Cromwell BoE Meeting August 10th, 2021 5:30PM

001call the meeting of the cromwell board of education to order at 5 30. alessandra could you do roll call please she will not be here today here he may be late but not here now great thank you uh next approval of agenda editions deletions uh and chairs review of agenda highlights so the august meeting is usually light but we're heading back to school soon so we'll have a couple of updates on reopening we'll have some policies on the agenda for a second read and possible approval and some other agenda items no changes so is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented second motion by jen second by john any comments or questions hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously next correspondence any correspondence um no um just the

002only thing we talked about last time is having a discussion about class rank which we will have a presentation on this evening and you did receive the written copy from mrs sandra tata and she is here this evening to speak great thank you next public comments before i read the rules of public comment are there any members of the public who would like to comment if you just raise your hands we can get an idea okay i will read the rules and then if you could come to the podium next to mr flanders that would be appreciated we welcome and encourage public comments at our board of education meetings to make sure that our meetings are conducted respectfully while encouraging public participation following all the rules for the public comment portions of our meetings thank

003you for your cooperation and participation individuals are welcome to address the board of education for up to three minutes each during the public comment portions of the meeting but board members will not generally engage in dialogue the board of education chair may his or her discretion extend the time for public comments speakers must come to the podium and share your name and address to facilitate efficient sharing of your comments we encourage you to share any comments you may have about instruction discipline or learning materials first with your student's teacher then principal and followed by the superintendent before bringing the comments to the board of education however if you do not believe your comments have been addressed appropriately or if you believe they should be shared with the board of education for any other reason please

004feel free to do so all comments must not be pers what's not include personal attacks and comments cannot be discourteous threatening vulgar or otherwise inappropriate the board of chip the board chairperson may his or her discretion curtail any public comments or terminate any such individual's privilege of address at any time if they violate any of these rules violate reasonable standards of decorum are boisterous or our repetitious the board of education reserves the right to limit public comments to particular topics so with that if we could have uh the first person commenting come to the podium and just make sure the the red light is on and if you could just give your name and address for the record please sure good evening my name is sandra tata my address is six horse run hill and

005in cromwell connecticut so good evening everyone thank you for allowing me to speak tonight on behalf of my family my husband john paul tata myself and my children are here with me we are cromwell residents and the parents of three children attending crumble middle school wiss and ecs over the past year i've continuously voiced many concerns and although i did receive responses from administration it is quite evident that our voice is not being heard and the best interest of our children is still at stake due to the time constraint i will be focusing on three of the six main concerns i submitted to the board of education but i ask that all six of my concerns are reviewed and addressed in preparation for the reopening of schools this upcoming fall number one masks this is

006the biggest concern i currently have per the july 27 2021 letter we received from dr macri face mask will be required for all students per governor lamont's extended executive order as a local school district we do have the right to challenge this position what scientific evidence has there been to really support this decision the cdc has failed to provide any clear and definitive scientific evidence that supports this decision the issue with masks really goes beyond schools we all have been receiving inconsistent information on mask wearing and the effectiveness of actually wearing a mask we should not step down and agree to this decision as americans we have all learned how to manage our health safely and responsibly more effectively this past year and we need to stand up to decisions that we are not comfortable

007with and challenge them there are various scientific studies that i have read and educated myself on which show actual evidence of health risks and wearing masks especially for children in my opinion math should not be mandated but be an option and a choice made by individual parents number two lunch quote unquote silent lunch is very concerning last year this was a decision that was made at ecs and wiss that has been a major concern in so many respects children look forward to lunchtime to be able to take a break and socialize with their friends which is part of their childhood development i understood that children had been spaced apart to allow for more distancing but to not allow children to speak during lunch is really troubling it is almost as if the children are being

008punished and cannot even be human anymore then when their then when their masks were removed i'm sorry then i learned that our students were rewarded with stickers for not speaking during lunch when their masks were removed this is absolutely heartbreaking and really has gone too far they have suffered enough from everything already and it is time we have think we we have things returned to normal and i mean real normal again what scientific evidence can the health officials provide to support this decision i ask that this decision be reconsidered for the fall of 2021 and then finally mental health and wellness promoting children and young individuals well-being is a critical part of keeping them safe supporting their development to ensure that they have positive outcomes as they evolve into their adulthood mental health is the

009root of everyone's overall well-being and can be affected by multiple factors including environments i have spoken to many health professionals who have indicated they have seen and experienced a significant increase in mental health issues as a result of the current environment and negative impact it has had on people's lives this is something that cannot be overlooked and needs to be taken seriously the continuous restrictions and controls are causing unnecessary fear and anxiety that needs to be circumvented we need to return to a normal environment that will facilitate and secure the success of our children and their futures dr macri's letter indicated that our administration continues to meet weekly with dph and csde can these concerns that that i have outlined in my comments be raised and ask for the evidence that this supports the decisions

010that have been made the experts keep referring to the importance of relying on the science to ensure safe safety what scientific evidence can be provided provided to support these decisions as already mentioned these are concerns that i have expressed all along i have been keeping myself informed and there is so much conflicting information on all of these items and it does not convince me that any of these decisions made have considered the best interests of our children i have spoken to family and friends that have children attending schools and various other connecticut districts and it is evident that the protocols are not consistent across all of the schools ultimately our collective goal is to set up our children and provide them with the means to achieve success in their adult lives while i appreciate that

011you are all working with the public health officials the concerns of parents should also be part of the decision-making process to ensure that we are not providing a disservice to our children remember we the parents are responsible for our children's well-being and success and strive to protect them in every aspect of their lives as parents we are the advocates and hold the best interests of our children's our children closest to each of our hearts and for that reason it is imperative that the opinions of all parents are listened to and taken into consideration we look to the members of the board of education along with dr macri to be the representatives for all of our children most importantly we rely on you to safeguard the overall welfare of our children to ensure that it is

012sustained in the school environment thank you for your time to listen to my concerns i hope and pray each day each day that it improves for all of us going forward thank you thank you ms tata next if you could just come to the mic and give your name and address please hi my name is jessica tomzak at 14 greendale avenue i think sandra said most of the points i was going to make but first masks are a big concern for me as well which i have already indicated masks were already out being taken off in the classroom for breaks and for snacks so they're already together why can't they take their masks off in the classroom they have barriers up why do they have to have them on there and i have some few

013will masks be taken off when outside now last year they were not even after guidance had been updated they were left on children were not allowed to socialize with their masks off at all they had to stand against a wall isolated away from their friends if they want to take their masks off outside also i'd like to know what data is used to determine the efficacy of masks because as of right now even per the cdc's website the efficacy of masks and prevention is questioned yet they're still recommended and there's up to 10 different studies on the cdc's very own website that question the efficacy of mass use when protecting against covet 19. also how are we taking the psychological effects on our children into effect for example my very own son was in kindergarten

014last year we ran into one of his teachers that had been in his classroom throughout the year without a mask at the farmer's market the other day he didn't even know who she was because he had never seen her without a mask on how is that okay for children not to know who their friends or their teachers are that poses a risk for them because they could potentially think somebody's their teacher and it's a safe person and they could go with a stranger we need to consider these things not to mention the risk of somebody kidnapping a child and never being able to identify them because you don't have the recognition of their face also the socialization aspect of our children they are not allowed to socialize at lunch without masks on at recess without

015masks on they can only just have games if they're significantly distanced how is that impacting our children to what end are we going to allow this to continue we have to address this and i ask that you do in your reopening plan also um i have another thing completely unrelated to masks but i would like to hope that you would clarify in your reopening plans um we had an issue with progressive discipline came up last year with one of our children and i would really like to know where all of the schools independently stand on that so that way going forward we know where that is thank you miss tomzak are there any other members of the public who would like to comment going once going twice three times okay thank you uh next reports

016of liaison from town council and board of finance i do not believe mr fortenbach or mr ireland are here so no updates today next superintendent's updates and responses to boe comments action items from prior meetings dr macri i was asked about the survey that we sent out to parents um and then the rest of it i'll address in the reopening plan update because it's all related um we did uh send out a a survey to parents and there was a variety of responses as far as what is your biggest concern about students returning to school this fall a few people said they have none getting sick refocusing their attention masking and making school fun again for students i'm just cover transmission i'm just reading you um some that have been i checked them off so

017i can give you an idea of them no concerns being forced to get the coveted vaccine coveton safety keeping safety measures in place to keep students safe from illness a resurgence of covid so those were some of those responses a lot of nuns i hope they will stay full time the second question was knowing that as a school district we will be required to follow the guidance that is provided to us by the state what are your biggest safety priorities for the full return and um i would say from the responses that we got they were all over they were all everyone had a different opinion but we did get a lot of parents uh saying my child need not be wearing a mask outdoors and fresh air however they would like to stick to

018the guidelines as they are a lot of parents said no major priorities whatever the guidelines are no masking especially outside continue to wear masks as long as children are unvaccinated and continue to emphasize good hygiene none my boys have been full time in school as soon as it was allowed and i'm happy about that my child yet again will have a lack of oxygen about wearing a mask and continued mass wearing and distancing for younger students until vaccines are available so as you can see uh it's very we have people who would like to continue and then others who would not like to our number one priority is to keep to get kids in school to keep kids in school that's the focus um and we're doing the best we can to make sure that

019that happens um another parent said math should be worn at all times unless you're 100 confident that all in the school are vaccinated social distancing needs to be maintained especially during lunch when the students are not wearing masks i know that at least three people who i work with in schools not in cromwell one teacher and two parents who are not planning to get vaccinated at all i wish we would be able to know if adults in our child's classroom have been vaccinated so we got a lot of different responses on both a lot of nice responses no concerns you've done a great job this year no fear of sending her back this fall none i would like to see school full-time whatever precautions need to be taken so we're all over the place as

020you can see and the last question was what else would you like to tell us and help us to plan for the safety and return of schools in the fall of 21 and again let's do this really nice as long as current protocols are followed i am comfortable for all kids returning get rid of mass no more mass mandates or are distancing let kids be kids please don't require mass clean the bathrooms better we need protection if you think you should spread if i think you should spread the word that you take a kova test because you think you might be infected you should not attend school until you have been informed of a negative test i have seen emails where someone tested positive and were in school that same day thank you for all

021you do i would hope mass are still to be required as i feel they truly helped cut down a lot of sickness mass are mandatory please continue to require masks follow the guidelines and we'll adhere to them and will stay safe just follow the guidelines keep the kids safe and have the kids back in school also i fully trust that the school will implement working and reasonable guidelines mental health of kids they need to be in school so i'm just giving you an idea um nothing can we just go back to normal um letting the kids return to normal quick transition to remote if needed which we won't have any uh remote learning um as mandated per state of education but there are updates of when we would allow quarantining uh situations full stream ahead

022no hybrid no remote keep up the great work strong vaccination campaign for children i would love to see us still being diligent about school about wearing masks stop worrying about covid focus on protecting the kids from internal and external dangers and going back to normal lesson lesson plans if masks and distance are working keep the same let's see you know we've done a great job this year however please let us know about the new guidelines as soon as possible i'd like for them to have a prom so people were specific too hand washing sanitizing none keep up the good work i'm grateful we live in cromwell cromwell has had the kids in school full time since september thank you i think it's a good idea for those who want to vaccinate their children to do

023so but i don't want to and i don't think it should be mandatory allow children to learn through play and have social interactions please let them do that um no virtual option happy kids back in school full time which is obviously what we all want happy kids and back full time um so as you can see we have people saying continue social distancing and mass wearing and others saying um you know please don't no mass required if a student is vaccinated so we have a mix of everything from our families so that was asked and i shared highlights it was all pretty much the same with those two things standing up so i can save the rest for the reopening school plan update okay okay any questions for dr macri okay uh next presentations and

024reports of administration 2020 to 2021 budget update reference a is burke hi good evening ann burke director of financial services i included in your packet a brief memo and an updated version of our projection and as you can see um 2 705 is what remains from last year which i anticipate i don't anticipate any changes to that we're waiting for one more document from the town and then we should know for sure so i will do a final budget at the next meeting so you'll know exactly what we ended up with as we have in past years i will with your permission at that next meeting ask the board of finance if they would return those funds to our capital non-recurring account for you know just some small expenses or to put that together with

025money that we have accumulated from prior years so that if something comes up which incidentally i'll talk about later we will have a little bit of money that we can possibly use it is up to the board of finance to approve or deny so i always do my best to make sure we spend our money properly and that we end up at the end of the year in a good place and i'd be happy to take any questions you might have thank you are there any questions for ms burke catherine let's see i have two questions the first one is around employee benefits um and how were we off by so much on that that we had such a great amount left over [Music] part of it is we do have new employees that come

026in that may or may not take insurance but we possibly have budgeted for them so we always set a placeholder for new employees and we do have i wouldn't say a lot of turnover but we do have turnover during the year and we add people during the year some people take insurance some people don't so that makes up some of the difference um again when we are when we're estimating it's truly just an estimate and i am working on closing that gap a little bit so i'm assuming that the um salaries are greater because of the volume of instruction teachers that we needed and substitutes and everything yes salaries we had some um coveted coverages that we needed yep and we needed to have additional staff brought in yep um so yes for salaries that

027is correct okay um and my second question was i had it marked off um was around the tuition i i thought that we knew what our tuition was before we went into the year oh for tuition um with special education there's an excess cost reimbursement component of our expenses and this year the state of connecticut gave us slightly more of a reimbursement than we have in past years okay so that helps us offset our estimates um so it also has to do with children's needs and how they change or if a student maybe leaves or a student comes in so that number has to be very fluid and flexible throughout the year but we did receive additional monies for excess cost reimbursement and that's a formula based submission that we make to the state of

028connecticut okay on uh three times a year i just want to make sure and so in that tuition line you're right it includes magnet schools regular education but then that also includes special education and new students coming students going a need that may change so that equates to both of those it's a much more stable number when we're looking at just the magnet schools but we're looking at students with special needs and what they need that fluctuates okay a little bit more so that all falls under tuition okay i thought some of that was underneath people services so the tuition it depends on the service but the tuition component falls under tuition right ian correct so tuition for an example of um other than magnet school would be if we send a student out for

029an outplacement okay we would pay that facility a tuition okay so um we also just to kind of talk a little bit about pupil services if we have um students that go to a magnet school we are charged if they require special education services right and when where does that come out of people's services or tuition pupil services okay but it depends where the children where the child is going to school okay all right thank you you're welcome any other questions um just a quick question if you could give a quick update on current year budget i assume there's not much activity so is there anything to note there is not much activity well there is activity i mean we you know we do start with salary in july and we do we do really

030work at getting some most of our purchase orders into the system um i would say that i'll probably give my first report on 21 22 in the fall maybe october november time frame only because there are certain things and magnet school is a good example where we're waiting for the schools to finalize lists who's coming and verifying that against they do a big verification process so sometimes that's a little bit delayed to get that into the budget so the best budget you have is when you have your expenses encumbered to the best of your knowledge and then you forecast what you're anticipating but usually i i don't have um a report with really good information until october or november will we have received any arp money by that time or have we received it yes

031i believe yes okay if a little bit at a time okay if you could just add that in the next meetings report it doesn't have to be the full budget update but just maybe a status update on where we stand there i can yes great any other questions okay thank you okay on to new business uh item a reopening plan update dr macri so i have so much to share and so little um as you know um the state did and i have mrs um our nursing supervisor here coordinator mrs hanson i might ask her to come to the podium to answer some of your questions as well mrs hanson myself and mr neshe our health coordinator for the town joined the dph and csde calls every tuesday eight o'clock and just to help everyone

032feel a little better we submit questions ahead of time we have everything that was addressed tonight and asked we've asked over and over and over again once in a while we don't get any answers at all we come back the next tuesday and pretty much pray that we're going to get some answers and today is tuesday so we got some updates however they keep changing as the data continues to change for how many covid cases um are positive how many hospitalization rates there are how many uh how high our vaccination rates are as far as cromwell we're in a good space for adults um the middle school i believe we uh mr and ashley said as of today we're close we're almost at 50 for the middle school was it over 60 percent 44 how

033about the um excuse me do you want to come up i'm sorry thank you i can't remember the numbers exactly we're not as high as we we really want could you just repeat that information sure so um we'll give you the numbers for vaccination rates in cromwell as far as students um who are eligible so they break it up into categories and it's it's it's not always helpful it the first category is 12 to 15 and we're at currently in in cromwell and then the next age group goes from 16 to 44. so that you know is obviously bringing in a lot of adults and um and that that is at 73 percent so and i don't want to speak i thought when we talked to um sal he thought we were in this around

03460 but am i was i thinking something else no and then as a from high school no no i think i think he he he also gave a number for all of cromwell um and i think that was 76 percent okay i have it written down like have it with me but no it's okay i just confirmed i had pretty sure of course i was on another call when this was happening so i wanted to make sure i didn't miss and i thought that's what i heard him say but we could um so what we plan to do to get better numbers we have to get advice from legal so we are allowed to ask adults that work in the schools to provide us with a copy of their uh or let us know they

035were vaccinated and provide us with a copy of their vaccination so that we have an idea of how many people have been vaccinated and we can act more quickly than we have in the past as far as quarantining because the quarantining rules have changed as well we are also allowed to ask families voluntarily if their child has been vaccinated they may share their vaccination status and card with the school nurse and that does not break any hipaa or fur doesn't have any hipaa or ferpa violations so we just got this information today from legal so we will be doing that um people can wait and say unless my child or unless i as an adult i'm going to be quarantined i'm not going to provide that information and that's okay too if the information isn't

036provided and we see a copy of proof that the person has been vaccinated then the person will depending on the place so if they get quarantined um in school they could do the five tests on day five come back on day eight if it's negative if you're vaccinated use right as of today and you could mark my words today at six not even 01 on this date and it could change tomorrow because that's how it is um if you're vaccinated and you prove that you're vaccinated and you weren't within the six feet then um you're within i'm sorry closer than six feet then you you don't have to um quarantine unless you're symptomatic if you're symptomatic it's a different story you have to quarantine so as you can see our heads are filled with all

037of this information and we're trying to decipher how to put it all into the school reopening plan which we're working on and i hope to have out to all families i did send a letter out today with a covid vaccine clinic and letting families know that by august 18th the district reopening plan will be out and then the schools will have their plans out no later than the 20th so we hope and we highly encourage families to participate and give us information it will not be shared with anyone if they don't need to know it's myself um and not even me actually i don't need to know either it's really mrs hansen and the nurses who are doing the quarantining and then the the school administrators who are helping as well and we figure out

038who needs to be quarantined and who doesn't have to be quarantined so quarantining rules as of today are we are allowed to have students within three feet of each other in the classroom only nowhere else that's because they have to stay put not move around facing front so they must as long as they're three foot feet and they stay within that three feet they're not subject to will always contact race everyone always gets contact traced um but they will not be subject to a quarantine anywhere else in the school at any time cafeteria auditorium um they they have to be within six feet and they also have to be within six feet in pe um because of and music has their own last year's um rules for music the addendum it was six you have

039to be six by nine and you have to wear masks and belt covers none of that has changed all of that is still in effect they're they're not updating that the good news is when the kids are at lunch they will get to take their masks off and talk they have to um talk quietly for the tone because obviously if you're speaking uh this would be really hard if i was in there because i talked loudly so there's a greater chance of spraying um droplet droplets sorry and so we will the students will be allowed to talk with their masks off while they're having lunch and then enjoy each other's company and then they'll put their masks back on when they're waiting to go outside and then when they go outside they will be allowed

040to take their masks off and have recess which will be really nice because they're outside and they could socialize which was a win with the research that cdc and dph is sharing with us so i was happy to hear that and we will have that on our reopening plan um they can play in cohorts they can play uh with each other they have to wash their head this is the most important thing is really washing their hands before and after everything because they're going to be outside and perhaps playing on the playscape and as long as everyone's hands were washed before and after then there's a greater chance of uh not contracting covid masks go back on we go in the building and uh we're we're good pe classes outside also you can remove your

041mask and they have two um in between cohorts so if groups are moving kids are moving groups of three or four um they would be asked like just like you would at the gym anyway if you were working out when we should be doing this anyway is to wipe down the equipment and the next group comes over and uses it um these are things that they just came out with and as of now because um just like was spoken as far as research the as much research as they have is what they're going on based on what happened last year here in connecticut we saw some transmission in the classroom very little not in cromwell like maybe one situation which honestly i i would bet mrs hansen and i would beg to differ that it

042wasn't um because there was also outside situations so uh the state is using our data and they're using national data but they're using connecticut's data to come up with these variations to allow us to to have school look a little bit more normal but yet to continue to keep kids in school as much as possible and healthy and safe and that goes for the adults too the difference is students can be three feet from each other only in classrooms adults have to be six feet from students and each other at all times and um that's everywhere like can i just add two yeah let's go ahead and interrupt me if i'm for because i i have my whole i just wanna i wanna be clear that the three feet is only in classrooms and when

043all other mitigation strategies are in place so that's means that they have to have their masks on so if they're if they're you know were greater than 15 minutes eating in the classroom that wouldn't it wouldn't be three feet it would be six right does that make sense so we have to make sure we follow and we're gonna review this with our teachers so snack time once a day should be 10 minutes no talking then put your mass back on but when you're outside um it's your you could run around the whole nine yards so um if they want to take the kids out for a couple extra minutes so that they can that can happen um we're going to encourage teachers to do that so that they have that extra socialization um same thing

044in the cafeteria there's no way we can keep the students six feet apart we just can't do it we weren't able to do it we're not able no no schools are able to do it unless we use the entire building and then there would be no instruction going on so we would keep them um like we were doing last year and we saw very little if not any spread so just a little not not that much it was a little bit higher because the mass are off which is why we're saying okay we want them to talk because we are taking into consideration that social emotional well-being you have to outweigh the risks and the benefits so we're going to give it a try as a state of connecticut and then let's say something should

045happen to change in the data where kids are getting much sicker um we're noticing more transmission rates the local health department cdc um a gph can can change uh can change that as well the governor could say it's an executive order but we're going to give it a try and see what happens um kids are playing right now outside um we are not seeing a huge spread um among us kids more kids are getting covered because more kids are not vaccinated and more adults aren't so of course we're going to see that in the in the data um so we're going to give it a try and we'll be very cognizant of when uh mass are on and off and the distancing we will have seating charts wherever the kids are except for when they're

046outside playing we want them to enjoy playing with their friends they're running by each other there's very little chance of them sitting together for 15 minutes just talking they're running around they're talking they're passing each other so it we have that whole minute thing which is it is what it is that's what they gave us that's what we go by um anything you want to add to that jillian mrs hansen i don't know if you want to add anything i think you covered everything okay music is staying the same sports um as far as the high school and the middle school um if you are vaccinated and you don't have any symptoms you don't have to quarantine unless you're symptomatic yeah right if you're symptomatic you do if you're not vaccinated and you're playing sports

047you will be quarantined your symptom you're you're exposed you will be quarantined for 10 days there is no option for sports to have a quarantine that goes five days test and then on day eight you can come back you have to do the full ten days did i yep get that right okay good it's nice to have three people on the call so and then we talk about it over and over make sure we understand it um those are some of the updates um the the surface it doesn't live on surfaces um so we don't have to do the wiping of the desks in between however the bathrooms will be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected the touch points will be hit but it doesn't live on surfaces so when students are going into a classroom and

048leaving the classroom it doesn't have to be wiped down but what we are requiring is that kids use hand sanitizer before and after they go into a classroom this way their hands are clean so the chances of them touching a pencil and and then if they're not they're washing their they're cleaning their hands before they leave as well um and that'll all be provided by the school six feet i talked about that i want to make sure see um we are going to start the year off we've decided without the usage of lockers for now we may change that in the future however we will be using lockers when it comes to athletic teams and it's going to be very well managed with how many kids get to go in change where their masks come

049out and then others will go in to go in and change because they um it would they were looking for places to change anyway and it wasn't it was very difficult for us to keep up with it at least now we have a system of what we can do locker rooms were supposed to be closed last year the health department wanted to keep it that way we decided in collaboration that we would open them for team sports but we would monitor in and out in and out wearing masks and then we'll revisit as far as um lockers in the classroom uh as it gets a little bit colder because of their coats and and all of that but as of now our main goal like i said and and has been the entire time is

050to keep kids in school in person there is no remote learning option at all so if a family wanted to keep their child home they would have to provide their children with home instruction if a child is quarantined a child will be quarantined we are working on the logistics of how instruction will be provided to children across pre-k through 12 and it will look differently for students with special needs versus students that are regular education it is we we are going to be looking at kids with 504s and and pp ieps very specifically making sure that we're providing their service hours and making sure that they get everything they need and then students were leaning toward google classroom all assignments must be in google classrooms students can access their assignments in google classrooms it'll look

051a little different at every school and you'll get the parents will get that information next week in the school's reopening plan of where the child will be able to access their assignments if they're not having any problems completing their assignments they'll be marked um remote present as long as they are getting their assignments done and um maybe absent excuse until we know they've gotten their assignments done and then changed to remote we're we're look thinking about another code but we haven't determined yet all attendance procedures are in place if you don't attend school you're absent um there will be no snow days that are remote for this year their legislation legislatively they're looking into that for the future but we will be making up all snow days at the end of the school year again

052there will be no remote learning um i think that covers the big things we have to really work out the logistics that'll be in the reopening plan and i don't want to say too much because we also are working in unison with collective bargaining units to make sure we don't need mou's memos of understanding but as far as uh so far so good we're in a good place but there is a lot and michelle is working mr morrow is working on the hr side uh making sure that we're providing clear information to our staff of the quarantining procedures for them and then with our the reopening plans so that we can provide information to our families so hope to have those out on the 18th we're scheduled to work on them at 1 30 they

053should be out hopefully by 5. okay any questions any questions i saw catherine before so catherine john jen okay so i have a couple of questions okay the first one is back from the beginning when you said seventy six percent of cromwell is vaccinated is that uh 76 of eligible residents or 76 of all residents what do you think jillian mrs hanson i'm not sure what it's hard to that you're are you thinking that they're taking out the people that are unable to be vaccinated i don't know that's a very good question they say that it's a hundred percent in the 80 plus group so that would obviously bring that number up right um but like we can we can ask the strategy i will say just in response to that the dph has on

054its website a map of connecticut and it's broken down by each town and each town is broken down into each census district whatever it may be since it's tracked actually so cromwell is divided into three tracks and you can click on each track and it'll say by age group what the vaccination rate is just fear but it doesn't tell you the overall percentage and maybe i don't know there was a it was like a two-page disclaimer at the beginning yeah yeah you know what it does include and doesn't include so my my non-attorney self shut that off so yeah me too i didn't read the whole thing either yeah so i mean the reason why i'm asking is last year we were held accountable as a state and i'm wondering if they're going to start

055looking because we know as a district we did well with our numbers and our communication and our our strategies if we can start looking um and saying and if other districts are considering making changes based at their local level that may not coincide with what the state is asking us to do so if it should be now that we can have vaccines and we have vaccination rates if we have a higher vaccination rate we have minimal transmission you know we have no transmission in schools we have low numbers then why should cromwell be held accountable to the same standards as other cities and towns that are not at the state where we are so yeah um we had those conversations we definitely have had a lot of those conversations uh yesterday besides today's meeting i

056have a weekly there's a bi-weekly i can't remember with the superintendents um and yesterday we met with all the superintendents and the commissioner of education and that came up like when will we get to the point of will we be making more local decisions based on our vaccination rate and the answer to that i believe is yes like we can make more so it's really i'm not telling anybody what to do everyone has freedom of choice and whatever they need to do but the more people that are vaccinated the quicker this is there's going to be other variants this one is more contagious more kids are getting it but the more we're vaccinated the better the chance is that we can ease up on some of this stuff unless these variants change and then it's

057still infecting the people who are vaccinated the breakthrough but what we're noticing when we all know we're reading it in the data is that if you're vaccinated your chances of getting severely ill are much much much much less well so it's not just it's vaccination is obviously the largest factor but there are also other factors that come into play that could maybe help crumble kind of get out of where where we currently stand right now which is held to a much higher standard than we really should be and um and we we saw that a lot last year and we were all frustrated with it but i kept kids in school the entire time especially elementary elementary yeah which was a great segway it would have been a lot worse a lot of them a

058lot of other districts took chances and were out of school and remote learning for a lot longer than we were and my goal was to keep the kids here um and it's and it's not just me you know it's me and the local health director but they are having a conversation legislatively as of september 30th um the executive order especially for the mass it's an executive order it's uh that's why unfortunately we have to have um everyone wearing masks and buildings um even if we're whatever six feet apart but if that eases up after september 30th i don't know we don't know what will happen but if the governor says okay there are no more executive orders or there's only executive orders about this and this and this cromwell in collaboration with the local health

059department the town manager in the school system can work to see where we want to you know ease up on some of this depending on how good our vaccination rates are and how good our data is too um yes that that should come into play eventually that segues into how um we are maintaining the black scheduling for the older age groups i'm i'm not sure how much from what i understand not obviously a lot of group work was done even at the elementary level but at the older level there were no labs there was no group work and it was extremely detrimental to a lot of our students we're still keeping them in this block scheduling which is also very trying they have huge blocks of time where they're not able to do everything that

060they need to do so are we changing that this year are we allowing them to do more because we have higher rates of vaccination obviously in the upper level schools due to the fact that they can get vaccinated that was a good discussion that we had today too um we talked about which hasn't i haven't gotten 100 yes to this yet with the little ones i would like to i think i got a 100 yes to this i would like to be able to have small group instruction at least with the teacher and the student the teacher has to be six feet from the students but the students can be three feet from each other so can we call small groups up to meet with the teacher we're not going to at least not in

061the beginning we're not going to be able to do station rotation even though we've been killing ourselves to get towards station rotation models we know kids learn from each other except for we can't ensure that seating chart the kids are not going to it's too difficult but direct instruction calling kids up for their direct instruction is we want we really want to try and do that in every classroom labs um i talked we talked about today too it's they're able to share the materials if they're washing their hands and and doing all of that good stuff it is hard to stay three feet we'll try to keep them but it's really difficult to stay three feet when you're doing a lab but the most important thing is that the lab is a little bit shorter

062than 15 minutes so that we can actually do them because then they're not you know we're we're beating one thing if you know if not another everybody is vaccinated if people are willing to share vaccination status with us and the principal knows and is able to say everyone you know everyone is vaccinated so you can do we don't have to worry so much about the three feet then we will it really depends on how comfortable and safe everyone feels with sharing information with us and then we could translate it into the classroom but yes we need to get back to some type of small group instruction especially the direct piece we need to get back to labs like i said before benefit outweighing the risks i don't want any of our children our kids who

063are now going to be juniors freshmen and sophomores had no experience with labs now they're going to be juniors no experience with labs then they have to go to college and they haven't had any labs so i'm all of this is being discussed and um i'm gonna we're gonna try to do it in the way in which we just said the other other states i know were different connecticut's a lot more strict but it's very evident that other states are allowing more and state of connecticut students are starting to fall behind in those particular areas because we're not allowed to do it so yeah we're going to do our i'm always going to look at with the team especially and i i yeah i'm very happy and proud to be your superintendent but remember i

064went to school to be a teacher then an administrator and i know more about duck work and everything else in schools that i've ever wanted but i am not an epidemiologist um i have to i have to rely on those health experts to give me information and i do when i i want everyone to know not just myself i put a ton of questions in the chat and i asked for the research and the studies and everything else and we did get a response this morning when another superintendent asked they said we're looking at the research from connecticut and how it worked and we're starting there because our goal is to keep kids in school and other research is being conducted and when we have that information we will share all that information with you

065but don't worry about black scheduling we're not going to keep it at the big 90 minute block after this year and i say that as long as i you know i say it as long as we get is back to normal as soon as possible this is covid related because i could keep more kids in school i could keep more kids in activities i could keep more kids um engaged if i don't have to quarantine them as much and that's the main er that's the main goal to to do and i i hear you and i understand you and i agree with you i get it it's frustrating it's frustrating believe me all of this this summer of waiting every tuesday to get more information and it's you know i don't sleep at night that's

066why you guys are really good to me um in my salary but it's very frustrating for everyone because the lack of information is and um connecticut yeah you're right we're a little bit behind than other states i read about other states and we're we're just not we're just not there but we live here so so awesome katherine yeah no one's going to college no we still have a high percentage rate john and then jen so i have a much smaller question did they respond with any information for remote learning for students who are immunocompromised or who have immediate family members who are immunocompromised they have to provide significant documentation for from the doctor and the doctor saying this student definitely cannot participate and this is why then we would hold a 504 or you know

067whatever needed and then we would um provide tutoring the way we would if if you know if god forbid we had a student who was sick um and we provided tutoring because they couldn't attend school anyway we would provide that that specialized instruction uh through the same process and that would apply if the student had a parent for example who's also that mrs hansen they're still trying i don't think we've gotten 100 guidance on that yet as far as who lives in the home i i know we haven't gotten 100 guidance um that is something that we're waiting for and just uh our attorney um our legal counsel will be with us on um the 19th we have tons of questions for her we already you know i spent some time with her but i

068try not to spend too much time with her that she said they didn't have an answer she thought that they would have an answer by this week but it's wednes uh tuesday and some of the answers she thought they'd have answers to by today they didn't so it's still being considered mr flanders and as soon as i know i'll make sure everybody knows i'll say john okay uh jen i was just curious about our athletes are they required to wear masks outside during practicing or during games or anything outside they are not required to wear masks however if we need to contact trace we're going by the six feet and if it's a team sport we're following the same rules that we did last year so if you're playing a team in adam killingworth hk

069they they're they're exposed we can't definitively say this child wasn't there either they were absent or they were on the bench or whatever on the sidelines they didn't play then then they will have to follow the the quarantine if we unless we can prove it which will be impossible to do so it's the same rules as last year if they're vaccinated if they're vaccinated they're good as long as they're not asymptomatic unless they're asymptomatic so mrs hansen is going to be very very busy again this year tipti hi um i have a question um regarding some of the recommendations um that was sent to us um my concern i'm very frustrated about the mass guidance um and i also have concerns about students with special needs to receive related services and they have to do

070it with a mask on um are there exemptions for students it said in the recommendations that parents can get exemptions from a behaviorist a counselor or a doctor does that still stand it's in the um executive order 13a of where they can get the recommendation you know for in order to take their mask off um and if we get if we get that from a doctor or one of those people um we would we would go to 504 or p you know ppt or whatever we had to do immediately to make uh to make sure that we're adhering to whatever the doctor said and we would call legal counsel because there's so many different ways to address this so we really have to look at every child individually but as of now as of until

071september 30th because it's an executive order we are following 13a though so to answer your question yes but we can ask more questions because we all know what's going to happen if um someone is exempt from a mask where you know then other families are going to be nervous for but at the end of the day if the doctor is 100 this child is immunocompromised or whatever it is and they cannot wear a mask or then we have to follow those that that guidance i ask because it seems like it's written loosely for all populations it is okay purposely okay i think that was purposely done so that we could um look at each individual case on a case-by-case basis ask more questions and then come up with a determination um one more question during

072recess at the elementary level will they since the the virus does not go on surfaces will they be able to be playing with balls or any kind of other outdoor kinds of toys equipment that they have they will be playing with equipment what we've asked the schools to do is in between the cohorts of who's ever outside is to just clean out the clean off the equipment when the next group goes down we may not be able to do that and if you think common sense wise if you're washing your hands before and after it shouldn't matter we want to take that extra precaution if we can um will we be able to we're going to do the best that we can to do that but they will be able to share things we are

073um we are being told to please try and clean it off before the kids come inside and they love using those wipes because we won't have too many but at reese's we'll wipe everything down they love it um and but yes they'll be able to share it the most important thing is getting our kids to hand sanitize in and out in and out in and out of the classroom in and out of recess lunch and we have plenty of hand sanitizer and we're getting more donated thank you any other questions and all this is subject to change depending on data depending on recommendations depending on anything that we find we're gonna and then we may see that we have to tighten up a little more or we may see that we can scale back a

074little more it all depends so badly because my back is still here um you know it all depends and it'll it'll constantly be changing and that's why i did um our reopening plans will be on line and every time there's a change they'll be updated um so that i'm not driving parents crazy all the time and sending out you know alerts but we are doing the best we can we are taking everything very seriously and we really want the kids to come back to school and enjoy their school time and enjoy being here with each other because they're the reason why we're here great thank you okay i'm sure there'll be an update at the next meeting don't worry i'm sure there'll be 20 more all right next action approval of the minutes and motions

075from the regular meeting of july 13 2021 is their motion to approve motion by catherine second by dipty and he actually uh you were out you were absent at me yes all right so motion by dipty is there a second second by john i was just checking that all right so motion by dippy second by john any comments or questions hearing none own favor aye opposed abstentions catherine abstains catherine are you upstanding from that one okay all right thank you all right uh approval of the minutes from the executive session meeting of july 13th 2021 it's their motion to approve it's motioned by john second by selena any comments or questions hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions catherine engine abstain otherwise the motion that was that was the executive session so so you

076you were there okay so just just catherine is the abstention on that one otherwise the motion carries unanimously okay uh next approval of the minutes and motions of the special meeting of july 28 2021 is the motion to approve questioned by catherine is there a second second by dipty and it comes to questions hearing none all in favor i opposed abstentions we've got a few here so john jenn and selina otherwise the motion carries okay okay uh let's see okay next discussion and possible action regarding class rank so i believe we have mr cuckold here yes we have mr cockle and miss um mrs bington here from the high school today both in new positions we're very happy to have them here this evening um mr mccockle and his team put together a class rank

077proposal for you um and um go ahead sounds good take it over all right uh you know thank you everyone for having us here so uh what's on the screen here really is what's on the memo that i gave everybody uh it's just i would argue almost this is more for me than than probably you guys because you could follow along on that sheet as well uh so class rank um you know i think what i want to start off with just simply a lot of the questions people have about class rank uh in general uh you know it's this thing that appears on your transcript uh you know and that we use in different capacities here at the high school so you know the most common question that we have is why do we

078have class rank uh you know and it's certainly it's exactly how it sounds right it ranks you it ranks every student in our class so our 130 ninth graders that are coming in they will be ranked one through 130 at the end of the year based on their academic achievement we then report that number to colleges and universities and this was very popular extremely popular method for many many moons and now is you know slowly really being phased out but that is it's that simple why do we do it and that is really the main reason why we do it now things have evolved over time so at the high school it appears on the transcript so anytime a transcript is sent to college the college can see you know where that student ranks depending

079on how many students we have in the class we also use it in our end-of-year board of education report that essentially you know lets everyone know where our students are going what colleges are attending service academies things of that nature and then we also recognize our valedictorian and salutatorian and our top ten at our senior awards banquet at the end of the year uh and we also you know use it as well when it comes to uh scholarships in opportunities like that where yes sorry to interrupt you yeah going back to the prior slide yep so does it on the second question does it appear on report cards in between like it should not it should not i can double check that it should not it should only appear on a transcript okay yep because

080we don't calculate it after each quarter so there would be no reason for it to appear at that point it's really essentially frozen in time for okay a period of time good question top ten in no particular order on the first page yeah that's what the proposal would be ten percent yeah i'll get there okay you're ahead of me catherine it's okay that's okay i'll get there um that's okay yeah i started with the q and a's and then the the official proposal is what you have in front of you um so you know and i think some of the questions too you know in terms of national honor society does the national heart society or other honor societies use class rank during the application process and the answer is simply no they do not

081they use gpa now granted that's what class rank is based off of but again we are not uh reporting that and and i can say that with 100 confidence since i am the person or at least in my former role as assistant principal i would provide the gpas to the national honor society committee that would look at inductions we do not provide class rank on that in terms of the next question will the removal of class rank hurt my students chances of gaining admission to college this is a big one really so part of this answer is actually a response from the yukon you know admissions office where essentially a lot of colleges now have reserved the fact that high schools are moving away from class rank uh and really what it does is right

082now you know for a lot of these institutions they don't really care about class rank with the exception of valedictorian excludatory they do care about that um you know they're in a a weird little spot there uh so they're used to it and it forces them to look at you know what we preach which is the whole child uh and look at the whole resume and let them stand on their merits uh that way and and not rank um and ultimately at schools and we don't oftentimes realize this we're actually people think that you're competing with students from other schools when you report the class rank and you're not you know you're really just hurting your own students um by reporting rank out to these institutions uh and if we no longer so this was

083a question that you know we can debate a little bit if you wanted to but if we no longer report class rank can students or parents request their rank and the answer to that would be no because then essentially we didn't get rid of anything because then you would have the top 20 of the class all asking what the rank is and essentially you would have class rank um you know you wouldn't report it out to college but the students would still be soliciting that information competing against each other and creating really what is not you know what we want it wouldn't be creating a collaborative environment it would be creating this environment where students are very guarded and don't want to share information don't want to help each other out and then the last

084question because it relates to the policies that we have related to rank in the handbook and i just thought it was a quick i wanted to throw this in here what is the difference between a weighted and unweighted gpa um so we use an unweighted gpa for honor roll so every quarter it's it's very simple if you have five a's and those are the classes you have and they're you know we just take the average of those five grades and if you meet the right threshold you qualify for honor roll honors with distinction so on and so forth um you know and that is for your unweighted gpa our weighted gpa is is essentially how we allocate certain points for taking harder courses uh and that weighted uh you know gpa is is part of

085what goes into the um you know class rank process so our current class rank procedures uh again i just wanted everyone to be in the know to understand exactly how this works um we have a cumulative grade point average um that we use you know for this but we do not include in our class rank process pe health classes uh math lab and reading lab which are intervention blocks they there's no um it's really like an intervention so you really aren't getting a traditional grade and those are not included in the the ranking process which is something that i'm going to dive into a little bit more because you know that is something that we would like to change as well we don't feel like that is equitable i mean it sends the wrong message

086to our students as well uh you know that pe and health um just don't count you know and aren't viewed the same and again just the difference we understand our honor roll procedures um you know in terms of calculations and again uh honor roll you know pe pe and health is also not counted towards honor roll as well um you know in terms of that uh you know unweighted uh gpa that we use uh you know for that system so as we get just more specific here so what we did is outlined what we identify our specific problems with class rank you know that we have here so right now the shoreline conference is in the position where they have been moving away from it as a whole i did provide you with the specific

087schools and who still has it who does not uh if we were to eliminate class rank the majority of shoreline schools would now have done so and a lot of school districts are moving in that direction and i did just want to provide just a range it's not you know it has nothing to do maybe with what durg you are in you know as a school district because really from all over they've moved to this process and many have done this and removed class rank over a decade ago at this point uh the likes of which include glastonbury south windsor greenwich in middletown so just wanted to give you a small snippet of just how diverse and how many school districts that you have that are are moving away from that so again it's it's

088getting pushed away it's slowly being eliminated from public schools and really one of our biggest concerns is the ultra competitiveness that it creates between students and parents and that is important to note you know we want one of our pillars at the high school is collaboration and the fact is you know i've witnessed it in the classroom as an administrator and as a teacher where students it does not create a collaborative environment it creates this environment where they are competing against each other um and there is tension there there is you know a lot of stress and undue stress uh that comes with it um and it from everything you know from the end of the day they're picking classes that maybe they don't even like just strictly for the gpa points uh and that's

089really not what we're about here or at least that's not what we want to be about we want to move away from that and again college admissions yes i just yep so i've worked in three districts i've probably been in classrooms the least amount of time in cromwell but enough to hear i don't think i've walked into a classroom where i haven't heard a conversation between a student and a teacher where the student asks does this count towards my grade are you going to grade this are you and the level of anxiety that i've seen and is it graded is it i've never seen anything like it and granted i have been in another district for 14 years and then another you know as a teacher but the the competitiveness and the which i think

090a little bit of competition is really good i think it's healthy for everybody but that level of to constantly ask is this being graded versus i'm learning this like i have to learn this i have to do it i have to know it um is very heightened uh here is what i noticed and so uh does dr maclean i'm speaking for she's not here right now but it is noticeable otherwise i wouldn't interrupt so early but i'm just curious in those other districts if they all had power school because i feel it's more about power school and the fact that students get notifications constantly from powerschool yes they we yes powerschool is huge i don't love it either um it became you can turn notifications off yeah we could turn the notification they won't want

091to the kids won't want to i know it's a choice i feel the same way about i think it's great because parents know and if the kids are but i think it's terrible too at the same time because they're they literally are waiting for their grade to come through some kids when they're in their other class when they're supposed to be learning with their phones so yeah it's like with any other technology and instant gratification it's good in some ways and then it's your enemy in in another way yep absolutely um and again you know as a we looked at the higher institutions and and they're moving away from it as well um you know just as you're seeing them move away from sats i mean they're they're evolving as well with the times and

092you know essentially we want them to look at the entire student and everything that they have to offer not this number uh that we're reporting out and you know even essentially they'll if you send it to them they won't even really they don't even look at it that much um you know is what we're hearing consistently across the board um and then again you know the way our process works with class rank uh you know in the fact that it excludes physical education and health courses again we we feel as though that sends um you know a just a terrible message i mean those are arguably two of the most important classes that you have and you know those classes are certainly fighting a stigma of maybe what pe used to be in the 1950s

093um that it's not anymore it is a course with a curriculum i find it it's disturbing that we have a class that teaches about mental health but yet we're telling kids it doesn't count it doesn't count towards your gpa then it doesn't count towards class rank you know it places it on a different level and we do think it's time to to change that so what we're proposing is we are proposing to eliminate uh the reporting of class rank and only reveal rank information for the following purposes one is to institutions for scholarship purposes because that does exist you know where our students we want to make sure they can get everything they need to get so for example some institutions want to know if students are in the top 20 percent and that's something

094that we can certainly report out to them that is not a problem the military academies still do currently operate on a system that they want to know the rank so we would report that out to west point naval academy naval academy and the likes when we have students applying to them we still plan on recognizing the valedictorian and salutatorian at graduation and our senior awards ceremony as well that is essentially when these schools have all transitioned away from class rank they've all kept valedictorian salutatorian um seeing the value in that and colleges still want to know about your one and two um and then what we're also proposing is instead of acknowledging the top ten we acknowledge the top ten percent uh because by acknowledging the top ten essentially you know for example we have

095a graduating class of 160 and then the next year you can have a graduating class of 120. but yeah we're still only saying we're just we're just acknowledging the top ten there's a disparity there um and so the top 10 percent could be acknowledged uh at senior awards uh however we would not acknowledge them in any particular order it would just be high achieving academic students that we've had to honor that hard work that they've put in in their years here at cromwell high school furthermore we do want to remove so by removing class rank what we're saying is we're going to remove it from student transcripts so it would no longer appear on a transcript that we send to a college um and then in line with that uh just so that way there

096is more clarity around the issue we will more clearly publish how to calculate a weighted and unweighted gpa for our families we can certainly do a lot more with that in our handbook and reporting that out uh so it's less of uh you know i think for some that calculation is probably effortless um but really you know for many it's it's a it's much more complex system you know then then one would then it first appears i would say and then we would also like to add physical education and health classes to our gpa calculations and include physical education and health classes in honor roll calculations to place them where they belong alongside their other uh content areas so that is what we are proposing uh thank you mr cochlear um we'll open it up

097for questions and this is on the agenda for possible approval tonight but if we have requests for information we can certainly hold this over to the next meeting for a vote um there's nothing here that's going to impact the opening of school so just a comment and a question for me i you generally agree with the proposal i don't think we you know should have the board report with everybody's class rank um the one item i did want to question and you actually mentioned it in your presentation about their possible possible being a debate about requesting the class rank um i guess i would like to see students to be able to request that rank it is their personal work product that's going into the rank they think they deserve to know that if they

098want to um i think you made a comment about you know if we do that then we're not really removing class rank um but yet we're still keeping track of the top 10 percent and the solution from valedictorian um i mean i can see a student that wants to know that because maybe they want to get into the top 10 or they maybe want to be valedictorian and that's a motivating factor for that particular student and i don't think we should remove motivating factors in that sense if if it's important to that student i can't speak to the competitiveness in this particular school i you know don't i don't come here every day but um you know my experience was a long time ago but i thought this two students were you know very collaborative

099even with class rank in place so that's the one comment i would like to see change but otherwise i'm you know fine with the proposal so if we could consider that or open it up for discussion if other people want to that's that's my one comment yep jen i think to mr clickle's point if if you're going to give students the ability to get their rank at any point you're going to have that same competitive competitiveness happening where everyone's just going to find out their rank again and then you really aren't eliminating it like you're just giving everyone the option of having it i work at glastonbury we did away with rank students are not allowed to request their rank parents are not allowed to request their rank we don't even have a valedictorian or

100a salutatorian they just recognize like the top students above a certain gpa at graduation there's usually four or five that are recognized we have not seen it affect college admission in any way some uconn does request our valedictorian salutatorian because they do get scholarships so we have need that information as counselors and as a school so that we can share that with the colleges but we have not seen you know not having rank has not been an issue and i think if you open it up and allow students that's it's just there's no purpose in saying you're going to eliminate it if you're just going to let them see it well i think just to respond i think the difference is posting on a piece of paper that goes out to a school is the

101primary purpose of the class rank and that's why i asked if it's on a report card because you know i know some schools put in a report card um and maybe some kids don't want to know the class rank so not proactively putting in front of their face is i thought sort of the primary purpose of the proposal but if a student wants to know how they're doing relative to the other students in their class again i i see that as not a bad thing that's just me personally so selena i think i agree on that point and whether or not we agree or disagree i remember dr macri saying that this would be a subject that would be heated in cromwell so i'm not sure i would want to eliminate it completely to the

102to your point as far as being able to request it i don't think the student number three is going to be requesting their information as much as maybe the top whatever percent and then it's up to them if they want to share that or not i do feel like bad for the student that requests it and you know doesn't have a high class rank but um at least not putting out there on a board report and also where they're going to college i didn't like that piece of it i thought maybe the colleges could be listed alphabetically not associated with any student it's still interesting to look at that but um so i'm fine with i think it's a good idea to eliminate it but again i think it should maybe be able to be

103requested so we should think about that john is that a hand up i move the proposal is written okay there's a motion on the floor is there a second it's a second by jen is there any comments and questions we have lindsey please i can comment now yes um i was just gonna say i agree with both selena and jeff that it should if somebody wants a request that i think they should be able to i i do think that we are making this change i know it's the board's decision but i this is the first that we're seeing this i would like to have some input um from some students and parents on how they feel just because there may be points of view that we may be missing um so i i do

104not want to vote on this tonight i'd rather hold off until our next board of ed meeting i don't feel it's urgent that we do it this evening in terms of soliciting that feedback how would do you suggest um well in situations like this i mean we always welcome feedback um uh i would do my own independent solicitation i don't need the anyone to do it for me i can speak with i should know if you if you meant having a student nope i could do my own solicitation no it's okay i i in there are difficult situations that have to be made i see this as curricular operational and what's good for our students socially and emotionally um i understand everyone's viewpoint i see what you're saying but i agree with uh mr kuckle

105jen and john on this one it's the first time it was really hard to say no i'm kidding um and the reason being is because we why why do it what is the purpose and i to me it just continues the um the lack of collaboration the the competitiveness the anxiety for what it doesn't matter to colleges and if it does we're going to let them know are we making this decision because this is what parent because parents want to be able to tell everybody else where their kids are because that to me isn't a good enough reason and we want to teach children internal intrinsic motivation because extrinsic motivation is bad for all of us period it's bad for our health it's bad for our well-being it's it's not what i believe in and

106it's not what i want to raise our students to believe in that's my personal opinion and research-based opinion and as an educator i feel that so listening information you're only going to get information of people who want to continue the competitiveness and want to continue uh um and you'll get the other side too of how does this make me feel if i'm not you know and how does it make me feel when my friend is talking about at a birthday party my my friend is telling me they requested their class rank and they're student number 12 and i'm like 78 or 80. um and and i i speak from experience i knew because i asked my guidance counselor who's like i think i could tell you i was i was number 70 out of like

107330-something kids and i'm a superintendent of schools and guess what number 30 probably was .008 below me so but if i i knew who those top 10 students were i still know who they are and i'm pretty darn successful compared to them and i don't know maybe it was a motivator maybe it wasn't but i for me i just feel that there's no purpose in the type of children that we should be trying to grow and create in cromwell public schools and with our mission of placing students first i believe strongly that we place our students first we place their health and well-being first and in doing this that's what we're doing um there's there's so much competition and competitiveness amongst families um and kid and it trickles down to the kids and it just

108constantly creates that feeling of we're against each other instead of helping each other that's my personal and professional opinion with that being said uh the board at this point could choose to do you know whatever you'd like you know however you'd like to proceed but if we put it on the agenda for next time um parents could come and speak at a board meeting but guarantee you're going to get for the most part you're going to get people that want to keep class rank and i would hope that you would take into consideration what that really means and i know you will because i know you're a very cognizant board yeah and there is that that point where uh that dr mackie brought up which is there is a small uh difference you know that

109can create a 20 to 30 class rank difference in our students um you know so again you know what what value is there to that you know i don't see any john okay so there's a motion to table which has been seconded any comments or questions hearing on all in favor aye opposed abstention so the motion is tabled so we'll put it back on um can i ask you would you like we'll just talk about it mr cocker will be here to answer questions but we won't he doesn't have to redo his presence no all right okay got it okay um so we'll put that on the calendar for the september 7th another part it'll be on the agenda for possible approval like it was today okay okay uh thank you mr cockle can i

110just ask a clarifying question the class rank is only given to seniors seniors correct i mean it's not something that's calculated all a lot every year students would receive it okay i was just curious yeah we calculate class rank and um they see it very early on so for a year you're 14 years old so for four years you're being compared it's just junior year not sit well with me at all um when we're really talking about the social emotional well-being of kids uh in general people in general and one more thing how does that tie into then the honor roll and other ways that we gpa that's different yeah and in sports i mean students are not allowed to participate in sports if they don't have a certain grade so there's just a lot

111of other things too yeah gpa would we would continue with gpa we have to we're required to so that really is what class rank has nothing to do with um if you're allowed to play sports or any of that it's all based on your that's quarterly report card based mm-hmm okay thank you okay next action approval of ap psychology curriculum and textbook sir cockle you're next um mr cockle is going to um sorry dr maclean is on vacation and mr cockle knows all of this as well we have a curriculum proposal for a new course um um and then a new book as well so go ahead mr kuckle you could just quickly if anyone has any questions for him yeah i mean it's pretty standard what you have in the packet you know we

112ap psych is the class that we are offering this year is a very popular ap class and it's a great uh you know entry level class too uh you know if you're a student and you haven't taken an ap class and it's something that you want to you know kind of dive into take a chance on uh you know we've seen very high numbers in other districts of students enrolled in ap psychology uh and even as it currents currently stands uh psychology as it for a level one two course uh is a very popular class high enrollment consistently uh over the last decade uh you know in this upcoming year we have uh close to um i believe it is 70 uh students signed up for ap psych so we need approval on the textbook

113which is the standard textbook that uh you know most ap psych um you know uh teachers use uh you know and that's what our mr tinkum he's the teacher that i'll be teaching the class and he when he went to get trained for ap uh you know that was the recommended book that he received from his teacher there okay thank you any questions for mr cockle good go ahead catherine you have 70 enrolled did you say or 70 interested because no um we have yeah the exact number it's it's either between 60 and 70 signed up for the course yes okay but you're asking for 32 textbooks yep okay because it's a semester class oh thank you yep thank you jen what grade levels will be able to sign up uh juniors and seniors is

114what we're looking at any other questions motion by john is there a second second by catherine comments or questions hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously thank you one for two that's 500 you're in the whole thing you know listen you're you're listening to the valedictorian of his class okay let's just say let's just make sure we put that out of school not in high school no oh college sorry or law school no definitely all right um which is not why i'm saying that um next approval of the district equity statement reference f uh dr macra do you want to give the intro on this one sure um again i will have mr cockle um he can come up and answer questions as well but we created a district equity

115team and wrote a district equity statement and our district equity committee consisted consists of about 30 members and we have students board of ed representation parents faculty and staff that joined this team and really it's a team that is very passionate about equity and education and they would like to and i agree with coming forth with the statement that is shared with you which is referenced now i can't even find it it's referenced f in my packet i need glasses here it is there is okay and this is the statement um the equity statement that we would like to use as cromwell public schools it would um it's it's very uh very thorough and very um understandable if you're reading it but if you have any com any questions um that we can talk about

116um or answer any questions for you mr kuckle i was going to have him tell you how often the committee met and maybe a little bit about the conversations that they had um if you don't mind mr cockle sure so uh the equity work at the high school started uh last well it actually started in march of 2020 uh when we had our equity audit uh done by gerald harrison from central connecticut state university uh unfortunately that audit was interrupted about three quarters of the way through on march um was it march 20th was that right was that the day 13th march 13th who remembers i forget uh but what we did is we established an equity committee at the high school level um and we met uh throughout last year uh bi-monthly so two

117times a month uh and we met to essentially about ourselves and we also met to look at data and develop a plan an action plan for us at the high school level and ultimately we developed a high school statement that we quickly recognized needed to be a district statement and in our high school statement reflected really a lot of what we've experienced here at the high school and the reality is over the last three to four years cromwell high school has had a series of events um significant events that have had race as a motivating factor and that have harmed our community um you know as as badly as as could possibly be done and when we developed this statement we um you know obviously had that in mind uh we went to our unity

118club as well to just have them take a look at it when it was in draft form just to get their insight and ideas they'd want in there and then eventually what happened is we created our district equity committee and this draft was then brought forward to them and that district equity committee is k-12 is administrators teachers parents uh students and we received their input as well you know on this document and essentially have produced what you're looking at today and it is this is a document that we are um you know we know is a working document i would say um and we feel like it's an excellent starting point for us as a district uh so that way everyone knows and understands our position and what we're going to do to create a

119more equitable uh you know opportunity an equitable future for our students and i'm i'm very proud of the work that the committee has done um they had some difficult conversations i attended a couple of the meetings and listened i don't think it's any news to any of you that i believe that educational equity is very important in every school district and i'd like to see us move forward and as mr cockle did say we've had some setbacks in the past nothing that we can't move forward with but through education but we need to make a statement that says that we are dedicated to promoting this work and that these are our values as a school district and we want to really take a look at ourselves as educators allow our students to have conversations that

120they've been wanting to have that they haven't necessarily had and training our staff to be able to have conversations um with our students um and making educational equity a priority in our curriculum in the way we do things every single day and the way we treat each other um and most importantly uh the environment a safe and welcoming environment for everyone so i support uh this equity statement and i would hope that you would as well thank you uh john i know twice in one night mr flanders i think our views are very pretty i would like uh in the first plank to include the word disability um regardless of ability ability age yep and disability ethnicity gender identity race religion okay got it and for two reasons one disability as a factor in discrimination

121is too often ignored and two ability doesn't entirely cover that mr matrulo was a valedictorian so he clearly has more abilities than the eyes but neither of us is being discriminated against because of a disability as a result of that so i i would so i guess that's a motion that's a great suggestion good point john uh so there's a motion by john uh is there a second second by katherine any comments or questions uh of course is this like one of my questions is going to be tied into the social emotional yes all of all of our equity work all of our social emotional work um is all going to be tied because they're all so related uh we'll be tied into everything that we're doing um could i just ask where we think

122we'll present this so it doesn't get put in a file and nobody sees it where can it be so that people see it and are aware of it um well you will notice that i will be bringing forward a policy as well um next week which we'll talk more about in the policy committee and as we move forward it's not a required it's a recommended this could become of that but i also as soon as you approve this we are going to be making see our beautiful posters that we have everywhere we will be displaying them all over our schools in our classrooms sharing it on our website and um we want to make it much more the plot the i'm sorry the um our s the respect responsibility and safety we will have posters

123like that made and we'll be sharing them putting it on our website and branding ourselves with this equity statement as well thank you any other comments or questions so hearing there's a motion to approve the amended district equity statement there's a second all in favor aye opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously thank you okay next approval of the 2021-2022 budget transfer request reference g miss burke so i've included in your packet a memo with a request um for a transfer of a small amount of money from um one object code to another object code and when when we request to transfer between object codes we do have to come to you and ask you to approve it this is related to student to student services and when we did a little more research on how

124we had been doing our budgeting um siri had noticed that some of what was budgeted in 111 really did belong in 323 so we just wanted to clean up we wanted to start fresh with that and clean it up so going forward we'll just classify the expenses correctly so it's just a simple request to just make a budget transfer thank you any questions okay is there a motion to approve the budget transfer request as presented motion by john is there a second second by dipty any comments of questions hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously and you're going to stay up i guess for yes the next item okay uh approval of request to use capital non-recurring funds reference h so unfortunately we have a rooftop unit at the high

125school that um is broken costs a lot of money to fix and we cannot go a long period of time without something big breaking we're trying to save this money so we can make but we can't because now we need to to make this adjustment and fix it so i'm not happy about it neither is ian but we have to fix it so the procedure in order for us to move forward with repairing actually the replacement it's not a repair we can't repair it is we might you as a board must approve my request to use the funds that are in the capital non-reoccurring account specifically for the board of education if you approve it then the town will create the purchase order or purchase orders as necessary to get this replaced on the top

126of the high school tommy's not here tonight but i believe he gave me some background information and i believe that this unit is above the um culinary kitchen that's being renovated so fortunately we have a little more leeway as far as we gotta we have to put the order in and we have to wait because you know how everything is delayed with with covid but that space isn't actually being used by students so in that respect we got a little bit lucky that that's the unit that's not functioning so if you say yes we approve this then i will proceed go to the town and we will get moving on the project so that we can have conditioned air where we need it to be question from john katherine so the very quick question i

127feel a little stupid at asking it but since it might have been a lightning strike that we file an insurance claim we are working on that i don't have an update yet but we did have an inspection done so we are hoping that um we may be able to claim that but i don't have an answer for you yet so if the claim is paid do the insurance proceeds go back into the capital non-recurring account yes if we may not if we don't need to use the purchase order because it's going to be a claim that's covered then it would go back but if we don't get the coverage before we have to pay so we're using the capital number occurring funds first and then we get reimbursed that's correct is the insurance procedure i'm

128hoping that the people came out from the insurance company to look at the unit i'm hoping we'll get a report maybe even before we have to send this forward so but this was the next board meeting so i just figured it'd be better to ask and have your approval and then if it's not something we need to pursue obviously we would communicate that to you and we would leave the funds where they are and i the town will work with us on this there i don't think that they would if it happened later that we got a reimbursement i have find it hard to believe that um you know town manager salvatore would then say oh sorry i don't think he would do that to us oh okay just one other question is there a

129warranty in place for this that would cover this or do we not no okay no it's not new it's not within a warranty period unfortunately all right so there's a motion by catherine is there a second second by jen any comments or questions hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously thank you all right next approval of the stipend 2021-2022 reference j in your packets there any questions on the stipends hearing none is there a motion to approve mentioned by catherine second by jen any comments or questions hearing none all in favor i oppose extensions the motion carries unanimously uh human oh sorry there's no other place but i was thinking it kind of went along with the stipends and there's no updates from the principals is there at this meeting

130not this month um what was it what'd you say i know that but um my question if you want them to come up and give you an update they could they've been working like this my question is um is i i know that we're having um orientation for students i believe in sixth grade and at the high school level because we did not i know in high school typically we've done this before not necessarily in the middle school but at the high school level is there any chance that we could during orientation have a section where the students can walk through to see the clubs and sports that are available to sign up for information if they want to participate since we believe that we're going to be having all of these this year because

131there wasn't that option to do that last year and i know that's what they traditionally have done a lot of these clubs and sports are starting to hurt and wane without having activity in them for the past year so could we add that into our orientation but it was talking about stipends which is activities so i think we have a way of letting students know what's available but go ahead mr kuckle yeah we have a lot of ways that we um get to students uh you know freshman orientation or so ninth grade orientation is typically one of the ways that we do it but it's not by any means the only way so there's a lot of different ways that we are able to get them involved with clubs sports well sports are already pretty

132much involved with and it's too late um usually by the first day of school anyways you know but there's a lot of ways that we do that you know and we can certainly you know put something together on that end i'm sure but we are we already sent the information out and we are you know it's it's 90 minutes we're getting them in we're you know they're going to do some fun team building activities show them the building um you know and at this point i want to make sure that we can get them out uh you know with the right right amount of time so that way their families are there to pick them up um know in the past that when they've come in i believe in eighth grade they've walked through the

133cafeteria they've seen the different students standing with their club and their sport and they could ask questions sign their name up i understand that open house at open house but they um that's when we did it they weren't able to do that this year the students weren't able to be a part of that this year um who are currently in the sports and activities and some of them are feeling that their sport and clubs are more sports yeah are lacking as a result even some of the fall ones so um just one yeah i mean again that was something we traditionally did at open house um and our the kids that take the students through for freshman orientation are your student council members who are involved with all the clubs and activities who are talking

134with them about the experience and whatnot um you know so will we have something prepared for them yes we'll have something prepared for them but um open house we haven't even gotten to that point yet yeah there is eighth grade open house is in january yeah we did one virtually okay thank you good hey i'm moving on to human resources personal activity reference j in your packet are there any questions jen so i just i noticed a good amount of turnover particularly at wis in the fourth and fifth grade my students lost both well they didn't lose but both of their teachers have moved on and they were just amazing so i am just a little concerned about losing our talent and i'm just wondering from the exit interviews kind of what we're hearing um

135why they're leaving us are there things we could be doing to retain our excellent talent because these i know my these teachers are phenomenal and i'm just very sad they're leaving this district we're pretty sad too so we had that conversation we've had that conversation with mr buttwell emma's bignington when she was there mr morrow myself we have two or three two or three that are going they got a promotion because we don't have um we're trying to get more positions um in leadership at a you know a a starting point um as you know but we don't have enough of them so they've been stolen by other districts as srbi coordinators or special education supervisors which is a good thing and then a couple have gotten jobs in the towns that they live in

136they have small children but none that we're concerned and no concerns they were all very um expressed how they felt the woodside was their family how hard of a decision that this was for them to make um but they want to further their careers or be closer to their families none that we were concerned about we we had this conversation we saw some coming and then a couple were surprises we didn't know um but as more the srbi coordinator positions the special education supervisor positions um are being posted especially in districts that have a lot of grant money because of not not just those a lot of positions are being posted because there's so much grant money out there in urban areas so this is the time to get in if if you if you

137want to so as wonderful as those people are we're not surprised that they they have their own 92 a couple of them and and wanted promotion we were sad to see them go too and beg them to stay thanks jen um just a question for me i know last year there was an issue filling spanish teachers there's no vacancy on here for spanish so are we good there shh why did you ask that question it was noticeable we are in great shape right now let's hope and pray that everybody just stays put we just have to get through three more weeks but yes we are in great shape we have our french we have our spanish we i really didn't as you all knew i did not want to stop french at the middle school

138because i just felt that would cut it off you know for but we got someone and we're ready to go and they're very happy to be here great any other questions selena i was just wondering if you have an update on the assistant principal position at west was it posted and what's the timeline with that if you know yet i i do know except for michelle knows it way better in her head so i'm gonna have her come up and talk about it she has um michelle's very good about putting a timeline together and sharing it with the administration so that we stay on schedule good evening so yes we have a posting up it did go first internal to the bargaining unit group which was administrators no one applied internal so we have posted

139it out and it closes august 20th and the last time i was in there which was yesterday we were about close to 80 applications already so we do have a timeline in place and mr butwell myself and dr macri and dr carrie mclean it's my dream job if i win the lotto i told mr butwell i'm going to be this assistant it's a great job so a lot of good talent has applied for the position so we're starting to slowly look at those applications there will be a committee that will be put together like we have done with the other administrator um hiring processes thank you that's great to know what about in the meantime will he have someone in there to help him with the start of the school year so we have some

140teachers who have stepped up to the plate in certain situations that can help mr butwell in certain situations mr butwell is confident and i told him i'd be more than happy to come over and help him with anything that he needed but mrs bington is um obviously she would never you know she's going between the two buildings she did put together um something that she needed to work on it's all done um whatever mr buttwell needs ramsay will run over mr kuckle and mr butwell have been so wonderful with that whatever you need we hope to get someone in place if we realize that it's uh mr bowell needs more help than we would we could put an interim in there um someone who's retired as an interim to give him a hand if he

141asks for it if it gets too too much but as of now mr butwell thanks the way it is we can we're okay right we're trying to save a little bit of money but if he all he has to do is ask and we'll get an interim okay thank you any other questions okay i think we're all set um so moving on to policies uh so the there are four policies on the agenda for a second read and possible approval um we'll do a master vote on all four unless there are any comments or questions on specific ones mr flanders i'd prefer that we did them individually okay well that's fine uh so we'll start on a uh series 5000 students policy regarding title ix of the education amendments of prohibition of sex discrimination and

142sexual harassment there's a motion on the floor is there a second second by jen any comments or questions hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously okay item b uh series 5000 students confidentiality and access to education records reference l are there any questions or comments on that one hearing none is there a motion to approve motion by dipty is there a second second by catherine any comments or questions hearing none all in favor i opposed opposition by john abstentions otherwise the motion carries we got here six to one okay uh reference item c series 4000 personnel policy regarding prohibition and sex discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace it's a motion by john is there a second second by dipty in the comments of questions hearing none all in favor

143aye opposed abstentions motion carries unanimously item d personnel non-certified drug and alcohol testing for school bus drivers is there a motion to approve motion by jen is there a second second by lindsay any comments or questions hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously okay board committee reports the end of the year reports the facilities and technology reporters attached as reference oh i did not get mine in on time so it'll be the next uh the i was away last week it'll be in at the next meeting i did submit it on sunday but not in time for for printing poor guy reprimand away i'm not on the ballot [Laughter] um okay any questions for selena on the facilities and technology okay uh thank you selena for putting that together topics

144for future agendas and possible action to approve additional topics so we have to add the class rank discussion to the september 7th meeting so is there a motion to amend uh the meeting for september 7th to add the class rank discussion motion by catherine second by selena any comments or questions hearing none all in favor i opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously yeah i was just trying to i can't whisper so she can see my lips through him um do you want us to add an update on the school committee project for the next time or do you want to wait for whis for um cms the middle school sure we have the um oh i see you know just to give you a little bit of where we are so that we keep sure

145ourselves accountable for staying on track and we're meeting that night as well facilities so yeah we are meeting that night yeah okay is there a motion to further amend the september 7th agenda agenda to add a building discussion update motion by selena is very second second by gen comments or questions hear none all in favor aye opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously okay comments and updates and announcements from board members and administrators any administrators going once going up quicker too hi everyone lucille and i just wanted to come up we we lost a member of our student services team this summer so we just wanted to um alicia butler was a psychologist at ecs for many years and it was a huge loss to the district and to our team so i just wanted to

146mention her and i know everybody is thinking about her and her family and she was a wonderful wonderful person and um she's going to be missed just wanted to say that we did send a letter home to the families we sent that home today and uh the staff is going to gather together before our staff meeting when they return and they've got some some special honorary things they want to do together they've got some peace rocks and some memorable memories that they're going to put on some floral paper create it and put it in a jar for her her special friend and also we have some white uh dove balloons that are earth friendly that will set free on that day too so but it's really a huge loss like sari said she was with

147us for over 20 years so thank you okay tough act to follow any other administrators okay john will stop by you catherine deputy jen selena i just wanted to mention that i was able to attend the cabe conference last week and it was just an interesting afternoon listening to various speakers on the topic of diversity equity and inclusion and also a panel dealing with divisive issues which was also interesting in the state of everything going on right now and then the final speaker was a psychologist speaking about social emotional wellness for all of us and she was just really interesting to listen to very dynamic and one of the things she mentioned i just wanted to bring up i'm not sure if you're already aware but instead of referring people only to 2-1-1 and if

148they're in crisis there's also a text line which i didn't know about some people are more comfortable texting and so it's just 741-741 so i just want to pass that on back to the minutes thank you thank you selena for going uh dr mackery lindsey okay uh so we do have a couple of items for executive session uh so is there a motion to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing the superintendent's evaluation and possible action regarding superintendent's evaluation and contract motion by john second by selena comments of questions hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions hearing none the motion carries unanimously and we'll go into executive session as of 7 37. so we'll declare declare ourselves back in public session at 8 48 p.m so let's see where's my agenda so

149is there a motion to approve the superintendent's contract as presented oh sorry evaluation sorry evaluation sorry my my fault evaluation motion by catherine second by jen any comments or questions hearing none on favor i opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously now we need a motion on the superintendent's contract just let us know when you get that was the last part on the contract according to the terms as considered is there a second second by catherine any comments or questions hearing none all in favor i opposed abstentions the motion carries unanimously is the motion to adjourn from john is there a second second by catherine any comments or questions hearing none all in favor aye opposed abstentions we are adjourned at 8 44.