001oh re that arms I pledge to the of the United States of America the rep it stands Nation God indivisible withy and justice for all order arms poost right [Applause] march on behalf of the board we certainly would like to thank our RC for being here um and to support and and due diligence to our people that have served our country and have done service within our community and we appreciate the young people taking time out their schedule to be here with us uh do we have a sign up list back there for someone that want to speak roll call please okay Al pres Teresa pres Michelle here Kate here Gladis here Dr Cronin here Lauren here Monita here Rich Holly here Rich janelli here and Louisa here thank you all we have 11 board
002members present tonight and it's good to see Dr cor back with us thank you we're going to move on down our agenda at this time we're going to have a recognition Spotlight your school m r Prim [Applause] here good evening good evening I'm excited to be here tonight to Spotlight mrid primary and sitting behind me is exactly what I wanted to Spotlight to you the most so if you work at M primary you could please stand up for a second so the room is filled tonight with people who make our school great people who love our school are dedicated and are so proud to highlight it that they came out at 7 o' on a Wednesday night um and we are excited to show you tonight what makes us special so my name is Michelle
003tarsy I'm the principal at M Prim um and I became the new leader of this school right in the heart of a pandemic and this head is not about me but I just say that because in the early days at my school my job was to make sure we stayed apart from each other to make sure we had Shields between us to make sure nobody came inside to make sure family stayed out um and so the moment that we were able to come back together I wanted nothing more than to build our community back to what it was before I started there um over the last few years a large focus of ours has been to bring us all back together so together we've created opportunities to bring our staff together professionally and personally we've
004developed ways to bring our whole school Community together we've helped to bring our families back into our building and help to reconnect with our community MRP is a really special place and we have a lot of things worth spotlighting I could not reasonably fit it all into a f minute video the first time I recorded it it was 10 um so I encourage you to come visit us and see for yourself what makes us special but tonight we made a video to show you the magic that happens in our school every day did you know that mil Rich primary is one of Dan's only two primary schools here's a sneak peek into what makes our school so special our school is home to 352 students in kindergarten to grade three 106 of those students are
005multilingual Learners they are also supported by a highly skilled team of certified staff members and support professionals we are greeted by happy and smile smiling faces every day our amazing staff makes learning happen and they create awesome memories too collectively our staff has over 550 years of service to the Danbury public schools somewh more than 35 years when you walk in the doors of MRP you will see a Bulldog core values that we develop together Bulldogs are safe respectful responsible kind and hard work our students stay our Bulldog chant daily and we all hold ourselves accountable for following our values watch as we say and sign it together [Applause] [Music] each month we have a b dog family meeting where we talk about what our values look like and sound like in action we also
006celebrate students who have shown our core value of the month and those who have been working hard to make academic growth sometimes we get special visitors at our Bulldog meetings as well our school has a high level of family engagement which is supported by a strong PTO we come together for events like trunk Retreat movie Nights story nights family bingo and family fun nights Traditions are important to us and we have several each November our third graders host the Milbridge primary Thanksgiving Day Parade we draft the plan and create our balloons for the parade each spring our entire School Community is given a copy of the same book and we all read it together everyone from the bus driver in the morning to the custodians at lunch are talking with the students about the book
007this has been an amazing opportunity for our school Community to share a love of reading our learning gets enhanced through visits with some of our school's local Partners we have partnered with groups such as the playmaking children class from Westcon the dander Women's Club and hatrick the Danberry hatrick taught us about hard working and never giving up Jack Drake the Danbury weather Guy taught us about his job and the technology he uses to predict the weather we work with our neighbors at Westside Middle School too during the holidays our school staff families and local business business come together to help provide meals and gifts for our community each day our Young Learners are working to bring the danry portrait of a graduate attributes to life we are Learners our students love learning new things and
008grow their literacy and numeracy skills every day our teachers are Learners too they work collaboratively and share powerful instructional practices our diversity team helps us learn about and celebrate the many cultures that are represented in our school we are learning to work with others to be active listeners and respect different opinions we are teaching students how to have productive conversations that push their thinking forward we practice [Music] in enrichment in classes running by our library media specialist m steart during this time we are giv stem challenges our students communicate and collaborate as they persevere to complete each task even when our students are engaging in play they work together to come up with imaginative solutions to breast our teachers ask us to work together to solve problems in math and science we also work together
009to solve problems in our school it is our vision that MRI primary is a safe place where all students can and will reach academic Mastery every student every day no matter what so what is clickup clickup isn't all so that's just a peek into what school is like at M primary [Music] questions sh I just want to say first of all thank you to all the staff that came out tonight that's an amazing amazing display of support and it really speaks to the culture that you built in that school especially coming out of the pandemic um you know I've had a chance to work in Michelle's school and just there recently um doing some rounds and popping in to do a a story and I can't tell you how much um the the energy that
010that's in the classrooms and the joy of learning that I see when I walk in to your school the teachers seem happy the students seem happy when you walk in nobody misses a beat when another adult's in the room they're used to adults coming in and out all the time um and they engage so so nicely with them so um I just want to say thank you for all that you're doing at no Ridge and again thank you to the staff for coming out and supporting supporting your school thank you thank you so hey guys um milridge is where both of my kids started and we um because milridge is why I'm here today sitting on the board so thanks lady um but I just it's such an amazing schol and I'm so fortunate cry
011um now my kids were able to go through that school and I was in there twice last week and it's just so amazing it's it's just fantastic and I I don't know who had more fun being there on Friday being here the children every time we turned around it was like oh let's take a picture let's take a picture right Michelle so I just thank you guys for all that you do and I just hope that all the other children in the district are just having an amazing time just like the children at Mid so thank you you thank you so much love you with a Giant armadillo so it was the police officers had to read after her and they were like oh I have to follow thank you for giving us a chance
012to show you our scho thank you we going to move on down the agenda with public uh participation the board welcomes public participation and ask the comments be limited to 3 minutes the public may offer objected comments of school operations and programs that concerned the board will not perit any expressions of personal complaints or defamatory comments about Board of Education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the D Public School System uh just a note if you have a comment we as board members and the Acting Superintendent does not dialogue back and forth with you if you have a concern and uh the decision would be made to contact you or have a discussion with you thank you first on the uh list is I think it's car Caroline I'm sorry thank you
013hi guys uh my name is Caroline ston um and I am a member of the Democrats Club at D high school and so our topic for this week um that we went to the meeting for is mental health and I think a lot of like things not just mental health but just like like student personal hygiene and student um General like morale like it it stems back to funding as like all of you are like probably aware and support of but the main thing that it stems from is um like specifically more than just funding is like having proper Administration and enough guidance counselors in the school because our guidance counselors have over a 100 the national average for how many they should have um we are incredibly understaff I believe there are two crisis
014counselors and maybe one school psychiatrist and we have some students there and that's really unproportional and that's really not right especially considering that a lot of Danberry is low income and uh and being like low income and a bunch of other factors can you know really weigh on the morale of a student um with our counselors we do have some of them are helpful and great people but at the same time with their workload they're not really able to put as much focus on some students issues as they should my personal example is I had an issue with another student um where many things happened but one of those things she literally talked to other students about like her plan and how she wanted to like hit me with a car and when I told
015the when I went to the administration about it with this issue I was told to not worry about it because what are the chances of that happening and it was really discouraging and it really weighed on my mental health for a while I think that if she was showed consequences which she wasn't then um I would have felt like safer and like easier throughout my school day I spent a lot of time thinking about it that I wish I didn't and well I don't think that um the like counselor the um admin who handled it are inherently bad people I do think that they made this decision based off of the circumstances which they work in because there are more issues at DHS that can be pressing on them like there are a lot of
016fights and there's a lot of displ and stuff a lot of drug use and whatnot um and then in the midst of you know um College admissions at the moment they the counselors probably have a lot of stuff to go on where like if something isn't necessarily like a physical issue it wouldn't be as pressing it wouldn't be Tak this seriously so if we had more counselors um it would be way easier to deal with like all the issues and like handle disciplinary um behaviors earlier because I also think that DHS does not do a good enough job of addressing disar problems early on and that's how it escalates to be as far as like physical fights all the time and you know destroying school property all the time breaking laws on school property all
017the time and in addition to not just like bullying issues I think that um having more counselors and more admin would make them have more personal relationship with student and it definitely would give them time to focus and increase the graduation rate and increase like employment after graduation and help them with a lot of other issues and I think that they're not able to focus on students if um they have more than they can handle okay thank you and thank you um Carolyn for bringing the issues to the board thank [Applause] you good evening everyone um my name is Amy couch and I'm a senior at D high school and one of the co-presidents of the UNICEF Club there um in the past few weeks gting from class to class has been increasingly difficult due
018to the growing number of fights between students they've become so frequent that sometimes I feel the need to change my rout to school to avoid encountering the masses that surround them and based on this it's app parent that the need for more safety measures needs to be cated to these fights have not only affected students as even teachers have been caught in crossfires of them and I believe that the district can improve their allocations of funds as many students including myself feel that they can be better dist shed to to address the safety concerns School these underly ISS instilled a fear and an uncertainty uncertainty sorry among the majority of the SN body and just today there was another fight in the school where some students near the conflict were terrified as the sound of
019the Slams on the loers were easily misinterpreted for gunshots one half the classroom was um like Center to the back because they were in fear while the other half were just totally confused at what was happening the classrooms other floor of the building were also disrupted in the process as people from downstairs felt that it was similar to the sound of the Stampede an increase of police officers and safety Advocates would do nothing other than Foster stent safety they can collaborate and proactively identify any underlying issues and sources contributing to these problems whether through mediation counseling or interventions and their simple presence not only prevents potential conflicts from arising but also has a sense of reassurance for student and St the current allocation of funds within the district seems misguided because the majority of it
020is portion toward funding theem rather than addressing specific C need ATS while Investments toward theem are undoubtly important the safety and willbe of students and staff should be the district's utmost priority by Distributing funds enhan security measures and support systems for students facing behavioral issues at school we can a safer and more conducive enironment for everyone as students I feel that we deserve to all feel safe and suppor in our schools and that it's imperative that District takes action to address these safety concerns and prioritize the mental states of everyone their Community by working together we can create a safe space for everyone who Thrive academically and emotionally in thank you thank [Applause] you we want to hear hear your concerns we're asking that you at least abide by our 3 minutes okay and then
021if there's no one else who wants to speak we can come back around if you want an issue to bring before the board okay we don't want to stop you in the middle of your uh bringing your concerns to the board but we're trying to have our agenda in a pattern so we can move on with the other item on our agenda but again if no one else want to speak in with in a time frame we will let you come back and and uh continue with uh your presentation that you want bring thank you I have another Caroline I think okay hi my name is Caroline a sophomore at High School throughout the term of mental health and DHS I think that DHS need to do a better job in focusing on the mental
022health of their students I think that mental health is a very important topic and that everyone should prioritize mental health students especially should prioritize taking care the mental health because staying in school for almost 7 hours a day for 5 days a week is tiring and stressful if a students mental health is not properly cared for that there would be negative results moreal students learning in a bad way students may be distracted more easily or might be difficult for them to concentrate in class and in their studies students need support so that they know that they have someone there for them not everyone at school has someone at home that will support them in their school what they want to do in college what they want to do in life so students need care because
023their El might act out and start problems at school students might start to show aggressive behavior and a attitud towards the teaches and not only do students need support but they also need to know that they matter many students also are facing difficulties with their mental health because of the expectations they shed on to them expectations that come from parents and teachers that compare students to other students when students don't meet the expectations that are forced onto them most of the time they experience depression and other mental issues and he the create programs and times at school where students can relax their minds things such as coloring listening to music meditating and other things that help common mind should be available to all students if DHS focuses on helping students mental health then they will
024have students that are active in their school learning and that are happy happy students mean a happy Mar when DHS provides your student with the right support and care they will have students that are ready to engage in the class and school activities students don't have time to think about their mental heal because they have they using their time to try and maintain their grades so that they can make it to college and did a good job Den high school should do more in helping its students mental health so that everyone is happy everyone is safe and everyone is doing more at school thank thank you Mar hi I'm Mar and I'm Junior at nare High School do I have my off days I have my off days where I sit down and I don't
025act like myself and I don't want or better said can't do anything sometimes I'm just too tired to do the things that I love and I have to do the assignments because if not I fall behind in my education I used to be a straight student now I mostly have Aid's because I still want to meet the standard honestly it's tired I'm tired and it's not a tiredness that sleeping it off or shaking it off just it won't fix it and many our students in D High School struggle with the same thing with their mental health many believing that they cannot speak to someone or take their mental health day because when they come back that gracious two mental health days for semester they are just overwhelmed with the and when they do decide to
026take mental health days oh I have a testing class oh I have a quiz I have a presentation it's exhausting it's draining and right now today Wednesday I don't know if I can make it to Friday and still complete all my assignments as everybody at dber high school does a lot of students struggle with mental health and there's not a lot of counselors and resources that can help a lot of students because for example I didn't even meet my counselor till this year because they are so busy with everything else and I do not blame them for that but it does they do have a really huge workload that's why I'm asking of everyone to instead of pushing students to their wit's end provide more Mental Health Counselors that are certified give more Outreach sources
027to children at their Mar High School give more training to counselors who are already in the building to help with their mental health people Endeavor at high school they need resources and also please try to specify in the handbook that the student should be given this absence day as their absence and give them the day to rest because a lot of students need that and instead of shutting them down and making them go back to class met give them better resources to reach out to others thank you for your time and I hope that you'll take this thank [Applause] you hello my name is Mackenzie and I'm a sophomore at derury high school the stigma around mental health is something that has greatly affected me years I know there are so many high schoolers who
028degree with me when my mental health started declining in middle school I was too scared to say anything when you dug yourself so far into a ho you can't even reach out to your closest friends and family it's so difficult to get out of it I was a Straight A Student of my entire life the smart kid who was involved in clubs theater and sports I loved school and I used to throw a fit when I was sick because I couldn't go sorry Mom over theast years none of those things were important to me anymore and nobody understood why because I didn't know how to talk about it retired mentally and physically I get home at night whether it's after theater dance or hours on hours of therapy and I'm too exhausted to talk to
029my family let alone get my large load of work done some teachers understand when I tell them what's been going on but taking a step to advocate for myself when the stigma around team's mental health is so thick becomes to of my shoulders and many others in a school with over 3,000 kids close to 4,000 I know that it's impossible for everyone to have constant access to support from counselors but honestly some of the best support I've ever gotten was from teachers like Miss Loren who has taken the time to listen and help however she possibly could we need more teachers like her teachers who care we need a space where we can feel safe and heard without the fear of being judged IDE more counselors would be the best case scenario but it's definitely
030not the easiest so sitting here today I urge you please allow for more accessible training for teachers regarding mental health teach them how they can lend a helping hand and be lenient when counselors aren't available too many of us are just searching for a reason to get up in the morning so give us one after all of this I ask you to please consider my recommendations and I thank you for my time thank you have you all know know me by now have friends um first of all thank you um when I was here it's almost a month ago now um I know that I was heard I know I Was Heard because Mr C you showed up in my classroom Mr ala I heard you're in in the building um Dr casiro you've been
031in a building multiple times since that um so I know my concerns were heard and I appreciate the I invite you all all to come see what it's like even if you've been in DHS before I guarantee what it looks like right now is very different than what it looked like a year ago two years ago so on and so um sorry I tears my eyes because I was not expecting before um nevertheless there's a a group of students who are here tonight as you've heard talking about mental health and um I just wanted to say that we have they are so right on the money our our teachers workload is overwhelming our counselors workload is overwhelming and it's been overwhelming for a long time since I've been at DH as it's been overwhelming and
032I know it was overwhelming long before that if you think about it there are 180 school days right if they saw one student for an actual like real meeting during our Flex class for example 30 minute meeting they'd only get to 180 of them there are many students who never see their counselor until their senior year um and then there are many that need really need mental health support especially since Co it's it's 10 times worse than was before Co um our coun ERS need a smaller case load they need to be able to have time to run small groups to address student needs um for a variety of reasons um so again I along with my concern about safety I'm asking once again the board to consider putting more financial resources towards these means
033for our students um and also our staff thank you so much I appreciate it thank you this ends uh the list that I have that people signed up to speak uh if there's anyone would like to speak I'll give you two three minutes and come real quick three minutes I really just de speak on the spot so sorry lru I say I'm kayin Alexander I'm a junior at D high school and I'm I'm here to talk about like the counselors at the school I think that we do need a lot more counselors than we do have like uh especially with the mental mental health counseling like I remember in my freshman year I did my uh freshman counselor uh she pulled me like two times to talk about my mental health and like well I
034do appreciate the effort that she put in to like um she read some of my work and like noticed that I needed some help but um with like the time we had it was only like short 15 minute meetings and it really uh the conversations that we had weren't personal enough for me to really feel like I could open up and it really didn't feel like it solved any of my problems and with mental health days um I'm sure I'm not certain on this we only get like two or some days and like even when you do take them um with like the amount of classes that you have that day that you're missing out on it only creates more stress because then you have to work on catching up with whatever um classes that
035you miss and so like it's just like an unending cycle you never feel like it's not even worth taking a mental health day and um with like uh cuz I have like a different counselor now than freshman year and she has like over aund students I've only met with her once and it she doesn't have enough time to really like get to know you and with like this is a little separate from mental health but like with she like I feel like she doesn't know me well enough and some colleges have began to like require letters of wck from uh from like counselors and so if she doesn't have like that connection with me even like let say a teacher she wouldn't be able to write like as well of a recommendation and that's thing
036continuously on my mind and I just feel like one minute yeah that's pretty much all I have to say I think that we thank you kaay this closes our public participation part of the agenda we're going to move on down to the um if anyone would like to leave before we get into our agenda you can do so there quietly before we start but we're going to move on down to consent K I need a motion make a motion that the Board of Education approve the items on the consent calendar exhibits 24 through 37 2437 through 2443 as recommended motion made by I hear second second by one issue there's one minutes that needs amend yes um February 14 2024 regular board meeting 24- 41 page um number seven no I I should say uh
037not number seven number six uh opposed was not Teresa bade but and I Ved yes for Fe for the budget motion has been made um I need a second and we will ask that the minutes reflect the correction when we have our next board meeting okay we have report that we have that correction made in a document that provided for us at our last our next meeting okay all those in favor of the motion and a correction to be made could I I I motion so care donation uh we have a donation to accept a donation in the amount of $2,350 from chest Market shell giving P program to De public schools in accordance with 2443 motion was made by Louisa I second second Michelle all those in favor of the donation could I hear
038I there's no opposers we want to than we want to ask her to stand up and come up and we want to say thank you thank you thank you M turn I'm going turn this over to the Acting Superintendent U Mr um it's Mr alaro sori correct thank you we we want to thank you for coming tonight and thank you for your donation and if you want to talk to us a little bit about how you selected the public schools and how this came to be that we would appreciate it good evening everybody my name is I come from the market so this program goes every October you guys see a purple pump in one of the CH shells is every time you fill it up or you you know that pump some sense from
039each P you know each will be donated to the schools the schools you know we've been doing this for few years now and well I'm happy here to you guys with this hopefully thank you very thank you so much do the picture over here by the [Music] you okay contact again thank you for the [Applause] donation do we have any our student reps hello good evening MERS cabinet commun members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on beh of the AL for excellence Jo in the journalis passord like to invite you all to check out our new articles in the alternative times the alternative times can be accessed to a alternative times.com and our twiter as times last night the a staff Vis our 4 three parents night it was a nice opportunity
040for parents and students to hear about upcoming opportunities and events and after be able to sign up for individual meetings with staff members the 11th grade sat testing will be on Thursday March 21st a special thanks to ca who the sat coordinator and all the staff who are proring the SAT good luck to be 11th graders also on Thursday the 21st kustin has organized a field trip to White Memorial pal Conservation Center this opportunity is for all nth and 10th graders the seniors at East will on a tour of the nbcc D campus and a water campus Diana jardo and Anthony Helman on Thursday March 21 thanks to Scott frell or frell for organizing the tour for our students thank you all for allowing us to share what is going on this holiday season Wonder
041strong have a nice night everybody question sorry I want to say on behalf of the boy kale that for the last year and maybe two you've always shown up and I'm it's so easy to stay home and say yeah I have this position but I'm not going to go I got homework you have shown up every time I lovees my school to you guys that's awesome and thank you thank you so very much have Ace thank [Applause] you uh Administration educational staff represented I'm sorry I'm sorry thank you everybody good evening good evening uh before I begin I just wanted to thank the high school students for coming out and speaking tonight and really showing their vulnerability and speaking from their heart about a critical critical need in all of our schools to add more
042counselors and supports for our students and not just those facing Mental Health crisis level but the everyday issues that pop up um for kids to say they've never even met their counselor when they're entering their senior Year we're doing a grave Injustice for our students so I thank them all and I thank Heather for coming out and supporting your students as well tonight and I want to thank you all as well thank you for your visits to our schools during re Across America week we want to let you know how much we appreciate seeing your presence in our schools it really helps connect all of us in our mission together please know that you have an open invitation to visit us we welcome it anytime we want not you to see all that we do
043the Little Miracles that we create each day the countless success stories the expert instruction and relationships that we build but we also want you to see the things that don't make it into the photo ops our extreme challenges the hardships the hurdles the unsafe working and learning conditions the critical Staffing shortages the supply and resource shortages the overcrowding the overcrowding and the escalating disregulated student behaviors we invite you to join us for a day a full day of shadowing us all of us that's how it's best to see and understand what's really happening in the schools while we love having you come in and read stories for read Across America week you really need to see the whole picture beyond the pages of a report or in a meeting please reach out to me if
044you're interested in seeing a particular grade or a school building I'll pair you up with a teacher that's eager to show you their world and show you the world that their students experience a day in the life of a DPS teacher and speaking of a day in the life of a DPS teacher let's talk a little bit about the mayor's Community advisory committee so several board members DPS teachers retired DPS teachers and even a few admins are joining me and other appointed community members as we work to address some critical issues in education thank you to board member caneta and Harris as well as principal Donovan an me Megan denucci Emily Paralis Sandra Nara and Patricia valela for working on this labor of love for our school and for our community so what is this
045committee that we're on well we're tasked with using a fake tank approach to problem solving in the areas of student achievement sites and facilities and teacher Recruitment and Retention and then we're tasked to put recommendations forward to the mayor so we're uplifted and challenged by this lofty work and in my own subcommittee we're working on teacher retention and recruitment a issue that's near and dear to my heart our team has already identified several key areas in need of our Focus respect and value of teachers safety of course trust in District decision making and school Finance morale student escalating behavior and working conditions these are all among our top identified areas and concern just before the meeting I received a report from uh teachers at Broadview middle school and they were asked to kind of report
046back to Nea Danberry on how the new changes have the changes in schedule how they've impacted learning and working in bro middle school and they actually um are a real great microcosm of the work that we are going to need to do with the committee um I'm I've got an actual document here it's it's like 15 pages long but I I just want to highlight a few of the consistent issues that come up that kind of work will go hand in hand with the work we're going to do on our committee um so one of the questions that was of the Broadview folks the teachers uh what most impacts your ability to teach at Broadview Middle School overwhelmingly they said the high enrollment and lack of space overcrowded classrooms um that came up over and
047over and over and over again in the report what most impacts your students ability to learn at Broadview Middle School over and over and over again overcrowded classrooms um no Co teachers in bilingual classes space predominant issues over and over and over the question was asked of our staff at Broadview has the newly implemented schedule helped with overcoming actually the staff is reporting no it's done the opposite they say they report that they used to have somewhat man manageable class sizes but now their smallest class size is between 24 and 26 that's their smallest class size sizes some of the class sizes are upwards of 30 um another question was asked the wi what I need now block was implemented at Broadview middle school and teachers were asked is this showing Effectiveness how are the
048students responding to this and the teachers reported that they're really struggling and the students are really struggling because many of the teachers that are instructing this class aren't certified to teach reading intervention and they're finding that the interventions are also overcrowded in many cases and they don't have the resources they need the computers they need the technology they need to implement it with Effectiveness so you know there's reoccurring themes here that kind of show the issues that we have in a lot of our schools and Broadview Is that real real microcosm of what's going on I won't just talk about the negative because one of the questions was what's one thing that's positive going on at broy Middle School of course Kudos go out to the staff that put together the Annie production last week
049I don't know if any of you got to see it but that was an amazing collaboration of the students and the staff and showing all that's wonderful at that school and they also report that the administration is very supportive they report that the administration at braie mici school is open to hearing their concerns open to working with staff and students to problem solve when problems are brought to them so that is a positive and that just shows they're working in the right direction uh are there any other concerns and the answer to this was miles long I'll paraphrase quickly for you air quality is something that the teachers at Broad continually talk about they talk about closets where supplies are covered in mold Act of growing mold something that's you know just reprehensible they talk
050about um their classes being impacted by the size and over over and over and over again just give us a working copier please we're desperate we have teachers reporting showing up for school hour an hour and a half early just to make copies just to make copies there's a line for the one working copier when it is working um so again things that they need to do their day-to-day work I wanted to kind of go back to um that sense of teachers not feeling like they have they need one of the teachers commented and then it kind of listed a whole followup from many many of the other respondents and by the way it was a huge responding um population to this survey one person said this struck with me as an educator they said
051many really good teachers have left our school this year and I'm concerned that more will leave at the end of this year Well broad would even have enough teachers to open for the 2024 25 school year will anybody even want to continue teaching at Broadview that's where we're at that comment kind of hit hit home with me and kind of made us talk as a community of Educators on the problems that we really need to face are really becoming at that crisis level so getting back to that microcosm know that that's not just a Broadview thing you heard from dber high school students today talking about mental health and lack of support and lack of St members to address their needs so we look forward to sharing recommendations that our team is coming up with
052to the mayor and eventually to the board as well of course but finally with all this all these things on the horizon and all this work we need to do I wanted to make sure that we mentioned tonight we know that the board is in the process of hiring a search company to select a new permanent superintendent for our district Nea danber looks forward for w to working with the board in collaboration with this process I'm sure you know that the best way to have teachers buy into decision making is to have all stakeholders take part in the process by including teacher voice in the process you'll send a powerful message to teachers that you value US that you value our recommendations as Educators and that you share our vision for moving danur Public Schools
053forward what a better step to retain our great teachers than to have them take part in that selection process so I hope you consider that and thank you so much for listening to me once again this evening and I'll see you next month thank you move on down the agenda action item 10 yes I would like to make a motion you speak into the mic Mich speak turn M please I would like to make a motion that the Board of Education accept the second reading and adoption uh the update codification as recommended by the policy Committee in accordance with 24-44 motion made by Al could I hear a second second secondly by Louise any question concerning the motion seeing that all in favor can iar I motion so car action item B Michelle policy 02000
054Board of Education goals motion that the Board of Education accept for second reading and Adoption of the revision of policy 02000 with the updated 2023 24 um goals s y goals as recommended by the policy committee and in accordance with 24 motion made by Michelle could I second second by Teresa and discussion on that policy see it all in favor can I hear I I motion so car action item C policy 0521 .2 commitment to religious neutrality motion that the Board of Education accept for second reading and adoption policy 05 21.2 commitment to religious neutrality as as recommended by the policy committee and accordance with 2446 motion made by Teresa second by K any discussion on the motion seeing none all in favor could I hear I I I motion so car action item d
055no I guess hear uh D policy 2000 Administration basic concept motion that the Board of Education accept for second reading and adoption policy 2000 Administration basic concept as recommended by the policy committee and in accordance with 2447 motion made by DR cor could I hear a second to that motion second my learn any question concern that seeing none all in favor could I hear I motion so as it E I make a motion that the Board of Education accept for second reading and adoption policy 2100 administrative staff organization as recommended by the policy committee and in accordance with 24-48 motion made by lawen second by Mr janelli any question conern that policy seeing that all in favor could I hear I I motion so car action item F policy 2131 superintendent of schools motion that
056the Board of Education accept for second reading and adoption policy 2131 superintendent of schools as recommended by the policy Committee in accordance with 2449 motion made by Louisa could I hear a second second second by any discussion on that policy seeing none all in favor I hear I policy G make a motion at the Board of Education accept second reading adoption policy 21311 appointment design for superintendent of schools as recommended by the policy committee and in accordance with exhibit 24-50 motion made by Kate could I hear second to the motion second second by Lauren any discussion on it question seeing none all in favor could I I motion so Carri uh policy number H make a motion that the Board of Education accept for second reading and adoption policy 2231 policy and regulation systems policy
057manual as recommended by the policy committee and in accordance with 24-1 motion made by w I hear second second by Teresa any question concer that policy see n all in favor could I hear I I I motion so car Mr Janelle motion that the Board of Education accept from second reading and adoption policy 2400 evaluation of Administrators and administration as recommended by the policy committee and in accordance with 52 motion made by Mr janelli second seconded by Michelle any question concerning that policy seeing none all in favor could I hear I oppose motion so car Rich H that the Board of Education accept the January 2024 financial report as recommended by the finance committee and in accordance with exhibit 24- 53 motion made by Mr Hy second secondment by any question discussion see none all
058in favor could I I I I motion so appear action item K I make a motion that the Board of Education recommend to the city council to update the members of the school building committee uh danburry Career Academy to reflect new board leadership members Letta Cooper board chair Louisa Britain sites and facil committee chair motion made by Al could I hear second second by Kate in a question concerning motion seeing none all in favor can I hear I motion so carful can I ask uh are the old members off yes that's this is a new list that didn't okay interance superintendent will submit to the city okay um motion uh L motion the Board of Education authorizes the chairperson of the Board of Education and the superintendent of schools to approve the final plan specifications
059and cost estimates of phase two of the danburry high school science lab improvements project and sign the s-42 form for submission to the state of Connecticut office of school Construction Grants and review for approval as recommended by the sites and facili committee and in accordance with 24-54 24-55 and 2456 motion made by Michelle second second by any questions yes K question apologize I was to the S facilities meeting do we know if any of the the science teachers are consulted in layout with these so was just your voice whether or not teachers were consulted in the process so we did have um our department chair Dr Barbara Bogart um who was both Clos to familiar with the the science needs there um maybe not a broader teacher sweep of of input but definitely um they
060work very closely with Mr Donovan and the science and the science leaders thank you any other questions all in favor the motion can I I oppose care action item M official naming of new Career Academy building at former site of partis motion that the Board of Education approved that the new high school building at the former partis site be named Dey High School West as recommended by the sites and Facilities committee motion made by Teresa second by K in a question concerning the motion yes so my question is if we're renaming the high school that there's a middle school there too what's the name of the middle school cuz the middle school we already have a West like a West Side Middle School so sure so um this is the sign that represents the high
061school side of the building so this is going to be the so just the way we'll have a board of education there'll be a signage for Board of Education this is the sign for the high school side so the whole the whole campus is not just the D High School West it's that is the West that would be the West Campus of D high school but there will be the Board of Education um and other programs there as well I understand that but is it somewhat confusing to have a Westside Middle School a mile or two miles away and then have danur High School West would it be would a different like de High School on Al Blossom or something along those lines you know what I mean just because you know what I mean
062yeah the um I can't remember quite who was in the room we had a conversation but there was a lot of you know consternation around um naming it the gury Career Academy because of the conceptional right I get that we're trying to bring the two like the two campuses together but it just concerns me because if we have Westside Middle School Academy and then Danbury High School West it just and there and then we're having Middle School there too I think it's just so confusing just throwing that out there for the group not haven't finished we so um is there any other questions on I believe I believe that the sign is just to put on the side where Dam has proportions going to be understand million the signs huh qu million wor the sign
063again I don't know it's not just a sign I don't think but I think they're also going to do something with the middle school that's my understand I get that I know it's not the danber West campus but I don't understand why we're naming it Danbury High School West if we already have a building named West Side like it's just too confusing and too close in my head for families coming from out of the district to my son goes to Westside middle school over here on High Ridge or where like you know and then oh wait I thought the west campus was on Apple Blossom I think it's the names are too similar again my opinion just throwing it out there yeah and just it's just a sign it's a continuation from Denver High School
064I mean the way the the way the career Pathways we're going to have you know that's just a carry on um you know I I did question Mr Donovan when he was here about that okay they have a principal in that location again we're not going to go into that discussion uh but you know I'm okay I don't see a problem I understand when you're concerned you're right there is a West Side okay right um you know what are you going to name him Den U den kosha den High School kosha I mean not on kosha but yes I understand what you're saying but I I think for my understanding is that there's going to be a big sign on the street that it's going to have more of a board of education concept because
065the board is going to be there or some of the new position am I correct understand there's going to be a couple different sides you do have the Board of Education you're going to have an entrance there um there'll be another programming the Middle School level there and then de High School which is so if there's going to be another sign on the street then why wouldn't we just have the sign on the street and then have a sign in the building that at Stanbery high school I'm actually not sure if there's a sign on the street so that would we have to check that one this was really sign sign the bill yeah maybe this is table it until we know what the logistics are because I don't know again I know we all
066have to vote we all have our opinion but I just think it's just getting I I get it I get we're not you know but I just feel like we already already have a school you know you got to say West you got to say West W you get confused I think the conversation that Mr dun here when we talk about this is really and and I hear what you're saying L but we all talked about the ask question that you know he wanted to make this not be just the Career Academy want to bring into Dan high school and he came up with the name Dan High School West so you know if we want to uh table it or move on we take a vote and move on or take yeah I'm not
067sure when those what the timeline is the the timeline for when this has to be in which ISE well think Antonio had to Dan had to do the the change um very like it was the window was closing right which is why they had to have SES when they did it but I just I was I'm not so I I don't have the exact timeline but I know this is Du State pretty short order so I would table it to might get more clarification let's take a vote come back and we missed the time so yes campus is going to house the Board of Education it's going to house the high school it's going to house the middle school I would suspect each of these facilities are separate in the state and therefore whatever aspect
068or physical location middle schools have at that particular point you create sign and call whatever you want for the middle school so this is you know basically I I don't think it's the assumption that this whole campus is is that that's right that's that's correct that's my understanding as well so there'll be multiple there are multiple signs from my understanding you know Mike is there's the Board of Ed has its own sign and emblem and we talked about those things being um as part of the package so there are different programs that are going to be there when you say different signs are you talking like there's going to be a directory down by the entrance way that'll what one all the separate right it's my yes it's my understanding that there's a the The
069Bard that area this the entrance is different than some of the other entrance different entrances to the building and that there'll be signage you know according near those entrances will there be anything down by the street entrance that I don't know we didn't we have not talked about the street street this is for the building building yes Melle than the name of Middle School camp at danber West what is that name to be well it have a totally separate name because I understand what Lauren saying like if I'm if it's not so much just driving I could just be new to the area and not know that t West has a middle school that west side is down the street and that there's a middle school on the west campus so if I'm new I
070can see where somebody's like oh the school at West side or at the west campus or the Middle School I totally get what you're saying in the sense of will then the middle school have its own identification different so the name that was submitted to the state as part of the original package was the um Academy of innovation and design so it was its own Middle School design so that's what was submitted to the state at the original time of the application so that's that's a separate area so the middle school is going to be a separate Academy this that the name or well that was the name that was submitted to the state originally so I know there's been a lot of um you know consternation about the Middle School in general and the
071cost of it so I think um you know right I think that there you know that that's the sign that was submitted to the state the name of the program that we submitted so aren we trying to didn't we already submit name for the Danberry Career Academy and the reason that we're changing it is because we are ready to go to print and we've made that determination have we not decided what's happened in the Middle School yes so they have not asked me much about that Middle School signage just the Board of Ed and the and that other sign because the only one that was changed that there was a change order on for discussion was the one that said Career Academy Danbury Career Academy so it's my understanding that unless there was another change
072that that's the sign that will will come for that portion of but the middle school and the high school all that is together and will be opening at the same time right there's no delay or anything that I'm aware because I would think if you're going to go out to print literally signage you would be doing it all at the same time so I guess my question if we're going to continue or table that would be one of the ones I would want to yeah I me also if we can get a guarantee that we Mike be good maybe you could text Antonio or or D on the timeline so if this group feels more comfortable about the name uh and wants to talk about it to do so it Wars further conversation um so
073long as we have the appropriate time to do that okay we may have to come back quickly to to react if they the [Music] time [Music] onor have to the motion and then so it would either be easier for if you want to take you have tow your motion withraw this motion I need a motion to table this motion to table second second by Lauren motion made by Melle second by Lauren all in favor I it [Music] only okay so uh action item in item in motion that the Board of Education approved the district plan for increasing diversity in education for submission to the Connecticut commissioner on before March 15 2024 accordance with uh 24 motion made by DR discussion second by in discussion on the motion yes yes so sorry my first question is
074is that it is my understanding that this has to be submitted by tomorrow is that corre so it is just coming before us now actually with all respect it was on the last but we can the meeting we okay so perhaps it could have been something that could have been sent out to the board so that we can review it that's number one um number two um on the second page um this I'm not sure that this document is specific to D Public Schools um so on the um the last P I'll start with um who manages the the goal and um so the other ones all have um a person's name on there so can we have the name of the person put on there the chief strategy can we have the name so
075if you look at the blocks under who manages the go she is the chief Talent officer the next page is the chief strategy officer but no name okay so I just think that that should be put in there um underneath the goal where it says create additional incentives for retention of educators of color who reflect our demographic diversity I'm not sure um what that means and so I would need some clarity on you mean by incentives um when it says some clarity on what Crea a professional Learning Community what is that uh by when um other sections have um this school year um I would be interested in having a um a date on there even the upcoming school year um and then where it says risks risks and U mitigation just about every single
076one of the of the goals um lack of enthusiasm or participation among building level staff um what could go um the risk inadequate time and attention La of robust cooperation across school buildings um insufficient numbers of students of color entering the pipeline for securing certification and placement into Dan Public Schools budgetary constraints surrounding costs of maintaining maintain as many as four residents throughout the program and post completion um so I am a little concerned because we are all under budgetary constraints and so I just think that that's too easy to come back to say that goal was we were unable to accomplish that goal because of budgetary constraints if you know that beforehand then let's not make it a goal let's have a goal that you know that you uh will be able to at
077least um put your teeth in during this school year you have school year 24 um the higher certified staff who are educators of color and reflect the demographic diversity of our district this has been an ongoing goal for I don't know how many years and yet it continues I'm I'm not sure that we're what we're doing other than continue to develop and expand existing teacher pipeline program with West is that where we stopped as West identifying students of color for Teacher prep programs and working to through postgraduate plac how how are you going to go what what are you talking about this is just so vague nothing specific um and I'm baffled this is an unacceptable report to hand into the state by tomorrow um Danberry should be ashamed of itself to say that we
078have a [Music] working diversity plan um and the risk is what could go wrong insufficient numbers of students of color in hello we already know that so what are you going to do to go out there besides West where are the other Solutions where we need some momentum here is what I'm trying to say um and you say secure up to four teacher residents placement of increasing numbers of pipeline graduates into positions um and then it says in engagement efforts certified staff will need to be engaged to support mentoring component of the if you can't get them westc con and D High School administrators particularly through new Danberry Career Academy it's not here yet focus on developing Educators when we need them now as I said this has been ongoing and ongoing and every year
079I don't know what you presented to the board before but this is inappropriate in inadequate not targeting Kim yes you uh have any more need I do I'm not thank you and so um it also states that senior teachers and administrators of colors will be consulted for design and feedback on appropriate and meaningful for putting it on who why are we putting this on the backs of our teachers again and so the risk is finding substitutes for release time for participants in the Callo we can't find substitutes now is there response is there is there what happens if this plan is not presented tomorrow sure so if I can just back up just a little bit because I do think it might be helpful to talk a little bit about the background which I've been
080talking about for about the last year um as many of you will remember um we sent a team to a prep sponsored program um that was multiple weeks in which we explored with Educators through C and the state department B the issue of increasing diversity and education the purpose of going to those multiple sessions with our team which was made up of the superintendent um Dr zela a member of Na Danberry um Terence Cunningham and myself the purpose of attending those multiple sessions was to flesh out the content of a plan to be put into this chart which is what is mandated to be submitted by the state department so they have produced the template and we worked with that team at CRA to put together a plan that met the requirements for the commissioner
081certainly it is not in each category comprehensive of the do but let me talk a little bit about what we focus on in those meetings um we have had a pipeline program which has been recognized as one of the most effective ways to bring into our and our district teachers of color who will home room it's something that has been demonstrated regionally it's something that's been demonstrated here and in fact in the sample on how to complete this document the State Department of Education points specifically to that pipeline program that was started many years ago with Dr glass um one of the goals and in this plan is to talk about how to harness the successes of that to increase um the number of teachers of col that come into the district through the pipeline
082one of the problems that we've experienced with that program has been a difficulty in having those candidates pass the practice so that they can get certification and so my team has been working with teach to make sure that we have a robust support for some of those teachers coming through that's what that first goal talks about the second and larger one which touches on your concern about funding is the teacher Residency program it's something that this district has been approached on multiple times we have often rejected it as being cost ineffective for us but now there is a multiple year funding source coming from the Department of Education from the legislature to fund initiativ to educat un the reference in this plan to the teacher residency program trp is exactly that and so what we've
083proposed to do and what we've submitted in conjunction with this plan is a grant proposal for up to four of those teacher residents to participate in in the program um we will work with the rest to go ahead and find those people we are also looking through our own resources through our own folks par educators who have bachelor's degrees who are interested in continuing education um particularly in shortage areas particularly teachers of color and we are going to harness those with this grant money to use trp that's the primary goal in the in the first category here of recruitment the second goal on hiring and selection is in fact one that's going to take us a while to to meet the goal and that is one um that again with PR we looked at our
084data on the numbers of teachers of color that we've been hiring historically and this board knows that every year come February March I come and I bring you demographic statistics on how we've done with the incoming C and in fact we have found that the numbers in incoming of teachers of color well exceed those of the state so we're doing a pretty good job not a great job but a pretty good job in attracting those teachers to our what I found in looking in our data is a concern that because we have such a decentralized hiring process in the district where every building hires their own folks that I was see that candidates of color seem to be falling out of the pipeline right around the interview and recommendation for higher stage so I proposed
085in here as a goal to convene a task force that's going to take a while to Marshall all of the processes that on in all of our many buildings to pick those best practices and to try to create some sort of continuity of hiring so that we can Target and address the data problem that I see of what kind the numbers of teachers are col that are hopping out of the interview process and coming to be recommended so that's that second prom the third prom um because we felt that it was important that we talk about retention strategies these are newer for us these ones that are proposed in the plan and in fact the proposing the plcs around that um is our hope that we can put together um and meet a dual goal
086of providing a cowork for for teachers of color and administrators of color in this District so that they can have a space to talk with each other but also providing learning communities for them to talk about professional development things that may be important to them and to use what we can of that grant money and that's referenced in here the grant money for increasing educator diversity to go ahead and harness resources to bring into the district it is a very very common criticism of of us that our administrators don't get the PD that they need and they don't have the PLC time that they need and this is one place where we think it's important to push in some resources so that last goal on retention is one that we continue to work with it's
087going to depend on whether the gr money gets gets extended to us also think that in light of the budget constraints that we know we're going to face next trip it's important for us to put some some resources up against providing this to as a retention strategy we know there's a difficult clet out there and we're trying to find ways to go ahead and address it um and the use of Subs we have enough Subs now it's just a question of whether we can pay for them or not um and so we have a pool now of about 250 Subs um they are they have dramatically increase the coverage of absences across the district so that our fill rates are now in the 80s and some 90th percentile um of absences in the given day
088um the the the concerns coming out of the building which were dire last year our quieting some we're not at capacity but we are much better than we were and so if we can use this grant money to go ahead and dedicate some sub time so that we can pay for the subs that we have to go ahead and push into these plcs that will be the goal so while I appreciate your concerns I do think that this template um is is what was given to us by the state so we're trying to work with them what happens Miss Cooper if we don't there is no there are no teeth in this statute so there is no penalty for failing to submit something tomorrow however um I think it would be ill considered and not
089submit something tomorrow um and there is a provision in the statute that the commissioner reviews the plan and provides feedback I would submit that some of the feedack youve provided today may very well be what comes back with the commissioner and that we engage in further dialogue with the commissioner on whether or not this needs to six standard this is the first year that this plan has had to be submitted by law so this is everybody's first bracket um and and what we have tried to do in crafting it is to leverage what's been working try to make it better and to expand and to harness that grant money that this year is about $270,000 but next year is likely to be considerably higher and the following year considerably higher we started at somewhere closer
090to a million dollar and then there was a revision so we're going to have the fund to do this and that will allow us to make um the details of this plan more musular and so can you speak to the incentives please um in the inen um create um the the goal is to increase teacher recognition so that that first one actually is is building on a program that we started M was that two years ago two years ago the teacher of the year program so we the first year of the teacher of the year program um we felt it was very important to provide a vehicle for recognition of teachers um morale has been very difficult post pandemic and this was identified as a priority year two it became bigger and better and in
091this year three um even bigger and better so that we are trying to um continue to highlight the places where we can recognize strong teacher achievement um and and that's what that first goal is to continue to build upon what we've got I don't think that every goal in here needs to be new a goal can be to make better something that we already think is working the other incentive on retention for us important it will be for things like mentoring um and and that's what we hope to take money from the grant to push in some stipend or incent monetary incentives to go ahead and build the PLC and build a mentoring base um the trp program has embedded in it a required component that we pay mentors as well so it it pops
092up in in several places and so that might be one of the risks is not getting the mentors thing is um by when why would we not have this school year date in there for the trp for the teacher res mentors for the um bow three on page three the third page incentives recognition right um well the the and this is one of the things to be C that we're struggling with on the grant is that in order to get those in order to a Grant application to be accepted the the boxes are reti requirements to put in names identified of teachers and their EIN numbers we don't have them identified yet and what the agreement with trp is is that we will work with them through May to identify eligible candidates that we can
093then select to be teacher residents in the program and then we would appoint the mentors so this is the delay um is really we will accomplish it by end of this year in terms of identifying those teachers but their residencies will not start until 2425 so we pick them we scream May yeah so may of 24 we have to identify the um cooperating teachers and I the potential candidates in our district currently um and so we'll we'll select them we'll partner them together to make sure that um you know we're we're forging good Partnerships between them um one of the areas that we um that we' highlighted as an are special education as we see significant shortages there bilingual ESL teachers but we are open to any uh teacher residency that is coming in um
094and then in the fall of next year will be when the actual coursework mentorship and partnership goes into full okay so we know that our incoming teachers um are assigned mentors correct correct through the district and so is this an additional Mentor so the sorry I right um the uh teachers that are assigned mentors that come in through the team program are teachers that already hold Connecticut state certification this is a little bit different because this is someone that is coming in a Residency program meaning um very similar to an AR program meaning they are obtaining certification as they are working with their Mentor um so this partnership would be slightly different they're going to need a little bit more support initially um and then they will filter through the team program um once they
095obtain their certification so this goal is only for the teachers coming in Under The Residency program and are we looking at the the whole person social education career um and um psychological coming in to a system are you doing anything to look get the whole person and address The Whole Person cultur coming into this system that that is the goal um and one of the reasons that we had also looked and I I heard your earlier comment on obtaining support from teachers while we definitely don't want to put this on the backs of teachers a big heavy lift on this is with our Administration um through supporting and attracting the right people to Danberry but we also want to make sure that we get feedback from our educators working with us and are in the
096trenches and so that we continue to build supports around our new Educators that are coming in um so that we can make them successful we can make them feel and Thrive here um and want to stay here with us and so when you talk about incentives and um one of the goals says that certified staff will need to be engaged to support the mentoring component of the program is that are they being paid to do that ment yes and is that okay that's they are being paid a s and then some of the so there's a a more detailed Grant piece that goes into the state um and in that each sement is outlined and actually um there's a a minimum threshold of which an educator needs to be paid that s thank you you're
097welcome any other questions Michelle can you just speak to the hiring and the diversity and the pay you know the differences um concerned about that like I think I don't have the page number that we need a reference that had to do with hiring maybe a higher salary for um diversity hiring so in other words know whatever um it's not going to okay so I think what you're asking is can we can we can we change it all um with compensation the demographic folks that we bring in is that what you're asking no I was just asking are we going to be paying more for diverse teacher recruitment I thought that's what you had mentioned I thought that's what I had heard and so you so okay so um the the Union contract with teachers
098mandates what we can pay teachers new teachers that come in District so we don't have really latitude what this is talking about in this plan is this teacher residency so these are people who have B deges who are interested in becoming teachers um in the special ed context if there are folks that worked for us for example as Cara for two years they are Depp so they get they are eligible for a permit they can come into this program and they basically are they're working under a mentor teacher they're teacher residents um but they are going to be considered under the program the teacher of record in that classroom so those are the folks that there are certain components of the cost of that program like for example the tuition component that we have to
099pay um there's the mentor typen that we have to pay and we pay these te these teacher candidates these teacher residents um a salary it's not as high as a a certified teacher but we pay them income so that they are not um hamstrung by having to work as a par during the day and how are they possibly going to be a teacher resident so what this program does is it pays a salary to these folks so that they can be basically working teacher residents they can earn an income um and then they're getting their certification so that the teacher of record and then their fully certified teachers so all those components are what is is made up of the teacher Residency program we get we will get grant money to cover a lot of
100those costs and the legislature continues to tweak how much we have to pay but it it's a little bit prescriptive so that's why it says up to four that's all we can fit in the budget okay thank you and so is there um anytime that they have to sign to a commitment to the district after going program it's a twoe it's a twoyear window so we have to guarantee that we will have spot for them for two years but are we requiring we'll have a spot for them but they may say you know what I'm going to go to Rich they for those two years it is tied to the monetary am that the district is supporting through this grant for schooling and so forth so if they were to breach that it be for
101those two years of training correct after that alert after that they can choose to work for banberry look at the salaries look at [Music] the right just as another teacher could okay that's yeah I just wanted to okay thank you which is why attention any other question motion the motion was made what number n no M Dr made the motion take second we had the question session all in fav I hear any oppose okay so we have one motion so care superintendent report okay thank um I just want to say uh thank you to our board members March is board member appreciation month um so car P did a great job of assembling some nice little gifts for our board members with your names on it and some chocolates which are awesome so thank you
102very much for your service and all the nights that you put in and uh School visits we really do appreciate that hard work we know it's probably always more than you thought you were going to get when you signed up for this role but we appreciate you very much thank you um Kim yes um we'll come back to Kim in a second she she's going to give us a little update on some of the salt forms some of that is linked into actually if you're ready some of the things that our teachers have have mentioned in previous meting meetings as well as tonight um we certainly appreciate their their commentary and appreciate their concern and U it's appropriate to talk a little bit about some of the response to that okay thank you um so
103we did um over the last gosh um it was probably the last year or so um that we the the union was really raising concern for us about um teachers being injured in the course of their job not like a workers's comp injury but significant disregulated Behavior by our students students of all kinds um including those who had been identified with special needs and teachers were were really being hurt um and so one of the things that popped out of that escalation was that um any created a form they called it a teacher assault form and they used that to describe what the incident was um to get the attention of the administrator that they may or may not have otherwise gotten um and part of what was behind that in Connecticut we have a
104statute that says that if you are a teacher and you are a assulted that the district cannot take your sick time when you're out with those injuries um and there is scaned as in very very little law and it goes in each Direction um in some cases the assault needs to be intentional behavior in another line of cases it can be unintentional behavior and so there's kind of a jump off about what the legal term means in this context so rather than go to um continued escalation about that argument we work very closely with any and Aon and I work very closely on trying to address how to encourage the dialogue between an administrator and an injured teacher is the administrator working with that teacher on for example a teacher who may get hit in
105a classroom in front of all of your other students well is the administrator's response putting the kid back in the classroom and figure it out or is do you teacher need some time to to you to be out of the room do we need to have a re-entry plan for the student can we talk in more detail and make sure that we hear you teacher and that we are we are working together with you to to come up with an appropriate plan so the form that we worked on together that we've now approved actually has a couple of pieces to it one is a form with boxes in it for the teacher to be able to describe the circumstances one is a box that talks about the administrator response what kind of a reentry did
106you have what did you talk about with the teacher um and then it's signed at the bottom by the administrator it's going to get forwarded over to C's office for holding on to it so we can review them and talk about them but the second piece of it is a flowchart that says you know if you are injured it looks a lot like what we used for um substitute coverage before if you have a physical injury make sure you file an instent report if you don't have a physical injury but you need time to talk um you kind of go in this so a a visual aid for our teachers and our Administration follow along and then the third piece is the workers nonar form we roll that out to administrators on two different admin
107Council meetings to Workshop it with them is it something we can all work with are we all on the same page about how we want to complete it um can we come up with a scenario and walk through how you use this form to respond to it um two different occasions it's now been distributed out to the buildings and I worked with Aon to make sure that she had a full set so that she is also distri to the teachers um we also can use it for non-certified staff and it really is meant to be the vehicle by which we enhance communication between the injured person and the administrator um so that was the Genesis of the Forum I think we were all happy with how it turned out um and um I think you
108may have heard Erin at the last meeting she talked a little bit about how we collaborated on this so it's now rolling out and we're going to see how we go with it we're going to continue to work with our administrators um at after counil meetings scenario every meeting or every couple days to see how we're using so sorry if that was longed but that's the thank you Kim I know your team worked really hard to get kned off on that so thank you so once these incident reports are filled out who makes the final determination as to was it an assault not right so I think and and this is sort of a complicated there's just not a lot of um we have found for example you saw some teachers that talk about high
109school or some teachers were in will you have Sr up there you have police officers up there who are making assault who are passing along assault charges um when they identify there that that's the result of an assault and there is some case that talks about you know a student who swings and misses and it's a teacher and that is something that older students is an assault um the more difficult struggle with are the super young kids the K5 kids particularly those with identified special needs are kids that may have autism on Spectrum kids that may be very disregulated those are harder because the law really isn't clear about whether it's an assault or not so we're working with administrators to make that decision there's lots of dominoes that come from that you know do
110you make a report to the police on a k was disregulated and identified so those are harder and those are ones we're making essentially with the administrators I do think though just to piggy back on on that is that the the Genesis of the form really was to we on with better communication with the staff member often times you know in education we're all about the business of kids right and so the immediate attention was going to the disregulated child and helping to return and re-enter them into um an appropriate setting um potentially can be a meeting with family possibly team meeting and so forth and and then the next step was to follow with the teacher and this has kind of put so both are equal priority on the table at the same time
111um so as Kim has indicated the the assault piece does become a little bit complicated particularly when we're talking about a young student or student with identified needs um but I think that kind of aside this this vehicle has allowed us to have more in depth conversations to address the students needs and the staff members needs as you can imagine it's it's emotional for a teacher that has been bitten by a first grader for example um particularly if that incident or event happens in front of other students or other staff um and so this has kind of equal the playing field that we attend to both students needs and staff needs um and then um you know cim and I consult frequently along with building administrator um the party involved and sometimes the involved um
112if there's you know decisions that need to be made from there thank you um the next item is really just a just a brief update um for for me for me to the on some of the groups that I've been able to participate in uh most recently and one of those is the Danberry Collective impact um that I'm sure many of you are aware of and some of you are participants are um I've had an opportunity to sit um in this new role as an on the advisory uh which I greatly appreciate um and I was uh invited to the um the chonic abas and student engagement working committee um and then also most recently the kickoff for the entire Collective which was recently at Family and Children's Aid um just last night that's uh
113but that was also a wonderful organization uh event and basically the collective is uh several Community uh Community organizations that come together to Leverage The Assets in the community the United Way Civic the every public school system has many different um movers and shakers on the committee representatives from all of their organizations uh that are working work together towards uh creating Improvement structures for students so the three big uh three big committees uh and areas of focus in priority are chonic absentees and student engagement early childhood education and then um a committee for Youth and mental health um some of that which is very appropriate um And Timely given some of the things that we've heard most recently so um super important work and I look forward to providing updates on how we're partnering uh
114with that larger body over time um the next one is really uh having recently attended the Danbury um area business collaborative uh board meeting um it was wonderful to to reconnect with some of the the folks in that group um Alexis who's the new director was reporting out on some of the uh the work that currently happening but also some potential future work with supporting the emies in the terms of mentorship uh for our students um So currently they they ventor they have over 100 mentors now working with um our students throughout throughout the district um if You' ever attended the dsabc breakfast um You probably heard some very touching stories about the relationships that have been built over the years it's a super important U group that works with us um and I thought
115it would be great opportunity to bring them in to one of our subcommittees um The Brick committee for example um for them to reintroduce themselves to the district and talk a little bit about their work the importance of that and then um you know eventually talk about you know the future relationship that we we' like to to grow with them over time um so that is that would be on March 27th so we look forward to to that um the last thing I want to just mention here is that um in the back of the room um if you're wondering who's still left here hanging in uh that is the parent supporting educational ex uh Excellence class that is in attendance tonight um we have Natalie dpri Christina Casey Thomas Sheridan Lois deiro and G
116Al Al if I I mispronounced your name please uh forgive me and the course facilitators are Patrice Nelson who you may have recognized from the portrait of The Graduate Community conversations a while back and of course uh Melissa Cruz and Ann me who's always involved in all of this work um had not a pleasure of presenting to their class last week and we had some great conversations about um the budget and how those things are developed and formed and really this is um this is a group that's learning about how school districts functions how policies are made and how they can build advocacy for our parents in the school system so super important work and it was a great uh collaborative um fun group last week so thank you for being here and um just
117wanted to give you a shout out for coming to our board meeting today thank you and that is it under that section I can go on to information unless there's a discussion thank you thank you just just an item under discussion and I think we're going to eventually have to maybe have u a workshop going I have to set aside some time to really talk about uh how the governor um has come down and and given um us a idea as far as how we're going to deal with cell phones in the school okay and I think that we need to talk about that at some point as a okay and it's going to be like getting Sports so but I think it's something that we need to discuss because if he's going to support
118it not that we have to support it but you know we need to talk about how we going to take a stand and what we going do um we have just a couple questions Kelly it's nice to see you guys thank you we missed you so um can just Heather had mentioned when she was talking to us about contacting her if we wanted to do a school visit can you just remind the board how School visits work glattus how we do those well number one you set up your appointment you come you call the superintendent office and let them know what school you want to go to she will call the school and tell them that to expect you and uh then you visit do you just don't get up and say I'm going to
119H I'm going uh you know because anything can happen they can have a lock down you're in the school you don't know what's going on superintendent no one knows you in the school so let's be respectful as to how we go about doing that okay and I know we all want to get in and see what's going on and then sometime we need to talk about but sometime you need to be careful as to who you talking to okay it's a good thing to do um sorry every goad and then can somebody explain to me maybe the difference between the mayor's committee and the brainstorming group about the ideas for the schools and all that versus what the actual Board of Ed does CU I'm really confused I'm kind of frustrated I guess yeah thank
120you I'm sort of confused too because I I did not know he had appointed two people from his board to let me finish I did not until she have to okay so that's the only thing that I'm saying it was is it a committee that the mayor F form our city hall the mayor uh solicited the community for participants in what they're calling a community advisory committee uh they've got uh seven different areas of the that they're trying to uh get some feedback I really think from the public and use it as like a th tank so come up with some ideas come up some with some actionable steps and you know let us know what you're thinking about I don't get the impression that there's direct action that's going to necessarily be taken um
121that that's not the impression that I get but they're looking to get feedback from the community about what the community about and thinking about in these areas and what they think needs to be done and what they could possibly do so you know other than that like there's not a whole lot of structure to this organization basically what they did was put an application um and people applied to participate and then they selected committees based on the folks who signed up so I I guess maybe my question would be is how did information get out as far as getting uh who's who was going to be selected how did how did how did you get was there a form for you to fill out that you wanted to be and and he just selected certain
122people he wanted to send that information too there was an article in the news times and had a reference to there was an article in the news Times explaining this particular process by the mayor with a reference to the City website so that if you are interested as a public citizen you can sign up and select any one of these categories then they would however number of candidates they had in the committee okay would go through with select individual okay thank you I'm just trying to understand a public notice of it and I think there was some other conversation about it I I don't read the paper because you know it's $3 and4 and it's only about two sheets in there and you can't you can't even this the pr so small you can't even
123read it so you know hey I get what I can I used to I used to pay that money Faithfully but no more okay uh yes Melle I saw the the ad in face I can't hear you I saw I saw the ad in Facebook and that you would sign up but is it the public is it elected officials then like did it break out into different groups like is there a board member on are you who's on that committee anybody well he just said just soita is a member of the committee not serving as a board member I am the advisor to the group but not serving as an official board member I'm just there as a resource so that I can try to connect people information thank you you got to move okay
124a little bit moreit I'm sorry did you finish I don't know I just it's concerning to me that they're out there in the community thinking of all these Grand plans for the Board of Ed and I just don't want there to be a Mis notion that they're going to come in like other members of the community or the community in general thinking that this separate entity is going to come in here and present all these Grand plans they have and they're going to present them to us or not present them to us and we're not going to have the follow through because they're not members of the Board of Education who are the body that yay and nays I don't know I'm just concerned very concerned about this whole thing the bottom line is the
125bottom line is still going to be the money so whatever recommendations that they they're going to provide to the mayor is still going to come down to money so think is a new meaning meaning that they're whatever recommendation is going to the committee or these citizens right uh to better either the education whatever downtown whatever it still is going to come out with they're going to need money to spend it and they don't have it so if they don't have it for us for we what we're trying to do how are they going to find money to do other other things yeah Dan um I suspect that as a new mayor coming into town and and I appreciate his thoughts on this is that he opened up to the community an opportunity to the community
126to voice your concern on how we can improve things in danur and therefore whoever selected these these subject matters these seven or 10 of them it was done to basically talk about it and and and see how within that category and it was education some other stuff that things can be approved I don't think it's anything different conceptually as collective impact is is working on the project to one of the projects to to uh to come up with ideas as to how to reduce The Chronic absenteeism they'll do that as a project and then possibly and I would hope so make a recommendation to the board so we can review it but I think it's a good idea that the mayor did is to have people feel that they're engaged in the community and it
127was you know I think it was a good a good opportunity to do that I agree you know obviously want to hear from the community um but the only part that I was confused is that they were looking to weigh in on superintendent H that's really teacher that was yeah that was the teachers union that wants to be part of it that's separate from the okay so maybe that's the part that I thought you were talking about I was confused because obviously there's 11 of us and we just met so um is that going to be something that gets considered when we are all we're not going to talk about that not right okay all right so that's the part that I was a little um confused on let me let me make that clear
128thank you we'll talk about that in exective okay um any more questions um okay just a little bit left you got be um do you want to talk a little about the healthy food certification that's going to come up at the next board meeting sure it's a it's a program uh we've been in for a number of years um where you uh agree to follow the Connecticut uh nutrition guidelines and in practice that means that what you serve your students is from their list of healthy foods and there's some guidelines agree to follow um and if you do that you get an extra uh 10 cents of meil reimbursement uh from the state for us that's about [Music] $140,000 uh number of schools are in the program uh this year they're 118 of the 169
129and every school district that was in it last year signed up again this year U so we we it requires a a annual certification so we'll bring that back to you in the next meeting thank you and then the last two items um just an announcement that the the date for the Kota Festival the celebration of the Arts is June 1st from 11: to 4 at De High School Musical performances artwork kids crafts uh face painting ice cream community and um bring the whole family so this is an annual favorite so we hope everybody can can attend and then the last one is High School production of Mama Mia which is going to be great April 25th and April 26th uh there's some and April 27 so there's a couple shows there and the tickets
130you get those on the QR code and we have that posted on the website if you place it [Music] so we can probably get a better seat board chairperson report uh still I attended the Citywide PTO meeting uh along with other members superintendent um having a very difficult time to um find out when South Street have their PTO meetings um you know I've been calling them trying to make some kind of connection with them and seems like no one knows when they have their PTO meeting so I haven't heard anything for the last two weeks I just got tired of calling uh I was put in contact with the lay on person from City white p uh who did not have a very friendly attitude so I went to sou speak and did it on
131my own so um I'm still going to attend uh the means and do what I need to do uh I attended the um Collective community outreach program was it last night last night and some other people were there and uh I thought it was A Beautiful Affair trying to connect the community and I think Dr me and and all the people that was there it it was just fantastic okay um chairperson Committee chairpersons of this board members when we get ready to have committee meetings I will ask the chairperson to let someone to take your Ms I will no longer take Ms in order for me to read all the other information that I need to read take minutes have a conversation take the minutes have the conversation with Caren and get it out there
132I need your help to have someone you have five people on your committed one of those five people can take minutes okay so you know it's just extra load that I'm taking on as far as trying to go plac and do things and be on Zoom to represent the schol so I'm just going to ask you to help move that process to a build and I also want to thank that all the committee work that our committees are doing policy budget and everything because we put together tonight and I didn't think it was going to work that easy but it didn't okay uh all the exhibits that we had to um uh share in tonight and adopt those ex okay the last thing I want to and I I know this is not always come
133at a particular time that you would like to come expulsion hearings okay we know that we need three people to do those expulsion hearings you don't have to be able to get on Zoom but you can do it from your phone okay we need three people at these here and I think it's very un unfair to Cara and her sta to constantly send out emails saying I need one more person I need two more people and we all things changes in our life we all know that and we don't know sometime when it's going to come up I don't mind filling in thank God I can fill in but I don't want to be the only one filling in all the time okay so I need you to step up and you guys know that
134these have to be done when that kid is out 10 days that exposion period has to come after that 10 days okay so keep things on your calendar so I you know I hope that um we continue to work together move forward and be positive and do what we need to do as board members when we got out there running for election my last little thing please read this from uh the 24th State agenda from K there information that will help us for board members your you know Board of Education ethics okay Board of Education professional development and see I used I still I love to read but you know I got to read glance thing because I got the phone and so I try to run out to this meeting so there's a lot
135of good information that we don't need anyone to come down and tell us that we need to act like this for it's in these fers and the information and the brochure that they sent us so take time and read okay BL I hope we continue to work together and be a positive okay if there's no other questions I entertain a motion to adjourn I make the motion to adjourn motion made by ask second by ask question yes uh fol got a quick email from about the um Family University that's happened March 23rd which is a week from Saturday I've heard back from some of the folks um at the level need to hear from everybody [Music] please than you3 univ 23rd car sent out an email a sign up document we March 4th went out
136I just want to make sure we cover thank you even if it's thank motion was made by Al second all in favor