001Cindy, you don't want to try? >> I still can't see everybody because I haven't transferred over. So, I don't even know who's on even to begin with. So, with the phone, it's hard. >> Okay. >> I'm gonna need Ken to help me to figure that out one day. But I keep saying that, don't I, Louisa? I need to figure it out. You're making me very nervous. >> I feel like I have to sit next to somebody doing it and watch it once or something. Does that sound silly? I'm like I'm better I feel like I'm better visually. >> Can you turn on the AI noteaker and then that can be a guide maybe as Cindy's going back through her notes? >> I'll take the minutes so we can move on. >> Oh, thank you Cooper.
002>> Okay, so uh let me turn to the first item on agenda is the general committee and district updates. I'll turn it over to Mike. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Almita. Everybody see my screen? Yes. >> Yep. >> Okay. Oh, nope. Not share >> slideshow. There we go. All right. So, uh, thank you everyone. Um, we have really just two big items on the agenda today. General community and district updates. There's a few little things that, um, I'm I'm going to talk about in here. Um, and the other one is just an overview and a plan of how the board of education meeting is going to go at Hasttown next week. I just want to make sure everybody feels good about where to go, where to park, where to go in, and all the
003all that kind of important information. So, um, I asked Anme, uh, Anme wasn't able to join us, uh, tonight, so she she gave me all the big updates. So, I'm going to go through these and, uh, forgive me, I don't have all the depth of detail that an would have. um if she were here. So, I've got her um email address there right at the bottom. So, if you have any questions or or want any more information, just feel free to uh email an straight away um and she'll get back to you. So, coming up uh March 28th uh at Rogers Park, uh there's an early childhood resource fair. Um and actually, when Minnie comes on, it's going to be her organization, I believe, that is putting that on, so she can probably give a
004little bit more context for that one. Uh April 13th, uh the board of ed Danbury Collective, uh there's going to be a planning session about knowing your numbers. It's about how to set um measurement and uh measurement and and measurable goals for our collective impact effort. Uh April 17th, uh it's a um we have an event uh Mike calls strong dads workshop. These are going to be school-based. Um it's basically a workshop for dads. Um, and they'll be happening at a few different schools around the district. April 24th, uh, at the Amber Room, 7:30 to 9:00, uh, there is the VNA Health Spring Breakfast. That is AM. The, uh, spring breakfast. Um, VNA provides these free health clinics to our incoming students. But this is a great event. There's an auction, there's breakfast, there's some
005speakers. It's it's a nice event. We went last year. Um, I got outbid on uh on a few things. So, but you buy some raffle tickets. It's a good time. Uh April 25th, uh Rogers Park, we have Family University. It'll be about healthy eating and living um at Rogers Park. And then April 30th at Broadview, uh we have a uh program uh called Hidden in Plain Sight about uh drug awareness at home and um helping parents start to identify uh the new look uh of drugs and vapes and all the things that uh we may not understand or or be aware of that um are contraband. So um so some exciting news, we've been accepted into the Northeast Farm to School initiative in Shelurn, Vermont. Um, so the district's farm-totable team uh will attend and
006will be able to strengthen the district's farm-to-school work. The kids actually put together a really cool video and I'm hoping this works. I tested it earlier. I'm going to show a little bit. Everybody see my screen with the uh the video on? Okay, here we go. >> Danberry High School is proudly involved with Connecticut Farm to School. It is an institute to help strengthen ties between our classrooms, cafeteria, and community. We start here Danbury High School in our Academy of Clean Energy Green Bazan. >> We are growing produce to serve our student body both in the cafeteria and in the Hatter Cafe at the main campus. Heading over to Danbury High School main campus in our Academy of Professional and Public Service. The culinary pathway turns that same harvest intoler. >> Bringing it all together,
007we collaborate with the Danbury Farm and provide cooking demonstrations, samples, and shared community meals. In our classrooms, cafeterias with our community. Together we grow food and confidence. >> We've started strong, but to expand our gardens and programs, we need your support. >> Join the Danbury High School farm to school team. >> Learn how you can help here. All right. So, fun video there from the kids. So, we're very excited about that one. And uh Ann will be providing more information about that as it develops and grows. And we'll be reporting back um after that team goes up to uh Vermont in June. And then this is just a head uh heads upcoming Saturday garden workshops uh at Park A. Morris um put Parkav Morris and Parkav will be beginning on Saturday is coming soon. Uh
008we're recruiting uh community members and families to share their knowledge and help the garden beds. If you want to join, the recruitment flyer is linked here and I'll make sure everybody gets this. I'll actually put this link in the chat. So, if you want to take it and share it, you can do that. Mike, could you drop the the video link in the chat or send it later because I think there was some lag time on it the way that it came through on the video and I I've heard it before and it's definitely a lot smoother with some music in the background. >> Oh, it was smooth. Okay, I'm sorry about that. >> That's okay. It could just be me, but I in case that happened to anybody else, it'd be good to have
009the video if you wanted to promote it. >> Absolutely. >> I figured. Yep. >> Yep. All right. My apologies for that. I tested it like three times today. I was like, it works, >> but I was by myself. So, all right. So, this is something I wanted to talk about here. Uh, this is going to come up again in sites uh Wednesday prior to our BOE meeting, but um I know we're really going to be stretched for time on Wednesday because we are meeting at Hasttown. Um, you know, assuming we start on time, there's a number of business items and updates that I want to provide the committee and we're going to be doing a little tour of the school uh with myself, Rich Gelbert, Sean Hanley, and uh, Principal Ellen Palino. Um, so I
010just want to make sure we have time for everything. So, I I thought I'd start with this tonight because in my view, this was probably one of the biggest items um that was on the updates list for sites. So, I thought if we talked about it here, then um you know, it it might just take a little bit less time uh when we get into sites on Wednesday. So, this is something we've been talking about now for probably two years. Um as we knew the board of ed offices were going to be opening up at our new at our current location at 40 Apple Ridge. Uh we knew that we would be vacating the building at 63 Beaverbrook. And the big question, of course, was well, what's going to happen to that building? And over
011the course of the last year and a half, we had a few different ideas for it. Uh we thought about putting a region endeavor in there at one point and then ran into some um challenges with zoning. Uh and then uh with the adult education program, we realized that that was something that we could do. Um we we could uh satisfy the code requirements of the building uh and also the zoning requirements of of that um that part of the community. So, uh, as of I guess January, December, January last year, we went back to an architect. We said, "Okay, we think we we finally nailed it down. We're going to do adult ed there. Um, they came up with some drawings and, uh, we are now just waiting on a final word back from
012the city of Danbury to make sure our zoning variance goes through and then we can actually, uh, commence the um, rest of the the work on on the building. So, if you remember, this is the floor plan of the old building. Um, you know, on the left side there is the door that you uh that that most of the staff would walk in, but at the bottom there is the center door where the public would walk in. And then on the right there is the old boardroom uh the big the big square. And if you look at those uh on the top level there, there's those four squares that are sort of chopped up um like a little um little lunchbox. So the old those were the offices. Um once upon a time, the upper
013left there that was the HR office. It later became payroll. Uh the upper right office there was the special ed office. The lower right was finance and the lower left was was accounting and and um accounts payable. So those were suites and basically the plan is is that those suites once upon a time this building was a school and uh those were classrooms that were once that were ultimately chopped up to become offices and now we're just re taking out those walls those interior walls um and restoring them back to the classrooms. Downstairs same thing. There's there's rooms down there. Um these will probably be much less used for classrooms certainly at the outset uh more for like testing rooms, resource rooms, things like that. But we'll be blowing out some of those walls and
014just making larger spaces. Uh so that there's there's uh real learning areas in there, places for computers, uh test taking rooms, all all the different things that you would need in the Wii Race Adult Ed program. All right. So when the construction is done, it's going to look like that. So all those red uh red lines are now the perimeters of the new rooms. So there'll be four big rooms upstairs plus the boardroom. Um the left side is essentially going to stay the same. That's where the different offices will be the copier room. Um some of the counselors, the secretary, uh Rick Ray, all those they'll just use the existing office setup as is. Uh which is great. we don't have to uh spend additional money on that. Um and downstairs as well, that's that's
015the open space that we'll have um uh when when the work is complete. There's still some conversations about whether we're going to have some IT presence down there. Uh we still have our server down um in the basement area there. So, there's some talk about moving it, but uh no no firm decision has been made yet. So, this is really exciting. Uh we've been able to do this and uh some of the early estimates we got were were very off-putting. we were hearing numbers in the in the uh tens of millions of dollars range um to convert this into a school just because of all the the code updates you needed to have children in that space. Um and we were able to do it for significantly less um once we decided to just kind
016of uh uh keep a lot of the existing structures. Um, taking out these walls was really about just replacing uh flooring and then of course you have to replace the ceiling uh as well because that all comes down and and um and the lighting and then you have to do a very very minimal amount of HVAC um because you're not making it smaller where everything needs a supply and a return. You're making it bigger where now there's four or five different supply and returns in there. So really you're just uh uh you know making sure that the air is balanced within that space. you don't have to add a whole lot of HVAC and duct. So, uh we're very excited. Um this is going to be starting uh very shortly. Like I said, we're just
017waiting on um the zoning variance which is in progress. The total cost is about $255,000. Um construction is going to be March through June of 2026. And uh we're hoping everybody will move in uh July and August. We're going to be ordering some new desks and furniture and everything just to make it uh make it feel like a really new whole new building. and uh we'll be vacating the space uh that they're currently using on Crosby Street. So that's the big the the big uh thing that happen is happening right now. And uh again, we were going to talk about that in sites and I'll still give it a sort of cursory mention on Wednesday, but I wanted to make sure that there was an opportunity to just, you know, think through it, not feel
018rushed and ask any questions. Yes, Wanita, I see a hand up. >> Thank you. Um, Mike, um, let me begin by asking you, um, since we've brought sites and facilities issues into the community meeting, I'd like an update on, um, Endeavor and Reach. >> Sure. >> And their location. >> Yeah. >> Beginning in September. So, we had a uh a couple really good meetings with a realtor for a space that was over on Shelter Rock Road. Um, and we went saw the space. Uh, Rich, Kelly, myself, a few other people went over there. We walked the space. We really liked it. And there was one hiccup and the uh the uh the broker said, "Listen, I think I can work through this hiccup." It was a land use restriction um that had been in place
019um due to some um just how close it was in proximity to the to the Metro North Rail track railroad tracks that were right there. He said, "I I I think I can work with um Connecticut uh Department of Environmental Protection. I think we can get this adjusted so that it'll be appropriate for that space." Um last I heard, we were not able to do that. That was some information I got just in the last few days. So, I have a conversation planned with him to see if there's any other way um that we can approach uh that that restriction. Um and if not, then we're going to be back to the drawing board looking at an additional space. Um we keep adjusting our parameters. Um you know, uh uh thinking about our different needs,
020you know, could we compromise a little bit on, you know, uh whether they have to go upstairs, whether the elevator is too far away, whether there's more money that we can spend on these issues. So we we keep sort of adjusting the the you know the sliders on the um the requirements there. Um but we just we have not yet been able to to pin that down. I was really hopeful about that shelter rock space. Um but but the last the last conversation we had was that it's it's it's not likely. So um like I said I have another conversation scheduled in the next few days and um I'll know a little bit more at that time. >> Okay. Okay. And so my second question is um over at Beaverbrook when you're talking about replacing
021walls, the ceilings, I'm sorry, the floors, the ceilings, there is a big possibility that you're going to run into a bestice. >> And so has that been figured in to the 255,000? >> Yeah, to my knowledge, there's there's no uh they've already done the inspection. Um, and I would I'll I'll need Rich to verify this, but uh there's been no mention of remediation at this time. Uh, if it does, we'll we'll address it as it emerges, but there there does not appear to be anything at this time that that uh uh needs to be remediated. And and again, I I will confirm with with Rich and the team on that. Um, if they if they did encounter anything, it would have been built into this estimate. >> Okay. I'm just hoping that that's a guarantee.
022And so with the $255,000, where are those funds coming from? >> Those are coming out of our maintenance and repair budget. >> So, was that in the financial report at the meeting yesterday? >> Uh, I I don't I don't know. I >> Yeah, I I wasn't in that conversation yesterday. So just I can maybe help clarify. So Rich Jelbert has his own line item in the regular budget um for over the course of the year. And so as projects emerge, there's planned projects and then projects that are potentially anticipated and then there's unanticipated. And so Rich will use his line for all the planned projects. And as the year unfolds, if there's uh more in there that he has room for, he'll continue to use that. And if there's leftover or excess funds also at
023the end of the year, those can be used for projects like this as well. But um this was something that had been talked about since last year. So this I believe this project in particular, a portion of it is in there. And I think we were all surprised to see how much we could get done for 255,000 to make it operable for for another program. um if we had I think you remember if we had uh included students in this the it's a completely different ballgame because of the requirements of over uh under 18. >> So um this was sort of a a faceelift and some cosmetic changes on the inside to make it clean it up and make it appropriate for the kind of space that an adult program would need. >> Okay. Um
024yeah, I would hope that um you would re uh reach out to Rich or whoever is responsible for that budgeting of the and make sure that any remediation work is included in that that you would not be coming back to the board. >> Sure. >> For additional funds >> um because now we're remediating or prices now have gone up. >> Thank you. Yep, we will certainly do our our due diligence on that. And then just to add what Cara was saying, you know, we did anticipate this when we were putting last year's budget together. So, we did increase the maintenance and repair budget by a little bit. Um, you know, Rich will typically get something, you know, 88 8 $900,000, you know, depending on the year and and and what we know is coming up
025due for repairs. So, we we gave a little bit extra to his budget last year because we anticipated that this was going to be a a project that we'd be taking on. So, it all worked out. All right. Okay. So, now I want to move on. I'm sorry. There was another hand up. Was it Louisa? Did you have your hand up? >> It was me, but Wanita beat me to it. I had the exact same question she did about the asbestous. >> Oh, okay. Great. >> Yeah. >> I'll report back if I hear anything. >> Okay. So, BOE meeting plan and logistics. Uh, so just quick timeline. Uh, this is next Wednesday. The site's meeting starts at 6. Uh we'll be doing about a 30 minute business meeting in the gym. Uh there's a few
026different action items I want to talk about with the rental fund and just give some more general updates on some other projects that we're doing. Um and then we're going to do about a 20-minut tour of Haztown. Uh it'll be principal Ellen Palino, Rich Jalbert, myself, I believe Sean Hanley is going to be there from the city. Um and we may even have a few other uh folks from the facilities team just to provide color and shape to everything that you're seeing. Um, so you can you can kind of see what's you know what's behind uh the school and and how it's working to serve uh the needs of the kids. And that'll give us about 10 minutes to take a little water break, go to the bathroom, whatever, and then uh come back into
027the gym for the 7 o'clock BOE meeting >> question. >> Yep. Go ahead. >> Um and it might be more for Ken. Will there be an opportunity for a virtual for the board event meeting. >> So I I I actually have that coming up here in a future slide. So uh this one will not be recorded or streamed. Um but we will have uh some translation devices that will be providing real-time translation and we will have sound through a portable PA system. So we'll be having the pretty much the the experience of of a board meeting won't feel very different in the room. um except that we won't have it we won't have it streamed or recorded. >> But do we have enough microphones? That was a concern that brought up at the last meeting.
028>> Yep. We uh were able to use a lot of the ones that we had at uh Beaver a few years ago. We bought some supplemental microphones uh because we didn't have enough at the time. So I think we bought Kenny, what was it? eight more that we bought that were wireless. So, we can take that whole unit and and it's portable um and set it up in a different space. Uh and then we have a small portable PA system with speakers that we're going to plug into. And then I I I found a few more and bought a few more uh mics just to have kind of around the room, whether it's, you know, one at the staff tables uh or or to, you know, just to cover the rest of the board members.
029So, um everybody will have a mic in front of them and it'll be wired through the the PA system. Yeah, Wanita. >> Um, I think this is either a question for Louisa or for Carara. Can we legally have a board of ed meeting that is not streamed or recorded? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yes. As long as we're taking the minutes at the meeting, we have no we don't have to have it um streamed or recorded >> and it's public session. So the the meetings are noticed. The public is invited. There's an open public session. >> Yeah. The the streaming is is a >> more of a more modern >> addition uh but not a requirement. >> Could I ask a question? Will board members be able that uh to get on by Zoom? We
030should be able to to have a laptop available. Yes. You know the the quality the some of the concern would be around so if when we are in the gymnasium whether or not there is a strong Wi-Fi signal there is you know each building is very unique. Some of our buildings are rather old uh that don't have as strong a systems in certain locations of the building. So depending where we're located. Um we there may be more challenge uh in some schools than others. Haztown, you know, having uh wireless available uh at the I think we may be able to have um maybe a hotspot or or or something like that to to accommodate that. Glattus I think for the >> again I want to add just add my question is if I get sick
031at 3:00 and I can't make the board meeting is it adding way that I can be hooked up too soon. >> I believe so. I believe so guys. >> Okay. Okay. >> I believe so. >> The rest the rest of you know since it's not streamed no one else will see it but you know you can be set up at the table. I I would just add that the concern is that the the amount of bandwidth a streaming video takes up is much more significant than what a what a Zoom connection would be. So I feel fairly confident that a a a Zoom we could have the owl set up in there. Um and at the very least the audio would would be working. We could set that up through a hotspot. Um and we
032could even run that through a through a cell phone if we if we really needed to and and have that connected to a mic. So Kenny and I will come up with a few troubleshooting scenarios uh just in case that that sort of issue arises. Um but I don't anticipate it being a problem. >> Thank you. >> Louisa, was your hand up? Yeah, I just wanted to um just point out that, you know, these schools were already scheduled for Spotlight. So, we really um didn't have the opportunity to kind of vet beforehand which schools may have been better suited for on location uh board meetings, but hopefully coming into September, we can kind of take a look at the schedule and see like which which um ones will work better. Um, so it's it's really
033I I want to thank everybody for this because this is incredible. Um, but it is a work in progress. So, we're probably going to spend the next few months kind of tweaking and and switching and kind of seeing what fits and what doesn't fit. So, um, you know, and all input is welcome. So, thank you. >> Uh, just a comment, it's not about everything working perfect as we go along. is some things as we go along to do this that I'm thinking about as we spotlight our school and we spotlight Hayestown the pe the parents that children attend Hayestown they're going to be coming to the meeting. So again, my question is, who do we think that's going to be additional to sit in our meeting? And as we move forward, are we going to
034highlight the schools this more than our elementary schools? We talking about the ROC. We talking about schools or students, student rats that come to our board meeting. And some of the students don't even drive. Their parents have to bring. So, you know, I'm just not talking about just one place haz. I'm just talking about as we move forward. It's going to take a lot of tweaking. And I can't think of a parent coming from Shelter Rock or coming from Pimbrook over to Haze Town to a board me. So, just something that you we really need to think about. Those are great points and we'll uh we'll address that as we uh continue moving forward. All right. Okay. So, I'm going to go back a couple slides here just the general plan and logistics. Um, I
035went ahead and I put together a little map of the building just so everybody can can get an orientation here. Um, I'm confident everyone's been to the school. Um, but there are two entrances which can be which can be a little confusing if you if you haven't been there. Um, when you're uh coming up Tamarak, the the the impulse is to turn into this first driveway here on the left and that is the lower level and that is where the gym is. So, we are holding here BOE and handicap parking, but it is limited, but we will be saving spots for for uh handicap and as many board members as we can fit. How many board members can we fit there? Well, we won't know until uh we see how many teachers stay for the
036meeting. Um because that is a teacher lot right here that that gets filled up during the day. Uh but we're going to uh we have the advocate u going out to put cones there as as people leave. Um, and then we'll have that advocate stationed right out here at this blue arrow and he will uh usher people in as long as there are spots. Um, and then when there are no more spots um people have to go up and come around here. You turn on Oak Lane and then you come down um to where the roundabout is here. And there's parking all in this area um on this top um yellow box here for general parking. So, um depending on which entrance you enter in, uh this uh public entry level here is on the
037upper level and the gym is actually on the lower level. So, if you come in here, right off Tamarak and you park right here, you'll be able to walk right into the gym. It'll be 10 15 steps and you'll be right at your seat. Um if you come this way, uh you'll be in the the upstairs area and then this is where you'll enter. You'll come right down here. Um you can either use these stairs here or you can come down and use our new elevator uh which is at the end of this hallway. Um the safety advocate will uh take you down and then you'll walk right back out over here to um this is where the gym is right here. So you'll just uh go down the hallway. So um if you get
038there early, I think there's a really good chance you'll get into this um staff parking area here. Um, and if you get there right before the board meeting, there's probably a better uh more likelihood that you'll end up up here in the general parking. Um, but both of these are available. We'll have a safety advocate hit at at the main entrance here, the public entry. We'll also have a safety advocate here at the gym um letting select people in um down by this uh gym entry here. So, any questions about the the logistics? >> So, let me be clear. If I park right in the front and I think I've been over there and you can enter in the first front door, you can go straight to the gym. >> Yes. >> Am I correct?
039Okay. >> Correct. Thank you. >> Yeah. You'll you'll be you'll be right back here, Glattus. We're going to make sure you have a spot right back here by the door. >> All right. >> Oh, Mike, I have a quick question. >> Yep. >> On the translating devices. >> Yeah. because I know we've never had translators at at our board meetings, at least the last five years that I've been on the board. So, can you kind of um is are are these the AI ones that we have >> and and how do they actually work? >> So, yeah, that's a great question. We have the AI devices, but we haven't fully tested them, so I'm not comfortable putting them into play yet. The current AI devices we have, it's one device per phone. So the the
040person using the device has to have the app on their phone. They have to download it. Then it has to sync through Bluetooth. It could be a little cumbersome. If someone's pretty savvy, they can do it probably in a minute or two. Um but if we're trying to, you know, coach a group of 15 people through it, it it it may get a little clunky. So um Ken and I are doing some testing. Um and we're also reaching out to the company to see if they have a sort of hub that would let us control, you know, 10 devices at once. um we don't think the AI ones are quite are quite ready for um prime time in the board meetings until we do a little bit more testing with them. So, we're going to
041be using the u the other uh translation devices. Uh one of the um ELP teachers there uh uh is going to be staying to do real-time translation. And these are the ones that we have used in the past. Um when when we have translators, it's um it's those uh they look like the UN earpieces. you know, you just hold it. There's a person kind of standing off to the side doing real time translation. Um there's no time lag. It's just, you know, it's it's it's real time and the person is translating and then anybody who has um the earpiece can hear it. So, we'll be using those those devices at this meeting and then over the course of the year as we work out any bugs with the AI devices or figure out a more
042fluid way to use them, uh we'll we'll slowly start testing those in the in the meetings until we feel confident that those can fully replace the real-time translator. So, is this something we want to incorporate in our uh board meetings on site as well, or is this something that I I mean, if we're going to offer it, is this something that we want to offer full-time? >> We certainly could. Um, I would I would leave that up to, you know, the to the board to decide if that's something that that that they want to do. Um, you know, it is it is bringing in another person. it is, you know, somebody who, you know, would be, you know, getting paid hourly to stand there and and and do the real time trans uh translation, but
043if um if it's something we decide we want to do, we we could certainly move forward with it. >> Okay, just a thought. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Okay. Um I think I got everything on this slide here. Additional custodian will be there to help with setup and cleanup. So the uh the typical night custodian there um isn't distracted from normal duties. Um translation uh yeah two safety advocates sound meeting will not be recorded. I think that's all I have. That's my presentation. >> Does anyone else have any questions for C uh for Mike's? Any uh comments? Well, I want to thank everybody for coming on tonight. Um, I think it was a a good start of the uh community relations uh committee and uh I I really look forward to uh I too had
044some questions at the beginning of posting the board meeting in a different location but uh as we go through it um I think we're we're headed in on the right direction and uh I think also gives us an opportunity to look forward to uh other uh other locations. So, I just want to wish everybody uh good night and uh be safe out there, whatever you're doing. Thank you. >> We need a motion to adjurnn. >> Oh, thank you, Glattus. Uh >> motion to adjourn. >> A motion to adjurnn. >> Has to come from the uh from the members. So, it would be Minnie or S uh >> that was me. Sydney. >> Yes. I motion. Okay. Send a motion. Who second it? >> Second.