001the selection of a chairperson for the community relation committee and i would support um Kate caneta as chairperson for this committee I need a motion I'll support that motion okay Al I need a second I will second okay Kate you can follow with the agenda all right thank you very much uh certainly appreciate the opportunity to um help this uh committee move forward um so Dr selig I'm GNA turn the meeting over to you and Dr me I believe you have some updates for us on what's happening in terms of community activity please yes uh we've got uh three more items on tonight's agenda we'll just provide some updates um Dr me will provide some updates from her Department uh we'll talk a little bit about the budget and then uh some other strategies for
002advocating for advocating for the budget and a few of the other things happening uh legislatively that we feel like are going to um help our funding position this year so um Dr me if you don't mind sure good evening everyone it's great to be with you um tonight so couple of different community events that we have coming up first that on April 5th at Rogers Park there will be an early childhood fair this is being run by um action Early Learning Center we wanted to do it earlier this year so that we had um the ability of families to be there early to look at summer opportunities for their children our next one is our very own family University will be held on April 26 from 9 to 2 at Rogers Park and both of
003these um both of these events are wonderful opportunities I know Kate you've been there in the past to Family University where the board set up a table um that you had uh chairs there where um families could come and sit with you you had note cards of concerns you put together some really nice charting where folks were able to put down their concerns and have that dialogue with you we would certainly um advocate for that to be done again that was one of the the highlights of what our families really liked in being able to have those one onone or one on two or you know one on small group conf Sation with board members um I think you found it very well uh to to be time well spent I know Mrs Cooper you
004were there uh last year and a lot of families um spent time with you um our next thing would be to bring back in the um Erica Haynes group the school and state finance project to do some more workshops there are some general workshops on how to Advocate um in your community and a at and at state level level for um budget making we can certainly um collect those and send those out in the office of family school Community Partnerships uh weekly blast out to parents um so if they're feeling the need to get more training or to understand the process those would be workshops that would be really good for them um my next point would be um to use any points of contacts that our P our Citywide po PTO has um you
005know the March meeting is coming up uh soon again um Cara did an absolute wonderful presentation on the budget um at the beginning of February I think having that type of dialogue um at smaller PTO meetings at that are school-based would be very very helpful I know some of our PTO are rather small but there's other ones that gather a fair amount of families um to be able to sit and listen to a short presentation whether we can get it in different lines languages or not would be great um so those would certainly be things that could be done during March and April the last thing that I hear a lot from the community they and I know that Mr janelli has been um this has always been one of his thing if we could
006um either my department work with Mike and Mike and Kate um with this group um is to put together two or three talking points so people know what to say when to stay who to address it to not anything political in Contents but who you know who are our city council people okay yes we can give them the site to go look at but the these are things that I'm hearing from um our ESL students at night they're not really sure who they should talk to um what they should say to them when they are talking to them so if we can put together just a very simple card um our department would be glad to do something like that you mean Dr me and reference specifically to the budget correct yeah yeah absolutely absolutely
007thank you yeah kind of like a cheat sheet that you keep in your pocket and when you run into someone or you're out at one of these um different community events whether it be at church or something that you're doing internally with you know a group of folks who can fill out this card and speak to the items that are on it thank you Dr y you're very welcome thanks an yeah so uh the next item on the agenda was a budget overview now this was originally a meeting scheduled for a couple weeks ago um so this agenda was actually crafted prior to the passage of the budget so we plan to talk a little bit more about the details um but what I'll share is that you know everybody knows here it passed on
008January 22nd it became the board of education budget um and it has since been sent up to the city um we are working on the final details of the budget book uh we expect that book to be completed next next week we'll be sharing it with all the board members and the city council and then a few other for um key committee me uh community members um and that'll contain all the information that we presented in the um in the presentations that we made uh to finance and the full Board of Education um as well as the line item details that you saw in last year's book it's going to look a lot like last year's book um because the reception we received on that one was was generally positive it it had just the
009right balance of kind of narrative and and overview um as well as the the you kind of three-year Trend historical data in the back and um we felt that that was the the most effective tool for for delivering what could be often times a pretty pretty difficult thing to understand so uh we hope to have those all to you um probably in the first week of March so uh last but not least uh strategies for advocacy so um a couple things happening right now um you know a budget is not just about what's happening the local level uh as much as the Lion Share of that budget's going to going to come um from the general the general funds going to come from the city council um a significant amount of funding is going to
010come from the state as well um so we've been working with our um lobbyists uh on some bills that we think could actually bring uh some significant dollars to the district um there's two bills right now that um we provided testimony for uh one was um HB 6869 and and that is a a bill for um uh dual credit uh Early College um so we uh we submitted some testimony that this would be an incredible bill for us um because uh so much of the academy work that we're um that we're launching um is dual credit um and if some of those dollars could go towards dual credit um we could see a significant um portion of that those credits uh paid for or covered um by the state depending on what the ultimate language
011of that bill is that was uh one one bill we submit a testimony for um there was another bill uh 6864 which was the governor's general education budget um so us and and um I think there were several uh over a 100 people I know uh members of the city um testified on this bill at the Appropriations Committee last week um just talking about the the need for more funding um changing the um the ECS formula so that it's more favorable to districts like Danbury um so those are those are two bills we're watching that we're we're hopeful would be able to bring enough dollars to potentially offset um what we need the city to provide um cab is sponsoring a day on the hill on March 12 Mike I'm sorry I'm so sorry to
012interrupt Mike but I just a quick question for you I know that there's also a bill moving through session right now that pertains to special education funding in particular did you have any feedback on that uh the feedback I can give you is that everybody's talking about this one Cara please jump in if I missed anything um this one's probably getting the most Buzz out of any bill um we're supporting testimony on this bill as well and uh we will yeah hopefully just get more information as it comes through this is really early stages of the um of the session it's where you know in in and I I've learned the way Connecticut Works um a lot of these bills will um never actually get put into law as the bills as they stand but
013there's a big implementor Bill at the end where if you make sufficient noise early on then that language will kind of go into this big kind of omnius Bill at the end with funding attached to it um special ed might actually be one of those bills that passes through on its own power um so this is of of course the um the um um acccess cost uh formula for special ed where we get a significant portion of special ed cost back from the state and this bill would actually change the equation to help again uh be more favorable to towns like Danbury so we would see more we're still trying to figure out just you know the the because the the the equation for this is is the formula is pretty complicated so we're still
014trying to figure out if they push on this it makes it look like this goes up but then this goes down and you know there's so many different ways to to figure these things we're still you know working with our lobbyist to figure out you know what what the language would be that would be most favorable to standberry I think I'm bringing this up Dr kesmir did you have something no I just just to mention I think there's some background yeah thank you um the just the there is a um right now the governor has allocated 40 million dollars to help with you know covering the excess cost um and I believe that's there's some immediate benefit to that and then there's uh money I believe that's contributed to the second year of the bium
015uh budget and what the excess cost and this is where there's a lot of uh consternation around the rising the rapid rising cost of education outplacement tuition there's no control there's no cap on this uh there's limited facilities everyone's scrambling for slots at certain at facilities um and therefore the you know there's a supply and demand kind of uh thing that's happening with that so the excess cost piece is really refers to the contribution that the school district is responsible for up to four and a half times the average cost of the student of of a typical student for the year so you need'd be able to apply for that you know once you reached Beyond four and a half times what you would normally spend for a typical student um you're eligible to receive
016that amount back to the school system it actually goes through through to the city and the city either you know passes it back to you in the next budget or however the city decides to to work that um but for us um there's a possibility if everything goes smoothly we'll get between 300 and $400,000 this year potentially um with final approval and then any additional monies you know coming forth um you know will be able to recoup some cost depending on the percentage that the state is willing to reimburse us at all the superintendant everybody across the state is going for 100% reimbursement of excess cost so uh it remains to be seen where that's going to fall but in the it seems as if the governor is um has put some effort towards um
017this to some capacity so Still Remains to be seen thank you for the longwinded no that's okay it's good um it's important for people to understand how these things operate and I just want to bring some number information to this discussion when we talk about four and a half times the cost of educating um a student in our district that's about $76,000 give or take so every dollar that we spend as a district Beyond $76,000 on a single student yeah that's what we can submit to the state for reimbursement of the costs and historically that percentage has been anywhere from 40% to 70% on the dollar y so that means every dollar we spend above $76,000 we can get between 40 and 7 cents back per dollar and so then when they talk about that
018100% funding we'd be talking about trying to get you know dollar dollar what we're spending um but also just to to get some context here um when we talk about a $40 million allotment for special education um it sounds like a lot but when you talk about the cost of tuition for outplaced of a student which can run easily up to you know 300 $350,000 you're really translating to about 2025 students that would be um that the cost of their outplacement could be covered so it's really not as much as it sounds like it's not right and and it's it's it's a growing you know it's a growing concern and we you know our numbers our percentage of our numbers in Danberry we we've hovered around 14% for a very long time this year we
019uptick the a little bit to 15 a little 15% um but it's but of the 15% um we are seeing more significant situations that require some more out placements and you know On Any Given year you can have two three four five or six students move into a district that that were responsible for that need uh several hundred, placement um so it can swing budgets dramatically uh and then the smaller districts in particular I mean it could it could have dramatic effects so um there's a lot of movement around this right now to try to get some some relief on this um they're asking for other things like cap uh tuition cap costs um they're asking for more state run facilities to kind of reduce the cost so that it's more more predictable so there's
020a there's a lot of discussion thank you very much sure sorry to interrupt Mike you were talking about on the hill on March 12th great great great big topic yeah no I was just going to say you know and you know as as is always the case with State funding the the funding always lacks the need by a few years right we know Alliance was a couple years behind uh you know sped access cost is going to be a couple years behind and you know you just have to hope that they come out big enough to you know make a make a real dent in it even if it you know it's not everything so um okay March 12th is our cave day on the hill um that's going to be sort of a breakfast
021meeting and the the way it works is uh and I and I hope uh board members will join us as we go up there um there's going to be a lot of folks from from cab and also surrounding districts um at that meeting and uh we'll go into a room and they'll bring through a bunch of the legislators that serve on the Ed committees and the Appropriations Committee um and we'll get a chance to to ask questions and you know and and be heard um so that's uh March 12th and uh Cara Pompano will be reaching out to see if anyone's interested in joining us um I will be up there and uh hope to see uh board members as well um we are still working on a danburry day uh I was uh chatting
022with uh rep Santos um who's who's trying to spear HUD this for us we don't have a day yet uh but we're hopeful we will and we'll send that information out um to the board and of course the broader Community um as soon as that day is set and then back to local um we have two dates on the calendar uh for uh City Hall uh April 1 will be the day that um the Board of Ed presents their budget to the city council and then the actual vote on the budget uh on the full mayor's budget will be on May 6th so those are some upcoming dates to just have in your calendar absolutely thank you very much Dr seelig um I certainly would invite the community at large um to be present for
023that April 1 meeting um we do expect that there will be an opportunity to speak about um the budget request from the board and the city budget as well um that has yet to be scheduled but there is typically a public hearing that happens uh within a week or two of the council meeting and that is a great opportunity for anybody who is interested in expressing their thoughts on it uh to share that with the F with the council that's that's there thanks K and we'll certainly provide updates if we've already had one date change on that if anything changes we'll certainly notify the committee and and the community as well so thank you very much Dr Cel um there questions from any of uh the committee members here okay seeing none any questions from
024anyone else who's present in the room with us today I would just like uh know not so much as a question but as we move forward to inform the parents about the budget I think it would be a great idea as we did last year I think at Broadview where the parents came in we had a little bit of this for the children and use that type of encouragement to get parents to come out even if we have to Bas paint the kids or do whatever we had to do and it was an overall good session and I think you're not going to be able to get everyone to the different Affairs but if you get a smaller group that comes in and can you can dialogue with them and they more or less understand
025it and they can take back to their Community whoever they dealing with and and encourage them to go to the next one that we having so I don't know what the uh suggestion is for setting up a community uh um workshops not so much workshop for the budget but I think we have to have them done in the community in order for people that not like us that so many of us don't understand the budget in detail to really understand and to understand what we are asking for and why we need that money thank you gladus I couldn't agree more um we talked about uh the possibility of setting a date um I certainly you know would want to defer to Dr Casmir Ro schedule because I think she's a really important part of getting
026that information out there um and she does a really wonderful job of explaining in a way that is accessible to people which is super important um I agree the the presentation last year at Broadview I think was very helpful in activating folks um so I guess I wonder if we could look at schedules and we don't have to do it right now um because I understand there's a lot going on but um you know I think we could take that conversation up and and work together as a committee um and as a full board truthfully because I think that that the budget is something that requires all of our support um to bring a opportunity like that forward again right yeah and and I'm thinking just from a timing wise perspective you know that maybe
027that last week of March that kind of is a a good week to build a lot of awareness um and then you know the following week you have opportunities folks will have opportuni to kind of engage at the city level with the things that are starting to happen in April so if we maybe Target that last week of March um I think that would be a good week to talk about we can certainly take a look at what's available um if you know we can we can do in person we can do a zoom Community conversation uh the inperson inperson is is good we tend to not have as many people come um but we can also televise it you know we can have Ken maybe you know make sure that it goes live so
028for the folks who who can't come and participate in person um we could have it broadcast and then have that video that we can put on the website for anybody else who couldn't make it and we can you know continue to circulate the video um with you know going over the budget folks Q&A um it'll be a little harder to pull off um a more involved um student piece now that the school year started but certainly you know we could probably try to pull off a little face painting and try to see if we can get some some of our high school folks to come and make sure that the kids that get dropped off in the cafeteria are safe um you know we might not be able to do the food this time there
029was a lot about allergies and stuff it was a complex very complex thing if we had a little more time we could probably pull it off but um definitely we can we can come up with some modified activities so that parents can enjoy listening to the budget without um you know and having the kids make sure that they're occupied for for a good hour with the we can pull that off well looking ahead at the calendar it looks like uh March 26 so that would be the the Wednesday right before um our April 1 meeting um that is a community relations meeting is set up to be right before the Board of Ed regular meeting so that's a Wednesday night so um you know maybe we could do something to jump on that maybe you
030know we could back it up an hour or two and have it at a school closer to dismiss so I know I think there's some some ways to play with that or maybe do a zoom um right then as well um invite the community so um we could just a few options any possibility of converting that meeting yeah yeah I don't see why not maybe start at 5:45 do a zoom and um just what do you mean not so much but um to have it in person somewhere Mike and have at a school yeah I think that work yeah meeting at that school right afterwards yeah we could do we could try that trying to think I we've done Broadview library before it worked out seems to be okay so all right let's look into
031that and then and let's see what we can you know make sure there's no no other events happening uh at the school so just so just so I understand we're talking about maybe doing a present uh closer to the end of the school day and then scheduling the community relations meeting for that same location or are we talking about something else I I think it's using the community relations meeting to have the presentation to do the presentation yeah okay okay thank you I appreciate the clarification we get yeah we can continue to talk about it offline a little bit and make sure everything's available and what our options are that week and if not certainly there's some other opportunities that week um Tuesday evening would would also work as well so I know that last
032time we did this we tried to schedule something on a weekend day um because I know that it can be tough with uh you know parent schedules and that kind of thing um and I certainly appreciate you know the time that that you you guys both offer to the the community at large um so I don't want to put additional pressure there but I just want to throw that out as food for thought to do it on the weekend potentially yeah yeah yeah I mean I'm looking at the 29th we could we can definitely think about that as well um yeah we could we could definitely look to see what we have on the on the weekend I know we were quite ambitious with our planning last time uh to your point and maybe it
033doesn't have to be quite as ambitious maybe it could be you know an hour or two and and that's that um right but I do think you know that inperson contact is also can be very important for folks agreed yep like a Saturday morning yeah okay you know Mike when is the parent University don't me it's a it's too late it's passed okay oh and that's the 26 which is a conflict for me okay right I was thinking that could be a you know a session all right a running session in in that look I'll look into that as well okay all right Mike and I will do a little reconnaissance on buildings rentals who's available and how that might play out that week all right thank you very much and you can certainly pick
034that conversation up uh via email sure great all right uh any questions or concerns from anybody on the call at this point all right seeing none I will look for a motion to adjourn please I will be happy to make that motion thank you Al make your motion at 7:28 uh may I have a second please I have second motion thank you gladus uh all those in favor please signify by saying I I I thank you everybody for coming out this evening I appreciate your time