001to and I don't like to use that term meet parents where they are but meet where we all are so that may mean going out to where parents are removing all those barriers that create issues for parents coming to our schools and you know we know during covid we had to have some of that just to keep everyone safe and social distancing but now that we're back regularly we are a regular form I guess I want to say we are opening our doors to all of the families that come to Danbury and the other thing that we heard from families is that they wanted to become better educated with what their children are doing and how they can be part of their their child's education even more and so we use What's called the Connecticut
002framework for full and equal Partnerships it is a framework that was developed by Karen Mapp or not care map I'm sorry Ann Henderson under some of the work that Karen Mapp had done and Danbury was one of the highlighted districts in this new framework when we put together what is a full and equal partnership so Ann Henderson ran several groups here in Danbury with parents with teachers to find out exactly what was that definition of full and equal Partnerships and from that we've really built out this whole framework so Mike if you want to go to the next piece so my original position when I came into this position or came into the district in 2008 was really to oversee our before and after school program which will see in the upper top left and
003our School Readiness program oh no not scoring the Family Resource Center it then morphed into overseeing the School Readiness program and at that point we had two sites we had one at Mill Ridge school with two classrooms and one at Morris Street and then um as things morphed and we received funding we were able to move in for the first renovation that we did in 2009 2010 at the 49 Osborne Street Building and then from there it was it just kept building um then Kevin came in as our superintendent and said so who are your family Liaisons and I said we don't have Liaisons and he said well let's see how we can make that happen and so we then added family Liaisons to the work that we're doing we then formalized or back in
0042000 and 10 when we moved into the building at 49 Osborne Street we really focused on making that a One-Stop shop for families and so you'll see that's where the family and Community engagement Center came in we received that nice Federal grant um from the the fed the federal government some set aside money from the state department or the Secretary of Education and we were able to redo part of the building and start a family Literacy Center and so we had families coming in and out of the building receiving um you know food receiving books for their families and then about at the same time somebody over in central office said to me um you know we need to bring in more grants for this District how do we bring in more grants and I
005said well you need a 501c3 and the district didn't have one and so in 2013 we incorporated a board of directors and it started off as the Danbury family Literacy Center was incorporated in 2013 and in 2015 it received its 501 C3 status which allows us to take in Grants from uh companies from private foundations and really be able to bring in extra money not extra money but money for programs family you know we'll pay for our upcoming Family University in November it pays for a lot of the things that we do for families in the district along with that we were all also able to bring in Partnership schools which is part of the joy Epstein model through a Federal grant through crack out of Hartford and so those schools have specific learning initiatives
006that they're working with in their students learning goals Behavior goals and family engagement goals so let's go into the next um piece and at the end we'll talk about special initiatives so the the whole purpose of the family and Community engagement Center and I certainly um hope that we can do something about meet the board at our Center is it's really a One-Stop shop for our Danbury families it's welcoming to the to the to the um families as they come in we speak multiple languages there so no one should feel that they are coming in and not going to hear someone or be able to speak to someone that speaks their language um I'll I'll skip over new promise program just for a second the major reason that families come to there is to register
007their children and so when they register their children they go through the online process of doing the registration first then they bring in proofs of their documents and then they can come back for play groups that we run they add upon registration receive a really nice welcome packet that tells them all about Community Resources it has where they can go for heating assistance snap we make sure our families are are signed up with Husky we make sure that they know what's going on in the community different types of programs that they can register in at that same time if they need the before and after school program we can register them in that and if they have younger children that are threes and fours we can register them into one of our two School Readiness
008programs we also are a resource and referral So a family might come in and say that they need um you know more food um so we refer them out to the different food banks that we run and we really make sure that families have what they need particularly during the pandemic we heard from a lot of parents that um didn't know how to use the technology they question how do they get on versatran and out of that work came this new promise program the new promise program is module one which we have fully developed at this point and have been running courses on it so it's module 1A through 1p or one yeah 1p or Q maybe now and so parents can take that in two or three nights and they learn everything about what
009is Google Classroom how to sign into PowerSchool how to use schoolology is one of our newest things how to find where the menu is how to um use parent Square which is our new communication platform that we use and just a lot of other questions we designed this with Karen Mapp who is the guru of family engagement with her students at Harvard and so they were able to gain the Harvard students were able to gain credit for helping us design this program but it's specific to Danbury and it has the Harvard stamp on it so we're very proud of it and Lindy funded all of the program for us so that's really what happens at the face Center families can come there if they just need to talk if they need to really work through
010something um they'll come in um you know every day is a little bit different of why parents come to us next slide so the learning the before learning the Extended Learning programs is really our before and after school it's our summer Sensational program it's our 21st Century Learning Program it's a whole bunch of different programs that's a main focus is to extend the day help with homework to make sure that children that don't have help at home can get the help they need by certified teachers and by our Associates it's small group tutoring and then of course we focus in on wellness and Recreation team building the students in the afternoon by might be building something with Legos homework completion and then some field trips that we do as well we're very fortunate to be
011a long-standing district with the state department of Ed for having 21st Century Learning programs and so you may hear well my school charges 18 an afternoon and my school charges five dollars an afternoon for the same program well the 21st century program funds this at a high enough rate that we're able to offer that discount to parents and so every time that Grant comes out we apply for more schools right now we have four schools so we Broadview Rogers Park shelter in haystown school we will reapply most likely uh for Park Avenue and Ellsworth School in the next go around for Grants um underneath me I have two wonderful program managers that actually run the programs they split up the elementary and middle schools to oversee them and then at the schools we have site
012facilitators um that are the the the folks that are on the ground who really focus in on uh what happens um with the students and then the associates maintain that one to ten ratio along with that I also have data folks in an assistant program manager that help run those programs okay so you'll see some fun things we do you know family uh components cooking Zumba homework and social skills family literacy family activities and coming up on Saturday November 5th we have our first family University so next slide the School Readiness is a program through the department of the Department of Ed as well as the Connecticut office of Early Childhood we have had 56 slots for some time now one and so those programs started off at Mill Ridge and Moore Street and then
013when the schools needed space we moved to Cottage Street this past year one of our Danbury programs closed and so we received more slots so we now have 85 slots for children and so in the new Annex Building we have three School Readiness rooms with 60 students there and then at Sacred Heart we have the rest of the students there we are doing enrollment we're also still looking for staff and that program functions with one full-time director a full-time parent educator and 11 teachers and like I said we're always looking for more staff so if you know someone that has an Associates in early childhood is workers working on their bachelor's degree please send them our way we also have full tuition reimbursement for staff through our Connecticut charts of course registry for staff that
014comes to work for us we are licensed through the office early childhood and accredited by neyc and so what supports that is our slot money per child from the office of Early Childhood our care for kids subsidy which is a state subsidy and our parent fees and please stop me if you have any questions at all so our Moore Street Family Resource Center is also under the state department of Ed and I've given you the actual link there so you can read about it and so the FRC has six components it is a resource and referral for parents that come to Moore Street School they also have a parent as teachers home visiting program so under that Grant we have a full-time director a full-time parent educator a youth director and then we have certified
015teachers that run some of our science and gardening clubs at Morris Street school as well um part of the parents is Teachers home visiting program is for families that may have children birth to age five who may be at risk it might be a single family it might be a family that doesn't have enough to eat there may be some social emotional issues and so we have a caseload we normally carry in a year of 12 to 18 families that receive these home visits by our parent educator and then there's all kinds of resources that they're given they're giving strategies on behavior management things to do and activities for their children as well as we run a play group once a week at Moore Street school as well also one of the components is making
016sure that we have a good after school program and that you know that's where part of the funding goes to the FRC to help recruit children for that program and then the ELP program of my um of my team actually does that work we do Youth Development and then School School Readiness I apologize for the the double typo in that one so okay next slide okay there we are liaison so this is our newest project that we've had this year and I'm really excited to say that as a September or every school in Danbury has a family liaison so its goal is to really build a strong bridge between families and schools resulting that schools or that families feel welcome to attend school events and that they feel like they are equal partners with our
017schools that they're part of the decision-making process that they're able to give feedback to their principal and one of the best things that we did was our welcoming School walkthrough that we did in the spring and I think a couple board members attended at different schools in that parents from that did attend said they really felt like their input was valued and that's what we wanted you know when you're in a trusting relationship and you feel valued then you feel good about it and you want to continue that relationship so those are the things that we're really um building when a new liaison comes on we do a six hour initial training with them and then we have weekly PD or check-in sessions we are instituting the home visiting model that will be running on
018October 25th with their liaison so that they're trained for that home visiting model and understand you know the different ramifications of how to do a really effective home visiting and then we have full PD days we are happy to say that uh Dave Beckel from cross country Consulting is the one that um actually evaluates the program and so at the end of last year we asked principals what they thought about the Liaisons and how we could strengthen the program we also asked Liaisons at least once a month what can we do to strengthen the program so we hear from them on what type of PD and activities that they want and so the feedback from principals has really been um encouraging they feel that the Liaisons have added a lot to their school all of
019the Liaisons are bilingual if not trilingual so when families come to schools immediately there is someone that speaks their language and they don't have to go to find our third party on phone calls to get translation these folks and can actually call home and speak in their native language so we're building that that bridge many of them come to PTO meetings or go to PTO meetings making that call to parents to say you know we have a PTO meeting or I'd like to do a home visit with you or you know can you come in and talk talk um to your child's teacher problem solving with their child's teacher and things like that so um the Liaisons are are really an integral part of building that bridge between our schools at home and our next
020slide so as I said and I'll go over this really quickly the uh it was incorporated the Danbury family Learning Center which we changed our name when we became Incorporated operates under an eight-member board and um we just were at our president's uh wake and funeral tomorrow so um we will be reconvening our group uh the week after next to to invite more members and to vote on a new president the FLC as we call supports the face Center supports parent and family training like I said that November 5th date and we can also be the Fiscal Agent for Grants and other Financial initiatives um that we're able to bring into the district our next slide partnership schools this is from the Federal Grant and so we have Ellsworth Park The Early Childhood Center South
021Street and Mill Ridge that are part of this and so they fill out an extra set of documents that are in with their school Improvement plans and we've worked with them very closely with their liaison to be able to do those goals of two academics one behavior and one Family Partnership goal okay next slide I know I'm pushing through these so the other part of what Falls underneath me is a really special um initiatives in here in the district a lot of it is grant writing I am happy to say we just received a nice Grant a notification of a grant from Nelly May um this past Friday I work very closely with the Department of Ed and the Connecticut trust fund to bring funds into Danbury for our parent c groups and people empowering
022people we also run uh with the ritual VNA health clinics twice a month uh just Friday night we had 27 children finish off their health physicals and their vaccines so they could start this school this week and next we also Foster and support the um Mr Walston superintendent newsletter and uh last week we rolled out our first issue or edition of the newsletter that comes out of my office so hopefully you all receive that and so all the really exciting things going on we have supported and this is where my assistant director Grace Molina comes in she has done a fantastic job at supporting the implementation of parent Square to our district helping secretaries understand how it works helping all of us on the leadership team to understand how it works so that we have
023a really solid platform so our parents can talk to us and we can talk to them and keep them um up to date on everything we spend a lot of time with Community forums and Outreach one of the superintendent's goals and everything that I do links back to those goals but one of them is really to hear from our parents hear from the community and this will be very important as we further develop the pathways Academy and work on our budgets over the next couple of years and then we have ongoing family education besides all the different workshops that you saw that came out in that newsletter parent supporting educational Excellence we had a great group I think of 20 people people that graduated in May same with people empowering people we run Zumba healthy
024meals lay Sarah which is another program just in Spanish read and you will be positive discipline supporting school Success and of course the new promise program in the next two weeks we'll roll out the new District website and so that will be another way to really help parents be able to find information easy which hasn't always been easy on our website and then lastly the strategic planning that we've been doing um you know originally started with a lot of our Equity work that we started with in 2018 and so we look at things through an equity lens as we plan the Strategic plan to make sure that we have the goals and the action plans that are really going to be best for all of our families in the district and that will support academic
025growth for our students and that is it yep Madam chair Mr Russo I have a question sure I'm concern and hopefully you've voiced the solution and just went over my head I've uh we've had an inordinate amount of student disciplines and it's my undated quantitative debt and opinion that there are way too many of them and we need heavy parental engagement with their students how does your plan address that and glass if I missed something please feel free to chime in so so I'll start with this and then I'll turn it over to Kevin to to talk a little bit more about other things happening in the district we know if parents have the tools that they need to understand how we work in our schools then they're going to be able to provide better
026guidance for their students and so and all the work that we do especially the new promise program we have a whole part in there on discipline and where to find the discipline policy and how it is followed how we expect families to reinforce that with their students so I would say the the first line of defense is really having parents educated on what it is and then giving them the tools that can really help support their students stay out of trouble stay online stay engaged we know that families that are really engaged with our schools have less behavioral problems especially as their students grow older so you know we're seeing now more and more parents coming to events at the middle school that wasn't the case five or six years ago so we're hoping that
027this new trend of getting families engaged from the time that they're children are babies and then when they enroll in our School Readiness programs or one of the other Community School Readiness programs that they'll take advantage of all of these different programs to learn how to be you know I I don't I and I don't want it to seem like I'm saying parents don't come with skills we know parents come with skills we just have to help educate them a little bit more about our our expectation in our schools yeah absolutely that you can expect this discipline Trend to continue until the the younger kids are the parents that have joined our district to progress through the classes until the upper school or is there some immediate way we can been way too way too
028many like I said discipline hearings yeah yeah when I came in uh Mr Russo a lot of it that parents would come to things you know preschool kindergarten one two three where we really did this focus on helping those parents to continue to stay and the importance of being engaged you have a daughter our daughters grew up together remember those Middle School years they were brutal and so we're telling parents right off that we can you know help give you some of the tools that will make those years easier for you and we are seeing more parents stay engaged through the Middle School um level and so I think some of our initiatives you know working with the PTO working directly with the high school will be able to get that education uh to the
029parents and hopefully stop some of these issues yeah go ahead uh just a quick question and to follow up with Al you know I think it's very important well I know it's important to reach students why they're young yes but as we talk about the discipline policy we I see now that we have to start teaching them and explain it to appearance at a much younger age and maybe a demonstration as to what happened a mock demonstration as to what happened uh when it comes to expulsion our board members are selected and deal with the expulsion hearing because if you can't if kids and parents are going Mrs Cooper we lost you Gladys I don't know if you can hear me but we lost your audio they're not going to take it they'd rather play
030a game than to go on and read about the policy disciplinary policy so I I guess what I'm trying to say how can something formally be set up that we can really start engaging parents and students now before they even get to the middle school because now we know things are happening before they get to the middle school so that's sort of my thought okay okay so I I'll say from my side we will give that a lot of thought I'll work with the leadership team I'll work with this committee and with superintendent Walston and my Dr Celia and we'll come up with um you know really making some Focus um action steps for that okay yeah thank you and any any sort of timeline you could project on the action steps I can't let
031me meet with my team and let me bring in Kelly trucius as well our assistant superintendent of um special services this would be a group effort on how we roll This Out thank you yeah you're welcome I can meet I have a quick question I just first want to express my condolences for the the loss of the president on your board but it did ask uh bring forward a a question about how how are the board members selected for that so when we originally um started the board I went out and and reached out to like-minded folks we've always had a link to the larger Board of Ed um and then it was Eileen Alberts that when she was done with the Board of Ed in 2016 joined our board um and so we look
032for other members to suggest people that align with our mission of helping families uh you know get the skills that they need and so um we're we're open to anyone that that is aligned to our mission okay an organization thank you very much thank you thank you uh any other questions before we move forward um right here quick question on the um home visit protocol can you go over that a little bit more is it you know voluntary um is there two people that go to the home like you were mentioning training so I'm just wondering about that a little bit more yes yeah thank you Michelle so for the um family visits that we do through the Family Resource Center they are trained um with a program that's called Pat parents uh teaching program
033this is something that all of the frcs are mandated to use throughout the um um State parents as teachers training and so they take initial training and initial initial a training uh initial training there we go um that lasts for two or three days and then both the FRC director and the parent educator are re-certified every year through that that in order to stay funded we have to be re-certified through that there is a whole uh protocol that you go through to determine who your families are and when the when the visits first take place the first two to three visits it's both the director and the parent educator goes out the visits are um voluntary if a family is not comfortable doing it in their home we might do it at a park they
034might come into the school to do the visit they might choose to do it at the library or wherever they're where wherever they're comfortable um in doing it but we are very careful that our staff for going into safe homes to be able to have these home visits and I would say probably 95 percent of our families attend play group two so it's not just the getting the home visits but they're coming to play groups they're going to other things that we offer they attend the uh Charles Charles activities on Thursday night once a month where that's all done in Spanish to talk to other Spanish families on topics that they want to talk about so we are careful with our staff that we have those protocols in place and that they follow the pap
035model in order for us to keep our funding as well and there's a whole reporting piece that goes back to the state on every visit as well so how do these families get selected so the families come to play groups and then they're asked if they want to be a pat family parent as teacher family um it could be that the social worker in the school is working with a Moore Street student and the social worker might have some concerns or in talking to the parent the parent says you know I I just don't know about what to do with my younger children and so the social worker or school psychologist principal or the teacher can refer them to our director or to our parent educator for those visits as well so it can be
036through a referral or parents just are very interested in what this is to get more information when they do the initial sign up for they do a risk assessment sheet and that determines whether they should under the pat model receive a weekly visit every other week once a month or something like that a different schedule and you were saying that all the notes go to back to the state so it's been confidential whatever it is it is confidential it is confidential it goes into what's called a can system and that's a system that the state department of Ed uses both for the reporting for the frcs and for all our 21st century programs so it's not tagging a child to a particular issue um it it's more here's we served you know 18 families this
037month and you know here's how we dealt with those risk factors with the family we provided more food we help Mom to reach out to the Women's Center okay their new name things like that okay yeah it is confidential yeah great thank you um in the interest of time and I see your hand up Mr Russo but um it's 5 40 and we have some other things on the agenda that we need to get to so I'm going to ask if folks have other questions that they please reach out to Dr Mead after this meeting okay thank you so much I can't think of anything more important than um students getting squared away and parents being engaged with them strengthening the code of conduct the communication of the code of conduct to the parents in
038our District's expectations absolutely that's why we that's why we brought Dr beat in all right Dr Seeley yeah uh thank you so much and you know I I just anecdotally I read a uh an article not too long ago it said something like you know you only really get 10 of a child's uh youth years in school when you add up the summer times and the vacations and the time out of school um so if you know the partner If the parents aren't acting as real Partners in that process there's a real speed limit to um to what we're gonna be able to accomplish um just in the hours a day that we have them so I think this stuff is just so incredibly valuable and I'm grateful Anne is is just uh incredible at
039putting these things together and finding the funding I mean so many of these things are just grant funded they don't they don't impact our operating budget so um it's really really tremendous work um okay so the last two things that we want to talk here um so overview of the of the family engagement office uh we just talked about that um the two big events that we wanted to figure out and and I know we have um Citywide PTO going on at six so that leaves us um there's two events uh Kate wanted to talk about introducing Brent Dean to the community to make sure that he had all the access to healings but also that they know who he is and sort of has the the you know rubber stamp of the Board of
040Ed and then also just a more General meet the board uh event which I think would coordinate with some of the budget issues so people could speak to to some of the the challenges that that we're sort of anticipating um I don't know if you just want to talk about those together or one at a time I don't Kate did you you want to lead off I think we should start I think we should start with the uh the meet the meeting with uh the family sorry the community meeting with uh uh Mr Dean I think that's sort of from my perspective we need to get that one going soon to welcome him into our district in a more formal fashion we did have an introduction at City Hall with the Chamber of Commerce and
041there were quite a few folks there that was nice to see people you know reaching out and uh sort of making themselves accessible for for Mr Dean he's got a lot of work to do in our community to kind of get to know how we operate to know what resources are available here and I think we also have um you know a responsibility on our end uh to bring him forward as a new member of our school administration and uh to introduce him to our families so that they can get to know him and get to understand the work that he's also undertaking um so I guess with that in mind I I'm I'm looking for some feedback as far as uh when folks might be available to participate in this and to get some
042feedback from our Administration as far as what we might be able to have in terms of Refreshments a place to host such an event and what if any restrictions there are yeah we talked a little bit about like a wine and cheese idea maybe it's we can't do wine I don't know um I know Kevin and Anne if you have any thoughts on stuff we've done in the past um just ways to sort of bring Bren into the fold a little bit more right so I guess the first wondering is the format in which we would like to introduce Brent to the community so I'm just curious Kate and other board members like in so I ended I mean certainly we can get friends there we can get food there but what kind of format
043would we have for that type of meeting what were we thinking I'm just curious because I think that will play a role in how we're going to have food what that's layouts can look like where we're going to meet you know Etc do any board members have feedback before I offer some is this something that would be on school grounds or in a different you know outside venue how does how would that typically be done I think we probably get better attendance if we were able to do a restaurant or something well could I could I just move forward with the cold weather coming yeah outside would be nice and I'm also thinking as I looked at this and and thought about this earlier can number one be tied in with number four and do
044it in a way that you know we're meeting them green board members and then we're also introducing these new parents or parents that don't know who's a new director of of the Career Academy is and I think you know since we're we're going into the winter months and how the place and how we're going to go about doing this is going to be very important and anyone that we bring forth we want to have a good turnout we don't want 10 or 15 people coming out so to incorporate the parents and some students and maybe we might have to offer babysitting for someone okay to get the parents here because a lot of the parents don't have anyone to watch their children in the afternoon and still we can meet and greet the board members
045and we can also at the same time introduce uh Mr Dean to the community as a director of the Career Academy and what he has done uh since he's been here so you know he's from my understanding he's met and with quite a few people so we know with the group people that he's meeting with about business people so forth if we put on something that's going to say okay we can you know you can go up and shake his hand while you didn't get an opportunity before they will come out so it will to me it's the place and time and how you're going to go about doing it so glad as you're saying maybe just just merge the two events have them meet the board at the same time as meet Brent just
046everybody get together and and we do it all at the same time and what was the event you had um I think it was towards the end of last year where it was a parent event but then you were able to take the kids and they went and did an activity service yeah so we have a couple opportunities that was at our family University that the kids break off but I'm thinking you know we have and I'm tuning my own horn because I love the new building and I want to show it off and we still have some work that we're doing with it to make it super super family friendly I would love to be able to show off that building and have a formal open house for our parents I think it's an
047opportune time to be able to um have that as meet the board we're very well connected by an inside hallway to Ellsworth School we could utilize the cafeteria with those easels set up with pictures of the academy so we're you know come to our open house visit the new building meet and board members meet Brett Dean and find out more about what this Academy is and what it looks like there's I think an appetite right now in the community to find out what this is um I know that I've been receiving different emails from families saying how do I get involved in the formation of this so I'm really excited about that and so I've been sending them to Dean as well as corporations and then of course right there while we're there we do
048have the gym and we have the outdoor play area um for the students so the parents could come we could do light Refreshments um upstairs two of the building or even have Brent upstairs in our in the waiting room with those boards that show pictures of what the um what the academy is going to look like those are the initial boards that some of you may have seen when we were at um City Hall I have to say that I do like the idea of doing this on a school property I I understand what you're saying about um you know being in a space that's a little bit more social but I think the benefit of doing it on a school property is that folks are somewhat familiar with that families are somewhat familiar with
049that space already and they might feel less intimidated about coming sure yeah and I know too there's um you know there's still a lot of outstanding needs you know on the on the sort of curriculum and instruction side of the academy so you know might be an opportunity to talk about you know internships externships if there's folks in the community that could you know could offer some of that stuff um you know industry certifications you know guests you know guest speakers all that kind of stuff equipment donations I know Cara has a long list of stuff she still needs right now to to get the curriculum side of the shop up and running so can can we look at um a timeline for this I to Mrs Cooper's Point um the longer that we go
050the colder it will get um you know and I think some folks are going to be more comfortable meeting in a more open-air environment still um so I you know from my perspective the sooner we can do this the better but that of course depends on the schedules of the folks who are putting these pieces together so I mean my other thought is you make November 5th date for the family University so we're hoping to do a light breakfast in the morning followed by math reading or Ela language um and science workshops and some social emotional workshops for parents so they'll be able to receive at least two workshops we um had not planned on a keynote but we certainly could introduce him have a keynote and have a team talk more about uh what
051the pathways Academy is because we're going to have a captivated audience how many will you have there and um normally we run anywhere between three to four hundred people yeah it's a pretty big event what time is it at um normally it starts about 8 or 8 30 with a light breakfast then we go into a keynote session and then back to back workshops for families and we're done at 12 30. is there anything preventing us from doing two two of these like I mean the keynote would that fit in with that dovetail with with what you're doing and then because we plan a separate event yeah we can do both yeah I also like the idea that you suggested of Hosting something at um Osborne Street you know to to sort of show folks
052this new facility and invite the community in yeah absolutely do other board members have thoughts on that yeah okay I like the idea of I'm not in it all depends on you know what the group decide I'm not in favor of a keynote speaker okay I think you're going to bring Mr Dean there to introduce him to the community uh we're going to have board members there to say you know you know my name is Mary Jo and you know I'm I'm I live in this war I've been on the board introduced you know you have your superintendent to say a few words I don't want to get into this long you know my my attention span is about an hour hour and 15 minutes absolutely and then when you bring in a speaker you
053know you most of the time you can't tell them how long to speak right but you know when I have them at my church I tell them how long to speak you know I'm not you know when I'm working on a program that's sort of way I operate that's how the group is if that's the group the way the groups want to go it's okay I just see it being a little bit too much if you you're going to have a meet and greet with the board you have your superintendent who is our leader to say a few words greeting people and then you introduce uh Mr Dean uh to the community as as the new director of the Career Academy or maybe Carousel Fair words whichever way you want to break it down yeah
054when I said keynote I you know I kind of think of like that space less than an hour where we could do those activities that you're talking about not have somebody rattle on okay thank you yeah no it was really more of an informational how do we you know inform the community about exactly what this Pathways Academy is well you were you were envisioning Dean as the keynote yeah yeah yeah talking about the background if the committee is interested in the fifth I just want everyone to be aware I will be coming back from DC that morning um and and unlikely that I will be back in time for the meeting on the National Blue Ribbon ceremonies are Thursday and Friday and I'll be checking out um on Saturday morning so I just just want
055to give the maybe a heads up on that just just that one word um I was thinking this was going to be an evening event because that's like a big block in the middle of the day for parents right that are working like I just when you were speaking of it I kept thinking it was going to be it in the evening I think this is a Saturday Michelle right so the fifth is a Saturday Family University is a Saturday yeah oh okay sorry I didn't have the calendar in front of me okay but I don't want to lose some women I don't want to lose the momentum of a possible second um you know introduction effort uh you know to to dovetail with the you know opening up that space um at Osborne Street
056I think there's a there's a benefit to you as many exposures as we can give uh Brent in our community I think that that's going to help him help inform the way that he approaches the work he's doing here and also give folks a lot of opportunity to understand what we're trying to do because this is a big project that we're trying to push forward and I think it's really important that the community be engaged in it right so if we were to do that I I do like that idea uh Dr Mead I don't wanna diminish that in any way I think it's a great idea um which one the evening or the Saturday both of them this Saturday I like the idea of the the Saturday uh parent University um so I I
057if if that's okay I I would love to see him you know be a part of that in whatever small way you feel is appropriate um and then you know in terms of another event I agree with Michelle um doing this during the day is going to be very tough for parents to get there but you know to Mrs Cooper's point I think we also have to consider whether or not we could provide some sort of um a child supervision students supervision during that yeah after say 5 30 we can bring in to be able to provide Supervision in the gym or in the playground if the weather's still nice um so the families can really kind of key in in having that conversation and building that relationship with Brent and with our board okay
058Mr Russo did you have something oh no I'm good sorry um I guess with that in mind is there a date in October that we could look at or do you guys want to take a look at your calendars and then come back to us with with some possibilities I'm going to look at my calendar yeah because we're looking at you said October and November 5th was November 5th on our calendar is that just being brought up today that's it's been honest because we've started to to do some of the planning um for it it's going to be small this year compared to other years because of the time um but more details will be coming out uh later next week on that when you're saying our our calendar you mean all of our calendar
059the board or you know yeah um no we know the date I'm working with our alumni from parent C and from our pep that's part of the work that an alumni group does it's a group of parents to actually help form this and put the um event together and so we're meeting this week to do some final planning and then um we'll have more details about it we're meeting Wednesday night okay so then we'll have more confirmation as to whether you're looking at that date or another no that date we're good with that date yeah okay yeah all right I think very close to six o'clock in an interest of uh being able to let some folks who need to get over to the Citywide PTO meeting uh have the time to do that um
060I guess I just want to thank you all for for coming this evening and I think we're going to continue this conversation perhaps via email um to figure out what is going to work best and hopefully we can find a mutually agreeable date and I hope we can count on board members certainly on this committee to participate in that event um with and we'll certainly reach out to the the larger board and invite them as well any closing thoughts before we go all right um I will look for a motion to adjourn please thank you Mr Russo can I get a second please second thank you Michelle Mrs Cooper did you get all that yeah all right