke to when i came into this and i'm a little emotional i apologize um you set the bar extraordinarily high for future chairs so with that being said thank you thank you all and
130i wish you all the best thank you alessandra all right is there a motion to adjourn uh is there a second second by jen any comments or questions here we go oh sorry was that a question john or motion that was uh i was trying to second [Music] sounds good john all right uh hearing not all in favor aye opposed extension motion carries we