001the soul rise through the Pledge of Allegiance congratulations [Music] for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and brothers [Music] thank you um okay Jesse here Gladys here Kate here Bridget here Lauren here out here Teresa here and Michelle here Julie I'm sorry all right spot are you School Rogers Park Middle School come on up [Laughter] so I prepared a 52 um page slideshow do you all know where to go to talk so I did in fact pre-record it so that I would stick to my limits so the amazing Mr Wallace who was the Battle of the tech leader is going to start it so foreign [Laughter] all the awards our staff have won miss Emily Lopes with the 2022 DPS teacher of the year award Miss Dana Perez for the 2022
002Connecticut Association of schools assistant principal of the why Mr Bernardo dicastro with the 2023 RPMs teacher of the year award and I was humbled to accept the 2023 Connecticut Association of Latino administrators and superintendents exceptional principal award this past Saturday has been amazing to us and has adopted classroom we are so proud of all the awards our staff have won miss Emily Lopes for the 2022 DPS teacher of the year award Miss Dana Perez from the 2022 Connecticut Association of schools assistant principal of the Year award Mr Bernardo de Castro with the 2023 RPMs teacher of the year award and I was humbled to accept the 2023 Connecticut Association of Latino administrators and superintendents exceptional principal award this past Saturday has been amazing to us and has adopted classrooms for two years now this year
003our Project Lead the Way Mr Woodward and Mr Laurie our media specialist Ms Foley Miss Milwaukee and our art teachers Miss woman and Miss movement Simone received 500 each to spend for their classrooms Colonial Subaru loves us so much that they raise an additional thousand fifty dollars to purchase graphing calculator so Mr dacus's algebra requests we applied for and were awarded the 2022 Cas ciac endowment and finding in the grant we use this to secure youth leadership training for our student ambassadors if you're watching channel 8 what's right in school in October you may have seen Emily Lopes they did a segment on her with her amazing bilingual education and focused on her co-teaching and science where she brings content and English to life for our newly arrived students mark your calendars because on May
00424th Miss Dana Perez will be featured in a sentiment on the RPMs meal Train three of our teachers are going to have an amazing summer because they were awarded the fun for teachers Miss work will be going to Spain and Portugal to learn more about student cultures through an immersive experience and Miss Cooney and Miss McKinley will be traveling together to Iceland there they will observe current sustainability and Green Technology usage to prepare for a cross-disciplinary project on climate change migration in the local environment here at Rogers Park this year we've used iready as a whole school to accelerate student learning teachers have embraced it and students have bought into it and then everyone's excited about their growth we are so proud to have had the highest growth of all schools in math on the
005winter Benchmark and one of the highest in Reading we focus a lot on our tier one instruction this year to provide all students access to high quality curriculum instructions to further address the needs of our students we collaborated with what we call became eight srbi supervisor Mr Mark colloquin to develop a 6-8 decision tree and srbi process to identify students who are not responding to our Tier 1 instruction we meet monthly to discuss the students and teachers actively Monitor and then address the needs of students in the moment we believe in accountability as a means to ensure that changes we made this year have the desired effect we intended which was to accelerate student growth and achievement in order to do this clean them through things one we've met in our instructional leadership teams to
006discuss the data and make plans move forward Connecticut Association of schools actually visit us to see how we facilitate this and tweeted us out we've worked as a whole school on a PLC book setting where we our aim was to build teacher capacity to examine student data and plan to meet their needs an example of one of the ways we work with teachers is through our ell PLC 7th grade history teachers our sciat coach Mr Chris Hartman was a key in helping to support teachers to build their capacity to work effectively with multiple like multi-lingual learners another way we do this is through our instructional rounds where we monitor the expectations we set and that way we're informed on the levels of support needed but we don't just look at academic data we are constantly
007looking at our attendance and behavior data when we we are so proud to show that the precipitous drop in our chronic absenteeism down nearly 20 percent this is directly from the work that our full-time leap specialist Mr Carly does this is a grant funded position and I'm hoping that we get it again next year he does many home visits to support our families with connections community community agencies and to talk to parents about how important it is to send your child to school he works on tier three intervention groups where he builds relationships with students and creates a strong connection with them and school so they want to attend and a little incentive never hurts students who meet their attendance role goals are reward over the pizza party when we talk about school climate and
008culture we've seen a decrease in the number of ISS and OSS incidents and we do this in a two-pronged approach we build relationships and we address when we're when those relationships aren't harmed we build relationships through our school climate transformation group where we work alongside our student ambassadors to create ways to establish positive School culture and funding and when when needed we can address individual students we have the school-wide became their expectations that were co-created with our students we have a pride award system that acknowledges the best behavior and we also have advisors where students can talk and get to know one teacher as their trusted adult when students don't meet all these expectations and are moved to tier two because they have an increase in all the physical referrals we have our check-in check
009out support corrossful counselors along with small group and individual counseling another thing we do is a purposeful placement in advisory would be remiss if I didn't mention our founder liaison is fully Ina who does an amazing job at connecting our families so that they feel a part of the school as well other things that we do to create a positive School climate culture is to work with the Scotts Ridge Middle School and our Book Exchange are two groups of students read the same book this year was what Lane and they meet and discuss the book virtually and then we've met him first we've got a special treat this year with a virtual meeting with the author of the book for a Maldonado we celebrate our students all of the time monthly at student of the
010month and pride award sentiments trimesterly with our honor and honorable breakfast and monthly again with our i-Ready Superstars breakfast we've worked this year to cultivate more things that students can do after school and our PTO has been key in helping us increase the number of Socials in 1873 dances that we have they're a small group of dedicated parents who are able to support our goal goal of increasing these level of experiences we also work to provide a large number of extracurricular activities for students our buildings buzzing all the time the only thing we're missing is Middle School sports but we have a wide variety of things that kids can get involved we also work with our family and communities to engage our parents and our community members in our school we work hard just you
011know to bring them into our school through various night events where we break bread together we celebrate our cultures we celebrate our students and our school community we have a nice connection with West Palm where each year they have a day of service where students come in and help us around the school this year they've painted our third floor media center we also work with Junior Achievement to do things like a career fair the center for empowerment and education have been a great partner and bring us awesome um relationship and how to be moved people Connections in our health classes we're proud of our work with our veterans where each year our concert choir is invited back to sing the national anthem at the Pearl Harbor Memorial we helped our parents he's into the school
012year whether Rogers Park Middle School student parent handles they knew what to expect we also helped inform parents for information nights and our weekly newsletters and our family liaison along with Miss Perez my meal train have helped our food insecure students have full bellies on the weekends and another thing our family meeting sounds on has done to help support our families is to create a winter quote closet through new donated folks thank you so much for allowing me to shout out our school I welcome any questions and an open invitation for anyone to visit us [Applause] thank you you have some of your uh [Music] stand up and introduce them and say hello to J and D of kjd what's going on and data for us [Applause] congratulations sir thank you [Applause] all right so
013recognition so for Miss Christine Miller Broadview Middle School named Danbury public schools 2023 the teacher of the year congratulations thank you so before you uh start this juices and I want to say a couple of words and um just kind of thank you for your service to this history I I will just say something quickly I don't know you as well as Kelly uh hidden behind you from the special education department but I the sports you know in this community should know so during the pandemic is really what I got to me several times and oftentimes and no different now I work with and Mead's office to get an idea of you know where I could be to help the community Etc and oftentimes she's like Place me you know Kevin go here go here
014go here and in this Fortune though this community should know everywhere and told me to go Christine belt was already there right and I mean every single time and it was during the pandemic it was post pandemic and it was clear that um was committed to supporting and serving this community so I I want to thank you because I told this story to Kelly and Kelly looked at me as well this is right and we didn't need a pandemic to find out who you are and so when I learned that you learned this award I just want to um like it was it felt good to me knowing and seeing you on those front lines during that time um and then it just be confirmed um what I saw confirm like everything you do for
015this school district in this community I was really happy to know that you ended up planning every one so congratulations Kelly tuition has also had some some support thank you Mr Walston So Christine um congratulations to you um Christine I'm just going to say a few words about her and knowing Christine I know this is hard for her Christine um is very humble um but she's Stellar she does an amazing job for our school Community um she goes above and beyond the call of duty every single day she is sought out by her peers by the students and most importantly by our families um and it's it goes without saying that Christine is a name that comes up years later I'll be working with a senior in high school and they're like Remember When Miss
016Miller did fill in the blank and it's always something amazing um Christine is a social skills counselor at Broadview Middle School prior to that she worked at Rogers Park Middle School she supports the entire student body so while she has a special place in her heart for students with special needs and does some amazing work with some of our most significantly disabled students she really is an amazing asset to all of bravio um we often talk about the pandemic how you know the mental health needs of our of our school community of our families um or the food needs our food insecurity or the economic needs Christine was doing this all long before the pandemic she has consistently sought out resources for families so whether that's food on the table hooking them up with Medical
017Care Counseling Services inside or outside of school they need furniture for their bedroom food she does it all she started um a food pantry at Broadview so students can come in and shop for whatever they may need for their houses she runs our Unified sports program and for those of you that are not familiar with what that is that's when students with special needs are given a typical peer mentor to engage in fun but yet competitive Sports um they do everything from soccer to track to other activities she's also sought out grant opportunities to be able to expand that program and provide resources to the school Community she runs the San Diego promise programs at Broadview and it's really a leader around the state for that program I could go on and on I think
018I've given a good picture Christine certainly does it all she's a wonderful example and really represents the special ed and people Services Department as well as the Middle School level very very well so Christine I'm honored and privileged to work with you and have you as a part apartment so thank you thank you [Applause] I don't want to say that this was a complete surprise to me I feel very at home in the basement and this was a big shock and brought an array of emotions from gratitude and grapes and appreciation and so many things but mostly it's made me feel very seen which is not the most comfortable for me but it is also what I want for all of the kids I work with and all the families and all the colleagues and
019all the people and I will say that some of the best gifts I've ever received in my life have come since then in all the emails I received um when Emily love spoke at the ceremony that night she read an email from a student and I've gotten emails like that um including one from one of my former student leaders a unified partner who is now a teacher at Park Avenue school and she told me the story of a student she worked with and how I had helped her to see that you know see the ability in everyone and to connect to students and that she learned that being part of unified in eighth grade and I literally read that email like every day it just it makes my whole you know world it just means
020what matters and so I thank Danbury public schools because it's been a place that has given me the opportunity to see what matters and to use that to fuel my way through every day whether it's a good good good or bad um and and that is truly what I've had the opportunity to do and I feel so grateful to all of you and to everyone who makes that happen to work in a place where they're super independent and all administrators are pulling food across the parking lot during a pandemic means everything to me so I thank you all so you're not going to get away that easy certificate for you and just on your help waiting to you we have the Board of Education just want to say thank you for your dedication you can
021hear when you talk to passion and you know like I say a lot of times if you don't hear to thank you enough I apologize for that so thank you on behalf of the board and it comes through in just your personality and you talked about what you do or how dedicated you are and I just want to say thank you for that thank you and the highlight of your night you're going to take a picture with us thank you very much thank you very much [Laughter] congratulations [Applause] no I thought that too [Music] much all right public participation any other board any board members foreign so public participation the boardwalkings forward participation assets because limit their comments for three minutes speakers we offer objective comments or School operations and programs that concern them the
022board will not permit an expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about Board of Education personnel and students more against any person connected with the Danbury public school system we have a list here in first um name is uh Fred and Merrill and how are you um so I'm here to start a conversation and the idea is I'm at Danbury High School teacher I've been a specialist teacher at Danbury High School for 14 years and I was at age before and after seven and I'm just here to talk about cell phones and technology at the high school um in my time I've seen a change in student Behavior overall concerning behavior and a lot of it has to do with cell phones so the idea is I would like to propose the idea of considering
023storage systems for the self or cell phones in the future in the classroom because um part of it is certainly the pandemic but part of it is that I've seen the deleterious effects of cell phone usage over usage not just on student cognition but on the way students behave my days generally each class I go into the bell rings I have to ask the kids to put the phones away I have to ask the kids to take their earbuds out to ask the kids to take off their headphones and I don't I don't know that we we're never going back in regards to cell phones being in the building but as being charged with getting the information into the kids heads and seeing what they do all day long and working with an at-risk population
024and talking to them about how long each day they spend using their phone um what I'm seeing is troubling to me because it's not the cell phones actually ironically enough are not nuisance kids have become more complacent but it's at the expense of vibrancy um it's at the expense of their ability to think sustain thought activate thought keep thought ideas knowledge in their head I've been blessed to work with some of the finest teachers at Danbury and I've watched The Art of teaching grow as we've adopted standards and so the art of teaching has improved but I'm not seeing um with the kids that I work with the Improvement that should be coming and I can only isolate into one variable which is the constant passive engagement with this device I mean if I had
025said to somebody 30 years ago there's going to be something that's invented that is a TV that is a movie theater that is a camera that is a jukebox that is all these things and will be in the classroom with a teenager and you're going to have to be the one to tell them to put it away which I do and I do team talk classes so I have the liberty of my training room while instructions occurring for I destruct somebody else can kind of so we have a little bit of an advantage but the point is there are days when we are firing at all cylinders and everybody's learning and then we come back a day later and it's as if nothing happened or I say to a kid on another note will he
026enjoy not even what do you want to do because that's a tough question I don't know what I want to do some kids do some kids don't but if I tell them you can't say using your cell phone or sleeping I'm getting more and more students that have nothing to share that they don't enjoy anything else or by eliminating video games and to me as someone who's charged with being in a building with full of teenagers trying to ensure not just that they're learning but now we're charged with you know trying to make sure that they're healthy as well it's um it's trouble it weighs on me very heavily when I walk in the morning and I see hundreds of kids in this position um some of the many of yours there's few most of
027the kids are beautiful wonderful people it's not about bad kids and it's not about um like I said me being annoyed by cell phones I mean I am for 30 seconds what's that 30 seconds left well I just want to end with I think as the district as a school that is charged to it um it's Shoring safety Health vibrancy and learning environment that it is um unjust that we don't consider um doing something that allows teachers to have better control of their environment thank you there's no one else on the list is anyone else here that didn't sign up to speak in public okay all right so student Representatives come on up thank you foreign ERS and we're just here for some announcements so spirit week is going to be next week May 22nd
028through May 26th and some of the needs that was chosen are future day where people will dress up as if your careers senior citizen versus Baby's Day where we're preparing of the Juniors and seniors to dress up as senior citizens and professional sophomores specific babies and then our third day is going to be barbecue dads versus soccer moms and that's end the week off like we usually do we're going to have a color award between the grades and a DHS school spirit day AP testing has also been going on since last week and it concludes tomorrow there will also be retakes going on throughout next week SATs and GSS and all the other testing can also included Junior Prom is going to take place this Friday May 12th and Superman is going to be two
029weeks from now on the 26th last day for seniors in school folks will be June 7th and there's going to be a lot of fun activities planned like the Church of Six Flags is going to be captured again graduation rehearsals and budget on success activities we've seen your award ceremony is going to be June 5th and it's just me by it by only the last first school's breakfast is going to be June 1st it's going to be in person philosophy of school for all grades is June 15th and there will be an art show on May 15th it's from 5 to 7 pm ESL award ceremony Fortress facing May 24th and just a shout out this week is also teacher appreciation week and I will set the Channel all Gamers and features that helped make
030DHS is a great learning department for everybody so moving on also have class elections which are currently happen which are very exciting we're seeing a lot of younger people getting the courage to represent the class and you know really speak up and have a holds for change NHS inductions is going to be next Monday um 52 industries that will be 100 applications which is really exciting we were also we have a middle school graduation on June 12th national math Honor Society will be having a convocation May 22nd through your leadership is hosting a color run on Layman 13 that is about running a 5k and all proceeds will be going to Make A Wish Foundation they're also they also held a teacher fundraiser on Duplo 2017-28 and the courtyard average but I believe right not
031for the teachers but I think we were able to raise so much snhs or science National honest Society um the conversation will be May 31st and then ROTC Awards will be May 27th June 1st for holding a multicultural food festival which is linked up by THS career leadership and then we're going to be having voter registration of milk and made up they're also Terry Wells sale was a great success and it benefited greatly the military well program which is all in that very well between us we also want to take this time to mention that this will be our last meeting for the school year and while the rest of the officers are not able to make it to this meeting we already do the opportunity to be able to attend this monthly meeting and
032let you know about DHS and with graduation capacity approaching you recognize that the rest of our graduating class and we would not be able to be where we are without the hard work and support of the board of education so we would love to we would love this opportunity thank you for all that you do to support the students at Banbury thank you thank you thank you so much in ways before you leave by making that one question I don't know if anyone else says could you sit after this website can you please tell us what your name is that my name is Nadia I'm one of the vice presidents of Board of Governors of BFG thank you so much you guys did a great job today [Applause] okay so we are up yes so
033we have some more amazing guests in the audience tonight about a month ago I recall shared with the board in the community and update about commissioner Russell Tucker's voice of change initiative one of the words that was used when talking about our students in Washington DC representing the state of Connecticut and the town of Danbury was we sent two amazing ambassadors with a state of Connecticut and the City of Danbury and our two former graduates in the audience this evening and so I had the opportunity to see you both on TV and it was as if I was watching two people who were running the company like that's what it sounded like yeah I I mean I was so proud to be a part of this district and working alongside all of the people who
034play a role in helping to shape and develop the two of you and so we wanted to make sure we found an opportunity to get you back in front of this war tonight in front of our community to celebrate you we spent years developing what we call the torture of a graduate and so just before you left we were beginning to try to shape it which portion of the graduate was Community informed so we had folks in higher education folks from industry Educators teachers and you embody all of those things that we're looking for in graduates so I I just want to thank you for taking time out of your College calendar to come back and join us this evening uh thank you for every role you have played I saw you smiling brightly alongside
035the commission on that evening I see a proud mom standing up right now taking pictures and you should be but we would love for you guys to come up and tell us about your visit to Washington DC representing um Danbury public schools but of course the state of Connecticut and so we've been looking forward to you coming back to join us so please come on out there please find another chair and get up there joyous and welcome back um currently a freshman normal sophomore house Crosman the final final at Fordham University in the city I'm majoring in political science with filmmakers economics and sociology so when I had the invitation to come back to Danbury and talk about what was your change I obviously had a safe time I at my final schedule to come
036back and talk about just because it was such a great experience going in Washington I've been working with his friends in Chapel and everyone else machine [Music] at the University of Connecticut pursuing the finance major I'm proud graduate of being here at old schools it was a great time going to DC representative the district we love so much and we'll do this lots of fun throughout BC and at the event we network with us in great people so we appreciate that with you um so I'm blessed um because I I could not pick two students who could exemplify everything we want in our graduates that means too I mean I and I had a slew of them to choose from but they just did more than I ever thought that they could do and they
037and they had a great time um I forgot your pictures I just realized um we had some as Chapel was saying we had some amazing opportunities other than just preparing for and presenting um at the CCS exposed legislative conference on voice for change one of the things that I was able to arrange is that we sat into a court case and from the Supreme Court of the United States and then we got to go down to my arm and Chambers and pictures um and we went and went to museums together and like it was their grown-ups um and all of a sudden they're grown-ups and and they were just amazing and you all well I don't know if you see the video um datejust I could not have been happier that day I was just
038beaming from from you know ear to ear because they are just so outstanding and um I want that for every single one of our students at DHS I wanted it for all and so that's what my classroom is about and I'm just happy to see that they were able to take everything that they've learned at DHS from all of their teachers and and put it into practice as they're going out into the world and becoming presidents so miss miss Lorraine's Chapel Viviana I shared agree with the board a little bit about the voice for change initiative a couple of times now and and that we tried to celebrate and encourage everyone to go watch live you guys speaking group can you walk us through like who was in the room and who else was talking
039I I I was under the impression that commissioner was representing the state of Connecticut but they were also representatives from the entire country there and so can you just kind of walk us through who was in the audience out there foreign [Music] schools across the country are doing at the Astro grants that came out during the pandemic so if it's Connecticut there was Utah Missouri and Tennessee so they had various products Utah focused on with metal technology through the pandemic Tennessee was working on tutoring those groups and there were various other people that stayed throughout the weekend happened to attend that on a single event of course all the election and everything it was kind of a round table discussion type of setup so the commissioner facilitated the conversation and asks us questions and then
040we had um kind of like a little bit of a time limit as far away it's definitely the general format but tonight sure um so the other people that were in the room were um many of the Chiefs um State schools around the country their staff members um there were um press there were organizations that partner with school districts there we were approached by several after our presentation um and I've had follow-up questions from them um and yeah so that was such an end also the CCS those staff was there um and so um my understanding is a lot of these organizations are now going to be using some of this information to create um materials about like the effects of essar what have been the impacts um we also saw the night before before
041our presentation um the uh Department of Education was there um in terms of the questions that we were asked we were asked about how we learned about implementing the program how we saw impacts your community and how they 've been able to affect our standing in college and how we expanded to leadership experience and how it's you know it's better suits I think we uh if you're able to convey that a program like that would allow the idea Academia public schools had a great impact and not on us but now also looking at the high school we're seeing better the future breaking you're seeing more water fountains through good seats um it was I'm sure it was a bad word for the teachers at the NBA tonight and at the end of these students too
042that I'm not sure if anyone watched it was really exactly getting their names out there and um and I also knew a joke about how uh how damaging is the best even though they can't give me extra credit anymore that really I hope the girl called that the interview teachers are the best and just to add on to that whichever was saying it has had an Alaskan effect I would love to see us Implement something like this in our district for like every year um but some of the things that you've heard on the girls that were here earlier talking about that there's going to be a voter registration well the AP Government students are running back at the League of Women Voters here so they're running that in high school um and then on
043the jazz station um then there's the um uh last year there was the day again about day of action against gun boxing except for kids God's word on to do and again this year a group of students started to save our schools campaign one of them came back supporting his fellow former students years and um so it is burned on I believe a lot of Civic action within our community within our students which is something that is um really important that they get along with as I've been working on the academy pathway we have had a lot of conversations I'm working on a Justice and law one and I've been having a lot of conversations with leaders in different legal rooms and all of them were saying like students need to get involved in the
044community they need to become part of the community they need to be feel welcomed into the community that we want you know we want them to be here with us and that's something that you know I think that as we do more things like this and we get kids encouraged that it's okay to step out of your comfort zone you're going to be okay we're going to take care of you um I think that that can only make our community stronger I'm hopeful for that so Miss Lawrence I I want to thank you again if you work your service your commitment to this program is for students Chapel of Viviana requested what I thank you again I don't know if the board of course we want to embarrass the kids and ask them to take
045the picture with us especially before you do does anyone have any questions I just wanted to kind of just say thank you guys for representing Danbury um it's pretty pretty impressive um you know just by listening to who was like in the room uh it's just it's amazing so one of the things that this is what we kind of this is what we do it for and to see the results and to see how proud you guys are and how the teachers are and it's just uh you know at the end of the day makes it all work is this what it's about you're sitting here we talk about other things but seeing the results of of the care and dedication to the teachers is it's just it's just awesome thank you for being a
046great representatives for so the highlight of your night after if anyone else what you say you won't be taking pictures with us so um anyone else have any yeah and thank you both again for representing us down in DC but I want to just do a shout out for Heather because when Heather walked in we just kind of looked at each other because we we said we think we saw each other like six times and over the course of like the last seven days I'm wondering when you're gonna put a desk in right uh because this is a testament to just how active you are right now it's not just voice for Change and all these other programs but um really taking on additional you know beyond teacher leader responsibilities we're helping with the pathway
047and uh pathway curriculum development um and so much more you've just been a leader of so many fronts this year uh and you're a magnet for inspiring students in your classroom and you know the fact that kids are showing up uh at night here to come support their colleagues it just again a testament to the kind of culture that you're creating in your classroom [Music] thank you again thank you anyway okay I got back 20 minutes before the baby sorry you guys the games the worst team in baseball 11 the first time thank you so much yeah no problem [Laughter] all right see you soon academies of Nashville visit to Danbury so right now we have tentative commitment from the board member in Nashville who has been part of the academies of Danbury academies of
048national consensus exception in addition a chamber member from Nashville and an administrator for Nashville is willing it has agreed to come up with various Mutual interests here on our side or we send an email out a couple of days ago and and promise to follow up with some more details about the museum so they have committed to coming off we put together a tentative agenda feedback would arrive Sunday night or someone or Monday we can welcome them with the welcome dinner place to be determined and with the welcome dinner we thought it would be best to just kind of get to know the folks of Nashville and formally ask any questions you may have and then they are committed to a full day of activities and opportunities for you to further engage them right now
049on the agenda we have a am breakout session with the board for the folks who might be available during the day for two hours a PM breakout session for the board members who are available just before a record event Workshop and the idea would be in a more intimate space and give you an opportunity to ask any adult questions you may have and then in the middle between the AM and PM session a lunch and learn with our company if I get business partners and city council members who might be available Civic leaders might be available and then of course any board members will also available in a lunch and learn meeting an opportunity to just talk about the model itself do this in a space with our partners who have already equated to helping
050and supporting us in any way they already have we just thought given all the opportunities working with Brandon thus far it'll be nice good and connect the dots and here firsthand from the people on the other side of the model what this looks like then last but not least going into the workshop and opportunity for the full board to ask questions from the folks of Nashville and I would like to think we would also have some parents and families and students who can listen and firsthand listening expressing the audience or of course watches on TV because of course it can't be straight so I just wanted to provide more details to that email that was sent out earlier again if there's interest from the board we will start moving in this direction the dates are
051Monday June the 20th and Tuesday June 20th birthday 19th and 20th sorry it's Monday the 19th and Tuesday the 20th and so again the 19th would be a welcome to Danbury evening we'll be find a restaurant in town and try to set something for abscape or private room if that's possible so we can have our own intimate space get that Tuesday you'll be able to walk into a full agenda and itinerary where again the board will have a more some kind of one-on-one time with a board member who frankly is she's Dynamic and previously was not only a board member but also a business partner so she truly understands the model and will be able to really speak to any questions I think the board members might have again again I hate having someone from
052the chamber really helps to explain how this model is different from an education that we all at the school system that we went through the last but not least we're trying to find someone whose position is similar to Brits who can also speak uh to how it's working in a in a system that's already established and it's already mature um you know 10 plus years now uh actually it's 16 plus years now and so their story is in it's an impressive story in Nashville I believe where we heard the story from the superintendent I believe they're high school high school graduation rate was in the high 50s and uh they were they were very close to being taken over by the state of Nashville and they implemented a model that they felt was going to
053help change their trajectory in Egypt and so I believe they were like 85 Plus percent graduation right now which I think speaks volumes on how they've turned it and turn that District that district and school Community around what you also learn is uh not sure I don't recall how many schools high schools are in the school district but 16 of them are actually part of the academies of Nashville and so it's not every school in the entire system are part of the academy model on the 16th of them are you also hear that as part of the story and so I you know I don't know if anyone has any questions or wanted to ask some more questions and have some feedback about the actual itinerary if you are interested uh one way to have
054some time to kind of modifying if this is something you're interested in you go 20 seconds 82. are you trying to um are you trying to sort of have a halfway number as to who's going to be at this media we don't want to keep some imagine and no board membership disorder so board members will say well I will be in attendance we will definitely need an RSVP Miss Cooper and and right here this evening that the board has an interest and be pursuing as I would assume that the 19th 19th and 20th or third days the important to be able to commit to you know we can RSVP in terms of the a.m and PM breakout sessions but I think I really think it's the board would really benefit from the Welcome dinner very
055informal I think it will make it easier to ask those questions on day two um and they're ready you know as as I was talking to Greg um The Motto you know their model is so mature now they have six and they must have been 6700 people in the audience today hope we get to go visit and so they actually get um some type of commission for hosting school districts like they make money from this and and so many members also of their team um receive consultant fees for Orlando districts because they've been doing it so long they've been doing it so well so so this is not new to them and again I think will also benefit we're going back to your question yes well an initial commitment from the board would be helpful
056so I can continue to talk to Nashville too so we can pursue the specifics uh but I will need RSVPs at the very least at AM and PM and breakout sessions what's your name so it kind of things I I think it's a great idea to do either Fellowship you get an understanding more about the Career Academy we can hear from Grant okay um his perspective is but I think when if you sit down and talk to their board members and the people that there that's coming here and have that communication with it we might see it or understand it yet that's just me I just make it so you know you can put me down another month so obviously watching it move up and move forward soon okay and in 1921 student now 19
057through 20th yes yes Katie how you doing over there Kate all right healthcare plan thank you okay and uh thank you permissions arrangement I know that you know we've had some folks who went down to the academy International and it was um exciting for those folks a little disappointed what else what does it go so if you guys are doing the next best thing or bringing them up here to the hospital institution okay thank you for mentioned in that case and so I think uh probably depending on your view the superintendent of Nashville I don't think they can get her up here we are about to ask again um but the board the board member is she is a Powerhouse and is given her time in addition number one but given the fact that she's
058been there from the Inception of this work um I I think you're going to get a lot of information and learn a lot about the program in the academy model during this visit and what we learned when we went down to Nashville and it was very clear I think to Karen and I um that the rent was very entrenched in the school Community there and to know that we still have a network that we can tap right and so not only does Brent have a Rolodex where he can tap the resources in Nashville but it's it's opening doors for Cara to have multiple people she can tap for a resource and help us with this work and so if we can find a way down to also have a board member service of resource to
059our board members I think that will also be helpful to put this other layer in the organization so what we're excited about the the idea the same thing with PJ Israel with the chamber I didn't have happen to network and their chamber come up come up so we hope those can be really beneficial in the neighboring schools is a board member I would like to go down and see it for myself as well especially I am not up for uh re-election this is I love it I think carrying it forward I would very much like to go yeah so um we are continue to pursue grants like we always do and uh like I said before we are we'll explore that there are business two times of the year one is to fall and once
060in the spring so we'll revisit that again and plan a trip with I mean we're not going to plan a trip just so we can sit down but we are as part of a cycle planning a trip because there's another study business ongoing study business can be the same place for us to continue so yes we will explore that as I am yes but the gravy will the grade be the same the grading system yes the model doesn't change the policies and then we have one more General update for regarding our security RFP like Dr ceiling is a potato thank you secretary so many of you have heard about our Connecticut State security grant that we were awarded last year for multimedia interoperability and I've talked to the board and specifically sites a little bit
061about this as we've gone through this process um we launched an RFP back in I think it was January and we've been working through a processor we had a bunch of different companies come in who responded to the RFP um we had a selection committee comprised of principals administrators technology folks uh boardroom aquello served on it as well and we believe we've reached the point where we are about to identify a finalist and that finalist uh we're hoping to have the full approval of the RFP in front of this board at the next meeting in two weeks so we wanted to make sure that everyone had just a good snapshot of just what this system was how it works and kind of what it's going to do and like I said the the grant that
062we got through the state Homeland Security is going to pay for the majority of the of these services so um I apologize I didn't get to share these slides with you was I only got them late last night so I can send this out to uh to everybody tomorrow morning so you can have it for your 300 you so um real quick the name Raptor may sound familiar they also manage our visitor management system when you go into a school you dip your ID into the slot and it does a background check this is that same company so it will seamlessly integrate with that technology um there's a couple high level features that it has that I just want to share with you uh number one most importantly is the large scale incidents so these
063are um you know Panic buttons uh you know alert buttons that will go straight to um uh police and Emergency Operations it comes right up on the psaps they can see all the information about uh who's sending in the message where it is and uh increases the response time it also has a feature for small scale incidents so for example maybe there's a fight or something that happens in the school you don't want to notify emergency services but you would need the principal or the safety Advocate to to come to the aid of a teacher or whatever that um that's another feature that they're going to be included in this so it has both of those both of those capabilities there's also drill management software uh it'll help us manage all of the different drills
064and compliance reports that we have to do with our school so we know that all our schools are doing their you know their various drills as dictated by the state um this is another feature where it will actually provide mapping of our schools and show where you know critical services are whether it's fire extinguishers or cameras or other things like that so everyone will have a emergency services we'll have a map of the school if there's any need for for that they'll know exactly where to go and what room and how to find yeah it also has group messaging so during an event the people that need to be informed or looped in from police to Emergency Operations to the principal to Central Command everybody will be on that app and not trying to you
065know oh is that an email is that a text message well I texted everybody's in that group thread so it it just keeps a lot of that messaging consistent and clean and this is uh another feature it's reunification so if there's an event and you know let's say I just we want to pull everybody into the classrooms and get them out of the hallway there's actually two features here one is I can pull a kid into my classroom if it's a passing period And if that student's not in my class I can still go into this app and claim that I have uh Miss Cara casimiro and then the teacher who is expecting Miss casimiro to be in her class will see that she's safe with me so the other side of this is that
066if there is a situation where we would need to reunify students with parents there's a clear system here built on the I love you guys template that allows us to understand who all the children are who they're assigned Guardians are that we're allowed to release them to it shows a picture of the student the signature of the parent goes right into the app and then we have a complete record of reunification the current system is really just paper so you have to keep you know printing it and updating it as attendance lists change you know the lists change it's it's a laborious process currently and this would really streamline a lot of them and uh there's a whole bunch of other bells and whistles and Integrations that this technology can can do so we like
067I said we have uh visitor management right now through Raptor but we also have cameras we have alarms on our doors so if a door has been propped open things like that this would integrate a lot of those so it would all come through the same system and then the advocate and anybody who needs access to that would be able to see all those things coming up in the same system foreign and then there's just a comprehensive dashboard so we can see everything who's using the system and who's drilling on it and who's compliant and if somebody hasn't done their October drill yet we can call them up and say hey you need to do your October fire drill and it's just a nice way for us to keep and check and on top of
068uh security from from a district standpoint and this is a feature that we are exploring adding on it's a in-person training program they would come out and so there's a basic training program where they'd help you through tech support things like that if you need it they'd call you up and and walk you through you know certain technology and other issues that might come up but this is where they would actually have on-site support they'd come out and actually help you with drills so if you wanted to test say that reunification software they would help you run the drill and uh you know you could you could have your you know your school safety team involved in it and everybody can practice and develop that muscle memory so if something are to happen were to
069happen everybody would have drilled in that and they would support that as part of this package that works okay I think that's it so um like I said the uh we wanted everybody to be um just up to speed on the RFP um please uh feel free to reach out if there's any other questions I'm going to share these slides with everybody uh we're working through some final things right now on pricing and contract and um we're hoping to have that uh final action for this board on our agenda in two weeks time where we'll officially award the RFP and then our plan is to start implementing really quickly thereafter so that we can start doing a lot of the technological back-end stuff over the summer we want to get it on everybody's radar before
070we go away for a break so that they know what it is when they come back and they start seeing this new language and terminology built into the school safety plans and then start training and drilling already at the start of next year is this a app is it a um put on the personal phones or the teachers and students so it it can be an app it works on every piece of technology that we have so it will work on teachers computers so if they don't want to install it on their phone they don't have to if there's an emergency it'll pop up on their computer it actually even has Smart Board integration so if someone's up at the board teaching and they're not looking at their computer it would pop up on the
071Smart Board and say you know there is an alert and then they would know to you know check check the messaging or whatever it is they need there's options to put it on the phone if a teacher decides to do it but it wouldn't be mandatory now we have the teacher comment about bringing the phones to the classroom the students are not they have to put in phones and a cubby holes say and with that interfere with this program no not at all this would only be teachers and staff it just teaches us that Nest students correct so it's not accounting for students it's accounting for teachers no so the student rosters this would tie directly into our student information system and that's how the system would pull all the class rosters and things like
072that so as me a teacher I would see my whole class roster and if there's an alert or an alarm I would know immediately based on that real-time list so if somebody left early say to go to a dentist appointment that would be reflected in that list and I could say oh that's why he's not here any other questions thank you thank you so you're going to email us soon yes looks like we got some more updates on this Lieutenant goals update all right so goal 1.2 Dr Casimir recently visited Charlotte and so this was study visit um I I shared with the board the last time Dr casimiro that might be asking me to provide an update that would be amazing if you could or maybe talk about how this music was different it's
073probably the last and also some key takeaways because I know okay back to my shift when you got back yes so um again the small team to Charlotte that was uh principal Donovan uh Brett Dean Dr Martens and myself and the purpose of the visit was really to understand the partnership piece just one high school Olympic High School with Charlotte Harbor had over 700 Partners um this one College and Career Readiness director who's kind of what brenta would be doing here brought in almost 20 million dollars of income donations and Partnerships uh in his tenure and as a result of that is deep in North Carolina knocked on his door when it came time to do a 24 million dollar clean energy Grant for the state they asked him as he's trying to retire they
074asked him to open up a brand new one of four random high schools in Charlotte Mecklenburg because of their experiencing tremendous growth in that area it's unbelievable how many developments are happening down there um so they They begged him to come over to Palisades High School which is at random high school and replicate what he was doing while we're in Olympic High School Bosch manufacturing flash appliances partnered with Olympic High School and created a multi-million dollar uh facilities lab for students to train and practice a training facility and basically they're taking kids right out of that facility with high school they're making quotes to six figures coming out and these companies are not just Bosch but their companies are paying for students to go to school while they are practicing with their with their companies
075there's a tremendous amount of back manufacturing very clean high-tech manufacturing down in North Carolina and they are clamoring for for students with a certain skill set there's this idea of durable skills and hard skills and hard skills come when you have a I use a one of the companies that we met with the president of the company called Roger and grodinger makes so if you think of any anything that fills bottles medicine uh vials vaccines lipstick tubes shampoos they make the machines around the world individually and unique uh uniquely customized for any company that's filling something and moving it along a conveyor belt really high-tech stuff um and every machine is different and so when you can have an engineer that graduates you know North Carolina they still have to do the same training as
076if it's kind of ground zero on those types of machines so they they invest in students they invest um on that side in the training that's a given on the hard skills but what they're struggling with and what we heard in our industry partnership today is this idea about these durable skills about the type of worker that they're looking for that come to them so they spent a lot of time just particular company spent a lot of time talking about how Olympic High School really developed that type of person that had the attributes that they were looking for to invest in over time but besides from that it was really focused on how this one person like Ray Allen developed all these relationships and how important that piece became in this mutually beneficial exchange of
077what the schools systems were producing and what the local Regional account is needed and demanded and so the school systems are now aimed at feeding this growing um metro area that is booming with success that is driving skilled positions from entry level all the way through way close secondary high tech stuff and so the the bottom line with the relationship piece is that it's really what we're asking you know I think we've approached this with companies and our area businesses is what can you do to help us how can you come and help Danbury public schools what are you going to do for us really the question is how do we how what are we going to do for you right so so we're trying to create this beneficial pipeline for our students to have
078opportunities but in order to do that we really need to start asking questions differently of our industry partners for industry influencers and saying you know what is it that you're looking for and then how can we design um things that if it works out for the best interest of students and there's opportunities at the end of it um to meet that need to create that pipeline of opportunity for students the jobs that students were getting coming out of high school were mind-boggling there was a lot of companies that were paying for so you know access to the academies is is completely open but once you get into the academy those internships become competitive right not everybody's going to get to go out and go into one of those internships and from those internships not everybody's
079going to get an apprenticeship and so how do you how do you inculcate students with the right dispositions and character and skills to be competitive for those types of opportunities and how these companies pay pay for students to to have their education taken care of and in return have a great job waiting at the under other end of that so it's very eye-opening in that sense of flipping the mindset of how we're approaching industry it's not what you can how you can support the school system how can you can support you to create a relationship that's going to provide opportunities for students at the other end um so it was a wonderful wonderful trip um they really pushed in our thinking and our mindset and it was uh it was Timeless friend internships for the
080students are they paid there's all kinds of internships so some are paid some are just ours right so people provide student um 15 hours of internship in the summer they can start the summer they can come after school if you're a senior to get out early you've got some opportunities some of the more competitive ones are paid so students who do well it's kind of a tiered system and they've structured them differently with different companies to to meet the company's needs um and you know if they were interested in students then you know some of them they had you know seven eight nine ten twelve interns interns that would come they they provided a project an industry inspired project that was that was real and timely sometimes they would put real problems that the industry
081were trying to solve themselves and you know kids are not constrained with all the all the things that can go wrong when they're trying to look at things and so uh you know they're not thinking about the money they're not thinking about the policy and the legislation and the liability and this has been tried before sometimes kids come up with really really get ideas because we're not constrained by the adult things that we've all experienced right rejection um and so they have students solve real problems for them and at the end of those they've offered um really like high paid internships and potentially apprenticeships again meeting your you know really high skilled person potentially an engineer for example um and we spent a lot of these companies were paying for the kids to us got
082to go to school it was amazing but like what happens with the student that has to work and the internship doesn't pay so these are all choices for for students so you know the goal is to create as many opportunity scenarios out there and to partner with the with each industry um you know expert that to create to create and generate what would work for them um again that's about you know what works for you and we'll make that connection um and provide you know students as flexible thinking and is you know we're going to be working with us another curricular experience it can be about you know how do you how do you act correctly in the workplace when you have time you got to show up you have to be dressed you have
083to you have to address people properly you have to make good eye contact you have to wait to turn to the table when you're having a conversation you have to be able to participate you've got to be a good team member what does that mean um how do you maximize your skills at the table you know what are you good at what's your partner good at how do you team up to create a product so there's a lot of a lot of learning involved in that and that's part of the and that there's a huge tie in the proportion of the graduate in this work so the a lot of the durable skills that we talk about you know being a good communicator and a collaborator and a learner right an innovation all of those
084things are highly embedded in this type of work and those are the durable skills more so than those hard technical skills that everybody really you know we're kind of heading into this thinking that our industry partners are going to be like well you're going to have to know how to code and do all these things well they're going to train Talent anyways but they want us to produce um a a student of character and one that will be a good employee and to be productive for the team and the company because you know um it's this one uh industry fellow kind of put us in our place and said you know if you produce failure in your school system you just keep pushing them through and they don't have skills your consequences are far fewer
085for you as a school district than me as a company we go out of business if we fail so how can we work together to make sure that what you're producing is meeting and growing economic demands and our kids are credit for these types of jobs that are like really spinning very quickly into a whole other realm of of skill so it's got those durable skills the durable things you know they last forever and are Timeless and that's what we got to work on question please good question what's the average length like a partner contract so we're talking about how is it like three years you know obviously so some that have been it various right some have been involved with that particular school for like 20 years like they you are my go-to you
086were my resource for how we're in that staff are our folks you know for every 10 kids that come through and do internships maybe one will come back from college and we're going to hire that kid in a relationship with them and we know who they are we trust them we know they're going to be uh part of our family and some are probably more short-lived you know as we're approaching the work with the industry and folks um you know in the system of India but having an Advisory Board and we had some real productive conversations about slowing that down a little bit because we're dating our industry Partners right now right we're dating um it's Brett and I have a chuckle about that because we're new at this and we want to make sure
087that we have a good fit so before we dive in and have an Advisory Board and say you you have this strong influence on what's happening in our school system we want to make sure that there's a good fit and that there's a mutually beneficial you know there's some reciprocity there and what they need and work and what we need and produces that best opportunity for students so um we're gonna We definitely took a step back and are a lot more Collective about our approach and you know the we'll be thinking a little bit slower and making sure that we build relationships with folks to see that it works for everybody as uh as Brent like identified like uh industry need like does he see more in my general Danbury has a lot of different
088business you see more like in manufacturing is it more companies that Healthcare is beaten down our door right um manufacturing manufacturing is a little bit tougher like there's huge need for it right and then there's you know how do you get the kids you know get to the facilities right so we can't necessarily replicate some of the facilities so we have to really that's a little bit more of a of a tougher run for us although there's a lot of people out there who are also interested in doing that Healthcare is is really huge in this area and um you know everybody wants to get a hold of our CNAs because that's a pipeline to you know many many Health Care you know jobs so it's not just DNA that's the beginning that's not the
089end goal for for most of the kids we've got kids that have gone to be surgical technicians um you know doing instruments in the in the operating room you can close to six figures you know in some cases um you know the CNAs you get to see your day coming out of high school and you want to be a nurse nursing school is very competitive and direct engineers and programs are 10 times more competitive UConn has like a four percent acceptance rate and you come out of high school and you've got a high school diploma and CNA certificate you've had your patient contact hours squared away and you've been certified in at least three more things you've got all these things and you're ready to go you now become need yourself 10 times more competitive
090money than your average applicant going into into college so it's not just about getting the CNA ones because it's about positioning for competitiveness beyond the walls of Stanford High School um you know in any regard that's just one example any like feeder from short on yeah so we're going to be growing our own we're hoping to grow our own so it's part of our pathway development and Heather Heather Lorenz was a part of the academy for professional Public Service she's one of the pathway leaders so we have an education pathway and got the law a few others so they work together to talk about those foundational grade 10 of course the goal is to graduate our high school students with a prepare a professional license that's very obtainable obtainable in high school and so we'll
091get an exposure to early childhood development or understand those things CPR and then the end goal is to get a pair of pro to take that care a protest so you can perhaps this channel on the protest parapro test assessment monsie graduate high school you can come back and you can work as a paraprofessional in our own School District you know possibly working more with the younger grades that really positions you well for experience and exposure do I actually want to be an educator I have the confidence to do this I've learned some classroom management skills I don't understand the appropriate way to interact with parents and to deal with teachers and administration and understand the confidentiality rules and laws there's a lot to learn doing that and while the case repair Pro isn't super
092great and hopefully working out I've worked on that over the years um the idea is that you've really created a pipeline to be coming from there for education and we're also simultaneously working looking at a lot of our universities right now we've got our new collaboration with posts a few others in Wisconsin but if you have something on our doors they have they have um you know they're offering early college credits so post for example right now for 150 you can take a three credit course and so some of our you know we're looking to do alignments between the three three classes that we're developing and to say hey why not have provide students an opportunity when they're taking this uh a letter grade course in a professional public service that they can also get
093through credit for three credits at Post University which by the way transfer to any State University Systems as like kind of a cash equivalent right um so we're looking for for lining those things up they'll take us a few years to find all the right matches but we've got a good start on it right now um so kids will come out with certificates of a few college credits and there's about a definitely a better sense of what they want to do or not when they leave Danbury High School right um to enter an executive sessions thanks thanks Brad thank you thank you it's on the agenda it's always a favor