001um would everyone please stand for the pledges [Music] under god indivisible with liberty and justice [Music] lauren daley here bridgette guertin here julie mariano here ralph [Music] and now we have a few recognitions we'd like to do i'll turn it over so good evening everyone so we have a lot of exciting recognitions to discuss this evening sorry to break up the smiles with good noise in the front row class so i want to start off with a couple of weeks ago we had a magnificent evening recognizing our teacher of the years here in the district at broadview middle school a couple weeks ago and one of the teachers that was honored that night number one we are appreciative of all of the contributions that all of our teachers made not to mention all of the
002nominees from every school look for all of their contributions for the 21-22 school year so i'm just gonna pause for a moment on that one you guys can applaud if you like it and she informed me invite our teacher of the year um person awardee uh this evening i want to ask dr casemiro to speak a little bit about the process that was involved in selecting the teacher of the year before i announced the microphone so the criteria and the characteristics for the teacher of the year so here's part of the rubric that was used um when selecting um some of the very fine educators from across the district and then ultimately the one that rose to the top of the pile so the teacher of the year candidate is an expert in their education
003field they hold themselves to high standards and they create achievable fair and growth oriented expectations for students they have a vision for success that reflects an unwavering relief in students ability to thrive and in the areas that they influence academic and opportunity gaps are eliminated or substantially narrowed these were especially instrumental in this last year the teacher of the year candidate is innovative in building meaningful relationships with colleagues students families and communicate within communities they communicate with all stakeholders a clear compelling impactful manner that creates a culture of respect achievement and wellness in order to establish a safe and thriving learning environment a teacher of the year candidate communicates in a way that is engaging inspiring and impactful can motivate a child to retain other educators into the profession they express a strong desire and
004capability to speak on behalf of all educators and they present themselves in a professional confident and appealing manner they speak with passion that is energizing and empowering and they communicate in a manner that connects and resonates with others and so um with that the work of these teachers and ultimately the teacher of the year really transcends the classroom their department leaders they are influential in their schools the district they're most often well known in the community and these are books that will ultimately be a prime representative at the state level and thank you dr casper and with that i would like to announce and please help me in welcoming up miss emily lopez from rogers middle school so thank you very much i put together just a short speech because i i'm not a public
005speaker so i just want to thank all of you the board and the entire cabinet for the honor of being named dan mary's 2022 teacher of the year i am truly grateful for the administrators teachers paraprofessionals and the amazing students i work with at rogers park i've had the privilege of working with esl students for many years and with that comes many challenges but also many rewards i will never forget a parent teacher conference over zoom last year during the pandemic the student was a true role model in class completing all the assignments and even coming to office hours to check if the assignments were done correctly or if he was missing anything during the conference i asked mom what is your secret and she said simply i show him love that's all i can
006do i don't speak english and that she says and that says it all if we show students love and connect with them they will flourish i feel this award is not just a recognition of me but the recognition of my school rogers park i believe i am only receiving this award because i work alongside incredible individuals miss elita and all the administrators and teachers that really care about kids and work really hard to help kids be the best so thank you again for this opportunity to represent the teachers and i would like to take a picture with you because dr zelita pushed this out the way [Applause] hmm oh so the good news continues in regards to recognition and i'd like to just share with the audience you can hold your applause we have several
007names to mention but this the mentioning of the names is about folks who have made a commitment to this district i did not do the math but it's a lot of years wouldn't date anyone in the audience collectively but but i i've had the opportunity to work with several of the folks who are retiring this evening in my short time here i can't thank all of you enough for everything you've done for this district whether you're supporting schools leading schools teaching in schools we truly appreciate your service to this to the school district and for our school community and then this evening of course we have a small token for your appreciation but really your appreciation has been shown by our parents and our kids over the years and years of you served in a
008school district and we we truly and generally just want to thank you for everything you've done for us so with that of the names i'm in my glasses so give me one moment so angela cepaloni ksp secretary 25 years lucille chinese danbury high school teacher of nine years jeannie collins hayestown teacher 20 years michael crota danbury high school teacher five years jackie dinardo principal reach and endeavor 38 years i'm sorry 38 years what is that doubles sadly rough 24 years vincent fidner middle ridge primary grade 1 teacher 15 years stephen golden math teacher denver high school 37 years susan grumman ksi manager school lunch 19 years kathleen jones pembroke teacher 36 years lisa leclaire rogers park middle school math teacher 20 years elizabeth lepla great plain grade 3 teacher 20 years john merrill west side
009middle school teacher 15 years anne-marie mosca shelter rock teacher 20 years donna pace ksp um interpreter 34 years joe quinn pace from park avenue head custodian 20 years anne-marie i'm sorry last night i lost my place suzanne patino danbury high school 21 years anne riddle park avenue 33 years maureen stroka payroll secretary 17 years deb stanton assistant superintendent secretary 22 years joanne theoret ethereal broadview middle school teacher 32 years and last but not least our doctor edie thomas broke the rules again crc humanities secretary 13 years margie garlic danbury high school study skills 28 years and that wraps up our retirees for this evening and so at this time you just want to share with the retirees all of our retirees were not available to join us this evening however we do have a little
010token of appreciation for everyone who came this evening and of course the ones who were not able to make it we will make sure we get this to them as soon as possible and i'm going to start with ask this person to lead the way from us as she has for many years at broadview of pembroke and dr eddie thomas i'm gonna ask if starting to your right if you can shake the hand of um he's not paying attention right now but eddie miranda and walk around the horseshoe and when you're done you're gonna come back here thomas yes [Music] is [Laughter] hey [Music] yes thank you [Music] um oh okay sue pierce [Music] okay kathleen jones thank you jackie dinardo [Music] years i remember coming back in 1984 and i have gone absolutely nowhere
011i've been in danger the whole time and i just want to thank you guys more than you thank me for giving you this opportunity so thank you [Music] [Laughter] thank you [Music] right lucille [Applause] um thank you okay angela absolutely so i just want to make sure before we conclude these are the folks who rsvp for this evening are there any any this evening foreign moving on to public participation the board welcomes public participation and asks that comments be limited to three minutes the public may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them the board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the danbury public school system the first person i have signed up lori
012woodruff good evening um my name is laurie woodruff and i am a fourth grade teacher at ais math at school that i used to take my glasses off so i can say glasses are for far away um i'm typically one of the quiet ones i don't say too much and i find much comfort in working behind the scenes i am usually terrified of speaking in front of people tonight however i am coming forward because i am heartbroken and i am angry that matt calvinist was not selected as our next principal my voice and my wonderful colleagues behind me should be very important in this decision and we were clearly not heard we are the ones who are there every day working side by side with mr calvinis as our leader we see the challenges and
013successes of our students every day and know the needs of our students and families for the past four years matt has served as our unofficial unpaid assistant principal prior to that he was our previous principal's right-hand man he has always had a leadership role in our school and has earned the respect of his colleagues parents and students when our principal left in march to take on another role in the district mr calvinis stepped in as interim principal and made the transition seamless after already having established a good rapport with our upper elementary students he quickly made his presence known to the students in the lower grades and in what was a very short time knew every student in the school by name mr cavanese has worked tirelessly over the years to build confidence and a
014strong rapport with our students and families he has found a way to communicate particularly well with our esl families they trust him they respond to him they respect him he has built that rapport with every family he has come in contact with and has helped create a climate of diversity engagement and trust this year the focus has been on nurturing social emotional learning with our students transitioning back into school after covid has not been easy for anyone with everything that our students families and staff have been through over the past two years is taking our principal matt calvin is away really the best thing haven't our students been through enough haven't our families been through enough haven't we the staff been through enough is that really going to help our students with their social emotional
015well-being mr calvinist's work ethic is unmatched he has earned the right to be our principal he has already hit the ground running he is our person he is the leader that will promote a successful climate and culture he has the successful formula that our community needs although we have been instructed that this decision will not be reversed i am asking you to revamp the hiring process to include hiring from within and listening to the stakeholders who work directly every day with our administrators thank you [Applause] uh before i talk about uh mr alves i do want to express my deep disappointment that juanita harris was not selected to be part of this body twice apparently this rock star has been passed out and then is deeply troubling um when i heard that mr calvinist um
016had not been uh selected as principal of ais i was shocked and i truly literally did not believe this clearly something had gone wrong because if the hiring committee knew what mr calvinist uh how competently he has led ais during before and after the pandemic hiring him would have been a no-brainer mr calvinist has basically served as principal or co-principal of ais with mr roach prior to the pandemic he was our he was a go-to for parents teachers and administrators it was a central part of keeping ais the school that it is during the pandemic he upped his game he was a constant problem solver for the school in a way that was well outside of his role as a teacher and yet he did it with grace and dedication he was a daily point
017of contact for families and teachers and he acted as the hub of ais and kept us all sane currently ais has been lucky enough to have mr c acting as principal uh when i heard that mr roach would be stepping away i like nearly every single parent in this school took this in stride we did not flinch because we knew that mr mr calvinist had earned our trust and our respect over and over and over and over again and then came the news that mr c would not be us continuing his principle and frankly i was curious why on earth with this person who has stabilized our school twice not be selected why would the hiring committee create yet another unnecessary transition after a hellacious pandemic for kids parents and teachers when a rock star
018had been doing this job and proven himself already and why if at another school was an internal person hired as principals sparing that school of an unnecessary transition and not ais not only has this decision rocked the vast majority of ais families it has sadly impacted the morale of staff and of staff and teachers this district is lucky to have mr calvinist again he is an absolute rock star and you know what happens when we use up our rock stars and throw them away and we don't elevate them when they have earned it they leave [Music] and i can't say and i can say that you could just get one uh some more sentences i can say that ais deserves mr mr calvinist and uh mr culminates deserves ais i don't know if the district
019does anymore i hope he stays on and i am going to ask regardless of contracts that this gets fixed and somehow mr calvinist is hired as principal at ais thank you [Applause] hi my name is janice anderson i'm here on behalf of a lot of angry parents and while all could not make it tonight i'll express the same regret and not being able to attend knowing that mr companies would be there for them were they in his place well i've not worked in the school system i have been a manager for more than 20 years and i know an exceptional employee when i see one and mr kelly's is just that he is exceptional he always steps up he's always there he does far more than that and his thanks is being passed over for
020a second time well i could stomach it after dr guptowski left i was able to chalk it up to being green as a principal that's no longer the case now he has the experience he's done so much for the school i'm honestly just disgusted to put it bluntly i'm really trying to understand what flaming circus hoop he needed to jump through to be chosen i just don't understand he's earned this position there's sweat and unpaid labor i ask you to reconsider this decision it's had a catastrophic effect on morale not just for the teachers and employees of ais but for parents who chose aliens as their school what is this teaching our kids reach for the stars become teacher of the year and they get passed over for a promotion you've earned it's really unacceptable
021i'm pleased i ask you to reconsider do whatever you can it's just this is not fair to the kids thank you good evening board members superintendent halston fellow teachers students and families i t not like to talk in front of grown-ups although i sing and dance in my classroom my name is julie moore and i'm currently a fifth grade teacher at ais i've had the pleasure to work at both miller ridge primary and ellsworth avenue school as well tonight i have decided to speak on behalf of the teachers of the district who would like to have a voice in the hiring of administrators for the future of danbury denver public schools board of education and administration has continued to ask teachers to do more every single year since i began teaching in 2001 and every
022year teachers do it this year like no other we have been asked to do more with less less people to move the students of danbury who are living through a pandemic and every day teachers do it at ais and all danbury public schools there is not a second an extra set of hands and we continue to move students forward with less and this year we were down staff from the beginning at ais and then our administrator who we adore was moved to a new position and mr calvinist was asked to take over as interim principal he continued to plan support and train numerous teachers to take over for his fourth grade class while also being the principal he seamlessly slid into the position after having been chris roach's right hand man he has been willing
023to take on these responsibilities as they have been given to them as the same experience as any assistant principal would have had most elementary schools in danbury don't have an element i don't have an assistant principal or leadership based positions this makes getting experience before moving into the position of administration very difficult when hiring the permanent position for principal for ais when it began in may the process was not handled as it had been in previous years when replacing dr natowski a committee was chosen by the staff to represent the whole school not just a few areas the staff was asked what they wanted to see in a new principle and how we could continue to make ais the incredible place for students to grow and educators to work together this year's process seemed russian
024unprofessional and to be honest i was under the impression that the interview was a formality for these reasons i decided to speak out so no other candidate nor school will feel the shock and disappointment from the lack of protocol and hiring it is in my hope in the future that this will change for the administration and will set forth protocol for hiring our students parents and staff deserve that going forward [Music] [Applause] good evening and thank you for your attention we have a lot of eis parents who aren't very happy um i am an ais parent i've been there eight years i have served on the board for seven years as a pto president for three years i worked very closely with just about every teacher there prior to the pandemic when my 40 hours
025of free work at that school declined my heart rate is literally 131 i'm a triathlete very physically fit my heart rate's usually 50. i'm so upset about how poorly mr kelly's been treated and what a disrespectful thing just happened to all the parents all the students all the teachers at ais five years ago i was on the interview committee for the new principal i felt like i was part of the interview team in a recent article they said this was unanimous choice for this position well i'm pretty sure unanimously at ais we wanted mr calvinists so either it was a misprint or whoever you had interviewing didn't take all of us into consideration i love what you wrote about the other principle that you like to hire within we love to see people grow in
026their careers within our school district mr callanese has grown substantially in the eight years i've seen him he's moved from first grade to fourth grade teacher he's run the elp for many years he's been the principal during summer school i'm not really sure what else he needed to do to prove to you besides being a flawless interim principal to ais what he needed to do to prove his worthiness as principal for ais long term i'm saddened i'm so frustrated for the school i've loved and put years and years of my time into this school and i just think it's a really tragedy that he was not second as our principal [Applause] christina stovall [Music] i am also a parent of ais students i also have the unique lens as being a teacher and speech-language pathologist
027in another district i was shocked when i got the phone call yesterday that not only was chris roach promoted happily but that mr calvinis was not promoted to that position ais has been a second family to parents that go there i volunteered my time for several years for odyssey the mind as well as her stem scouts before that was cut short by the pandemic you take care of your family matt calvinist has been a cornerstone of ais since my children attended and well before dr nattowski was allowed to pick the cream of the crop from this district to develop ais matt calvinist and christopher roach continued that dream this school received numerous awards over the past years for its excellence in the state of connecticut received more funding due to the leadership of these individuals
028you take care of your family when the pandemic hit nothing stopped it was like clockwork teachers were asked to assume different types of instruction and we did it seamlessly we did it seamlessly because of teachers and leadership like matt halvinis my family did remote from home my children had anxiety about returning in person back to class matt calvinis helped my kids get through that he's bridged gaps with esl parents when our kids did not have food on the table because our population were day workers who suddenly had no income we've rallied as parents and teachers to bring food into the schools to make sure our students were not only fed educationally but their bellies were full when kids didn't have and parents didn't have money for christmas gifts that first coven because they could barely
029keep the rooms over their heads teachers and the leadership like matt calvinist made sure every kid got a present that's a passionate teacher you take care of your family i'm quite disgusted given that christina that's three minutes if you could i'm disgusted that the interview process was changed at the last moment i also would love to see where all of these unanimous votes came from it's a sad day when you lose a family member and it's a sad day when you lose a passionate teacher thank you [Applause] please make it a little bit more cheery the optics not the conversation this is all very important good evening everyone i hope you're all doing well tonight as most of you know i'm the danbury democratic party chair but i'm also a father of two danbury elementary
030school kids first here i want to thank the people who worked to pass yesterday's referendum as many of us are too aware our school systems are currently suffering crisis level overcrowding this bond is a good start but it's only to start in addressing the challenges some of which i'm here to share the fight for resources is far from over physical space is only part of the problem our schools are facing funding has been and will continue to be the elephant in the room i assure you that i agree more money has to come from the state in terms of ecs but i also understand that our own city has not been willing to fulfill its part to our children our teachers and our staff now that the bonding is done i hope to see everybody
031here everybody here actively advocating for the correct level of resources to run that career academy efficiently more importantly effectively i made this request of you because it was disappointing and upsetting to see board members being silent when there are public opportunities for this board to speak on the 22-23 school year budget that it unanimously approved indeed essential operations at the city council level along the same lines this shirt can concern all of us when a democratic held vacancy for boec arises and an express sexually qualified candidate endorsed by the navy democratic town committee and supported by every democrat in this body that politics took a turn and now one member of the republican party voted for her what this looks like to those of us watching is political agendas we should have no place here
032i'm upset so you know here we are and it just had no place here and it looks like things are threatening themselves through appointments decisions and we have to assume strategies we need members of this body fully committed to the needs of the public schools and not to any schools organizations outside of the scope of this body's responsibility it is a nearby laws in section 9271 in the quote of ethics under number 11 to never use the position of the board for personal gain again from a community member perspective and those i've been talking to it looks like this code is not being honored by all members next here's my father hat and just upset things i've seen i ask that all of you tour the schools talk to the teachers the students and the
033staff individually and candidly then take what they say and do your jobs advocating for them and i say this nonpartisan to both parties while i was in dhs just the other day for a gun advocacy a day here i had maybe spent 30 minutes when i was already approached by somebody who recognized me from a previous endeavor some of you might be familiar with and showed me the shape of the steps in the courtyard here at this high school i brought pictures here but you know i didn't know the media was going to be here until this morning so pictures you could probably tour after the steps are crumbled somebody tripped i heard about wrap it up and as i was looking at that and then somebody saw me take that picture it's like roberto
034go look at the gym i walked into that main gym the state's largest high school the main gym and there are mounds on the hardware floor at one point at one position of it it's at least 12 inches maybe off from where the floor should be and that gym from what i understand has been closed since the other basketball season this is unacceptable and i'm not blaming the staff or the part of that because i understand you don't have money to do anything i i'm asking you here to advocate for the public schools and not another organization advocate for the graphic if the folks you're elected to advocate for all you have to do is go on donor's shoes to see the 58 items at the end of the school year that are still there
035people asking for basic supplies like pencils pens pencil sharpeners to do their job this is unacceptable and i hope that you guys start changing the direction that we're doing here and advocate for what you're elected to do to the republic schools thank you very much everybody [Applause] robin hi good evening um my name is robin alice and i'm the mother of a first grade and third grade student at shelter rock um we'll also mention that i went to denver public schools from kindergarten through 12th grade frank can you just hold on um john uh kim thank you go ahead um so i just wanted to add you know that i'm very proud of these schools and i'm a strong advocate for them um so i was very happy to see that the funding passed for
036the new career academy which i think is very crucial but again his first step i just wanted to make sure that the board knows i'm sure you know but the public is out here and we crucially need the funding for this school and for other schools we've recently heard rumors that our child's elementary school is going to lose their art classroom because there's not enough space and they need another actual classroom so it's very upsetting to us with a child who loves arts or favorites special it's not fair to our child or to any other child in the schools you know we went to the art festival at broadview and it was absolutely an amazing turnout so i'm sure that this is very important to most of the families in danbury as well so basically
037i'm just here asking can we please continue to fight for the funding we need um come up with a plan the elementary schools there's clearly space there's an issue there as well the new academy is going to address middle and high school but you know as we've seen over the years these things quickly catch up and we're underwater again so if we can come up with a plan ahead of time get ahead of our problems you know that's all i'm asking that is all um who have signed up for uh public participation is there anyone else who would like to speak who did not sign up maria thank you my name is maria schweitzer and i am here on behalf of numerous ais parents i am just here to let the board know sorry to
038put my glasses on that even though parents may be willing to welcome a newly appointed individual some parents all the ones that i've spoken with are very disappointed by the fact that the interim principal mr calvinis who knows the school and the district and most importantly the students was not elected in all the years that i've been at ais eight to nine years this educator mr calvinist has gone above and beyond for the school and has been the right hand man to the principal parents are very disillusioned by the manner in which this interview process was handled furthermore parents are disillusioned by the district's lack of concern for the children and for the families by not inviting parents to participate in this process especially during a time that students are suffering and need the utmost
039regard the district administration seems to have made a decision for better or worse without any consideration for the families involved thank you speak who did not sign up barley good evening everyone thank you madam chair i didn't get to the uh form any time um first of all congratulations to all the retirees i just added another really quickly it's 593 years my middle school music teacher as well congratulations to you um i'm going to be very briefly i'm going to talk about two different things today um i'll start off with uh the issue with the board appointment i served my own body with many of you here i'm disappointed twice someone who has the knowledge the experience the wherewithal to serve alien on this body has been passed up because of political points i would
040say that's disappointing because when we serve on this body one of the things that we've done and actually inside this room we held workshops was we would say politics stays at the door not so much anymore that's disappointing and so as a former board of education member as a city council member it's really disappointing to see that perhaps agendas are being pushed as opposed to what is best for our students secondly i will echo mrs alv's comments my daughter is a student at shelter rock art is one of her favorite subjects and she comes home every day that there is art and she's got a book in front of her and she's going to continue drawing in it and she tells me about where our teacher taught her inside the classroom right well now she
041can't have that classroom supposedly next year well i'm very happy that the career academy passed and the vote was so large in support i'm disappointed in the fact that we have not done enough not just your fault city council as well not done enough to address the overcrowding issues in our schools and now my little girl and that little precious girl there is not going to have an art class to go to her teacher will be teaching arts on carts what's next music room the janitor's closets already been taken so i don't know where else i'll put anything else it's our jobs as elected officials to address these things and i hope that you all take it as serious as i know you will and i appreciate what your service here on this board is
042and i hope that you'll keep our public schools the center focus of your role on this program thank you [Music] so that we end at a reasonable time i believe our bylaws have us finishing um 10 pm so i'm gonna participation and move on thank you all for coming i'm not nice one more time [Music] the board of education approved the items on the consent calendar exhibits 22 dash through 22-76 as recommended any discussion uh our students please hi good evening board of ed members cabinet and community members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the alternative center for interviews excellence prospective students and their families will take place this saturday june 11th with the a staff additional interview slots have been scheduled for next week after students are dismissed
043from school today a total of 29 interviews have been set up with students parents and hay staff the ace white water rafting trip was a huge success anthony hellman kyle nicola and ashley honaker took 15a students to camp at monroe state park in new york and raft 15 miles down the hudson river it was a great community building experience for all and a huge part of the relationship building process at ace the ace comp sorry the 80s coffee house will take place this thursday june 9th from 5 30 to 7 30 at the hatteras park pavilion the coffee house is an opportunity for the ace community to gather together and we'll see our students and staff read original pieces of work and poetry as well as musical performances this year's coffee house will be dedicated
044to joe pepin and derek jerimela the ace graduation is set for thursday june 14th at 4 o'clock at the broadview auditorium the event will see guidance teachers read speeches about each graduate and the graduates themselves will share their graduation speeches it is one of the most powerful events at ace and a great opportunity to hear our students stories thank you for allowing us to share what's going on with our ace family stay safe roommate is strong this summer everyone i'm graduating next week and i won't be the board of ed um representative anymore which made me really sad and i just wanted to thank you all for allowing me to you know have this position and i want to thank ace for allowing me to do this and i really loved and enjoyed representing ace
045and i i truly love ace with all of my heart and all oh my god so thank you for giving me this chance i also wanted to thank you guys for allowing me to be here too it's been fun i don't know if i'll be here again [Music] [Applause] i couldn't wait to hear from our students and their educational representatives okay would you mind do you have a microphone the action in a phase oh [Music] on the bottom that the board of education approved the amendment to the food service agreement to extend the agreement for one year july 1 2021 2022 through june 20 june 30 2023 in accordance with exhibit 22-77 there's a motion on the floor for a second segment by ralph any discussion being none all those in favor any opposed any
046abstentions motion passes uh lauren would you do the calendar action 90-day sure i make a motion that the board of education approved the revised 2022-2023 school calendar in accordance with um 22-78 there's a motion on the floor is there a second second by brigid any discussion all those in favor from singapore by saying aye approved [Music] all those in favor please subscribe saying aye aye opposed any abstentions motion carries uh ralph would you like to do deep please oh no do you want me to i'll give it to you [Music] 141 million dollars in accordance with 22-8 here's the question on the floor is there a second segmented by bridgette any discussion um i really feel we need to update this number with of got lost i wanted to be able to look back two
047minutes and be able to clearly see where those funds are coming from and how much we're actually getting on an annual basis i think that's really important for our budget process so i don't know if we can approve this motion and then maybe approve a second motion uh once we determine what's happening with the reserve funds um or how that might work but i would like to see that information reflected here john would you like to speak to that i mean last month to add the reserves to our motion so to speak to uh for permission to spend um not just 141 million but 143.8 the reason we asked was last year there was disagreement after the decision was made and that is exactly what led to some confusion at the city council was how
048high was our budget increase this year we were counting the reserve they were not so we're hoping to get a positive answer to that we don't have to get so i think it would be premature [Music] the city has um authorized 141 million emails there's been no approval for the reserves sure absolutely any other uh that leads us to superintendent's report thank you for our church so i will start with as we have talked about it great length this evening as part of my reporting update for the board is the appointment of two elementary principals one is miss merrill jackson from the committee recommending her and appointing her as the principal at ais elementary school oh jackson comes to us from white plains elementary school currently serving as an assistant principal in that district in
049the past last seven years and we had as part of our process for the board members who are not typically part of the i'm sorry for board members who have not served on interview panels there are two panels that um run concurrently by policy and so one policy is made up of staff of our buildings with quarterback representation and then there is another panel with made up of administrators also with board representation and so both panels um recommend someone to the last step which is the superintendent's level of course i am there with my cabinet as that last as that last step of the process the process does not call for both sides to have necessarily the same candidates being recommended and the the way i like to speak to it is we respect certainly
050the recommendations from those levels but anyone who comes to us anyone who's recommended to that last step it's important for us to make sure that those committees are comfortable with anyone who said to us because all of those folks are going to be considered for any vacancies so they just wanted to walk the board through the current process as now and and frankly i think we heard some feedback over the last couple of days that frankly probably should might require some further review of our policy to just make it a little bit more inclusive i think the staff made some really good points in terms of inclusivity as part of the process and it might be time to revisit our own policy which might include a little bit more voice from the respective schools so
051i will add that but i i want to make it clear we feel confident we have hired um an excellent candidate to serve as a principal and miss carl jackson the other appointee is um who a person who's actually not a stranger to this district donatello formerly danbury high school served i served an assistant principal here at danbury high school for years and it was currently once dr anna rocco was appointed as chief of schools don filled in successfully as an interim principal and like miss jackson was also the appointed candidate so very excited about the two candidates who have been named and i certainly understand and respect the differences of opinion from the staff and some of our families this evening but we have two candidates we're really excited about summer school i just
052wanted to share this update for the board we are we find ourselves in a really tough position this year we have invited families kenny garden through fifth grade for summer school as we had in years past historically it's typically been a k-3 summer invitation during the pandemic that was increased to k-5 as the state had stated that we could we may invite for grades four and five and we were inviting grades four and five this year we're challenged with staffing and i think um like well i know the board has heard from many teachers across the district administrators across the district that that's that this school year has been like no other quite frankly as we return to school our staff is tired they're exhausted our administrator is exhausted our teachers our staff is exhausted
053and i think it played itself out in our interest in working this summer and so after reviewing this with the team it looks like we have enough to offer summer school for kindergarten through three we did not have enough staff to offer summer school for grades four and five unfortunately we are not alone in this challenge in terms of staffing so we've had to revise our letters and invitations to families um and typically our summer school experience is four-week summer school um this year it will be two two-week sessions and so we we understand this is going to be a hardship for many of our families particularly families who count on our child care over the summer but we unfortunately we're going to need families to make some adjustments we will have again we will
054have some intervention opportunities this summer but it will be a little bit more limited than past years i'm hoping next year is more of a normal school year and we will be able to return to typical staffing one that we've had in years past so just just to conclude um we will have instead of one four week session for grades k through five uh we will have two two week sessions for grades k through three and the team is working on notifications by families and trying to encourage families uh to a commitment to sending their children to summer school so we can make the accommodations uh kelly just wanted to add our special education summer school program has not been impacted and we will still run the five week summer school program so i know
055as we've made changes and then i have two more updates for the board and that is i just want to start with dee and that's danbury career academy task force update we had our meeting last week with the council with the mayor's office and folks from my team um and as part of our second meeting this year uh we provided an update this last meeting dr cameron would testimony would you mind speaking to what we talked about this week and then kind of what's ahead for september so we did we went over some of the programmatic um pathways and outlined um we used the medical technology of practice to highlight really the high level rigorous curriculum that we have planned and really engaging kind of hands-on experiential learning opportunities that will exist so we're partnering
056with some groups to help acquire some not just curriculum but for example and a few you may have already seen through the curriculum community at hand um where these neuroscience bio movements to program code a prosthetic hand and this would be kind of a core project as an example in the technology program um which we thought was an exciting way to to showcase some of the great things that we have in store and so um as we continue to develop our program components we'll start to showcase those and present those to the column and it's also a great way for the kids to start to get an understanding of what's offered in each in each pathway program as far as september goes um that'll be an opportunity for us to really talk about whether the
057referendum has passed on what we'll actually take to to staff the new location um in terms of ftes right now we're running through some scenarios where we're measuring out staffing that's needed at denver high school the staffing that would be needed at the new building and then the transfer of ftes in terms of when we move students over what that would build how many extra staff members it would take to open up the school plus or minus along with projecting things like transportation um and any other you know areas of funding that will be needed to offer this school to become an honest pleasure thank you thank you thank you and last but not least i wrote down a bunch of names um my office we pushed out a thank you letter to all of
058the danbury families this evening and community members who supported our referendum so needless to say the board the team and i are very excited to hear the news last night that the referendum passed successfully um overwhelmingly yes in support um i can't thank our families and our community members enough i i just want to say and i i just want to want to make sure i don't miss any names i'm sure i'm going to leave someone out but there were a lot of people who came together to make this happen um i have to start of course with mayor esposito for helping to lead the separate uh thing our town council um who supported this um agenda initiative from the beginning i really appreciate their support um representative arkanti who we understand has worked diligently
059in the background helping to move this work forward senator judy kuchner who obviously also helped move from this work from the beginning um but there were more people like and there's just so many people who played a role in this a board chair um obviously rachel chaletsky and our board members um david have already mentioned but all of our representatives who played a role in supporting this the democratic council on the republican town committee and i also have to mention our teachers any nea president erin the cea who also partnered with us to make this happen and push the word out we had teachers who were calling the community throughout this process i can't thank everyone enough for coming together and doing what we could to support this initiative this was an amazing effort and
060frankly we did it in like two or three weeks where this community really rallied and and we're really on to something special we still have a lot we still have a ways to go we have a building right now um obviously we're excited about that we understand this is going to happen in stages but my team and i now we have our work cut out for us as we have to continue to educate this community about the budgetary needs that's going to take over that building successfully so that that is it for my updates i understand there may be some questions am a little uncomfortable with um i think there's a lot of passion [Music] [Applause] thank you um do you want a chance do you want to talk about the process that she has
061outlined in our sure i i'm happy to several people around the world have actually participated this year in the process we did one today as a matter of fact um and this board process this procedure was established i would say it was probably 11 10 or 11 years ago now and it was established as a multi-tiered process that wrong stakeholders from all different basically all different areas um the board policy requires two panels on one panel is made up of those generally those who most likely to effectively be affected by the hire and the other panel are administrators typically office curriculum folks what we would call crc folks the people who spend a lot of time on curriculum and instruction the time what we have learned is that it's a very robust process that works
062best with both panels having their conversations their um questions their responses and then i debrief with those panels afterward so we don't ask for example one panel does not have primacy over the other if we don't have to pass the one to get to the other we don't run it in order we have conversations about what we've seen in the candidates i take co-based notes and i um then agree with both panels and then share with the leadership team kind of what we've seen and what we typically are doing is two things we're looking for obviously the best candidate for the position but we're also looking for candidates that we think might be great in this case administrators in the district we make a decision about bringing back those candidates who have really come risen
063to the top of those panel um discussions for a final round of interviews um this year the final round of interview typically has been before cabinet but this year we added the chiefs so both chiefs of the elementary and secretary edward in that final round of interviews as well and then this this leadership team then makes a recommendation and obviously the superintendent is part of that discussion we settle on the candidate and then that's all the decisions so it's a pretty robust process all candidates typically at the beginning of the process or have to prepare a writing sample in some cases when we have large numbers of candidates we may also do a video screen we did not do that in this case but we did do the writing sample and those documents are also
064made available to all decision makers across qualifications so we followed the same board per stride policy on his time as we did today with the broadband candidates as we've done as we will do with the region never candidates um and the assistant from the high school to follow so um can you elaborate on what what stakeholders like who who's on who or who's on the committee so there are board members there are teachers um there are what i would call curriculum heads so a lot of the folks that are on paris teams in content areas um we try to make it a diverse group we try to include stakeholders from different areas of different content areas um just to get a diversity representation the two chiefs were a nice addition to the final round this
065year because they both as as fate would have it they both came from those schools so they were also pledging them for the last round as well any teachers from the school on that so in this case what i did was i um asked both chiefs who were the principals to please provide me their recommendations for the parents of the teachers which is what they did my question would be you ask for recognition from the teachers at their school how many pieces did you have on that family from ais so um this year was we were a little bit hamstruck because testing went on that day so we had our last we have two last minute withdrawals but again the and i can't get two board rooms that were sitting on those panels we had
066one worker and one and then it seems that there is a lot of passion from the staff and the parents of ais and i think passion is always fantastic i'm glad that people feel that they can come to the board of ed and have this conversation and we appreciate that you did that um putting a new principle in that space as it seems that we're going to do is there any way we can plan to help that transition because we'd like to if we're going to have any principles set at least he or she up for success um so perhaps there is more conversation that we could have so that everyone is comfortable going into the new school year uh something that we can do to to help to help everybody make the transition easier
067right and so thank you thank you for making that quite great um so one the which is part of the interview process we've asked all the candidates to provide an entry plan and i made um miss jackson aware of the challenges when i say challenges i mean um the support for for mr calvinist in this instance um and when i say challenge i'm talking about someone who's joining us who's probably watching this on tv at home right now and understanding potentially what she might be walking into and she has quite frankly embraced the challenge one of the first things she said to us was i'm probably going to have to revisit my entry plan and i hope to have an opportunity to debrief with you after the board meeting which is obviously this evening so
068my team and i we will walk her through what we've learned over the last couple of days certainly share the passion that we've heard from families and staff and revisit her entry plan obviously that was during the interview now it's a little bit more real you know given the appointment but the team certainly will be supportive as part of that entry process and mr roach of course is not only a former principal there but also will be her supervisor um all will be available to help her with that transition so we we are planning and anticipating um you know it's not going to be ideal circumstances but certainly we will be there to support for that transition and the staff as well we only have one administrator so we don't have an assistant principal mr
069calvinist was serving as the interim principal um when we promoted chris roach to the chief of schools we hope so yes okay i guess my question is is he going back to like what is fourth grade where yes um yeah i mean i know that we have different procedures that we follow but we ever get feedback from parents in those situations we haven't i mean we have on occasion had a pto i'm trying to remember we haven't had someone we've had pto we've done as this process has evolved over time we've done different things um you know i've heard somebody talked about a process where the faculty should have created a profile i've certainly been involved in that when we opened the new west side middle school that was a pretty rigorous process where um
070there was a physician paper to create the school and then we had lots of people come in to try to craft a profile for what kind of administrator we were looking for that administrator was hired i would say six months in advance to go ahead and roll we've done different things in different circumstances um we've done a lot of her as they were having a lot of elementary principles in the last couple of years i'm sure two possible questions one is the decision to hire end up on the desk of the superintendent and two would it be proper to uh give us an explanation it's probably why canada [Applause] no we can't answer the second question you certainly can't two things um one um at one point i was on a panel where there was
071some ptl parents and stuff involved and two i'll ask the question is matt going back to fourth grade at ais would be that he would return to the decision he was in prior to disappointment and i heard the superintendent say that this and your team is going to be supported and i hope the people there at ais will be supportive of her but as i think as i have said on this board for 31 years why would you want to bring someone in an environment and it's going to be hospital everyone's not going to be there to support that person and i think at some point how do we talk about this as a group needs to be spoken about because i heard a lot of things don't say it tonight i heard people from
072the leadership from the community and other people and i think at some point and again over the years i'm sitting on all type of panels and our human resource director can tell you that and sometimes it's not who we want and it's the reason that we want these people and i needed to i leave it to the leadership of the people that we have hired to help make that right decision and we have board members that are sitting on those panels so you know things are not going to always i want a million dollars but god knows so i think you know uh to my main focus is if this person has a qualification that has had went through the interview process and and i've heard that this is the person for the job then
073to bring that person in because it happened quite a few years ago now i'm not going to name this cool okay and it made it very difficult for that person to work and finally that person back so you know i think this is type of stuff that we really type of things that we really need to talk about individuals i sit with 11 board members up here i don't have anything against anyone we all have different views i share my views you show or share your views with me i might like you you might not like me that's special for architecture okay but we all have to work together to make our schools better to make our young people better and while they're in that school get the best education that they can that's why
074i have sit on the floor for 31 years like i have to mention antonio ayarolo because he was pretty instrumental in helping us at the state level um knowing that process was was a huge help in in the quick way that everything was put through so shout out to him and also previous mayor mark foughten who started the original dps task force um back in 2019 and before that we were sitting in the sites and facilities committee with dr sal and looking over our space utilization study and that's really where it began and and of course when the cabinet i mean it's just it's in exciting uh hurdle that we overcome and um i mean we've got a long way to go obviously but we should certainly celebrate this it's work it's worth it um
075so with that said uh i do want to welcome our new member board member julie miliano thank you for um and i want to go back to our memorial day parade and say thank you to those that came out to represent the board and for lauren for providing transportation to really love the day and a good representation of the board in the public eye we had i don't want to um overstep gladys as the superintendent evaluation committee chair but i do want to mention um we had a superintendent valuation committee uh last night uh we had a very i thought it was a very good discussion a very lengthy discussion but a good one nonetheless um i do i have to say again i i feel like kind of a broken record but attendance is
076critical at these meetings even though if you're not a committee member it's important to be there just to know what's going on to know to be familiar with the vote that will come after a committee meeting but also um to not uh delay progress in in the work you know we did have a three-hour discussion so to go back and and recap and to answer questions that may have been talked about at those the committee meetings um again attendance is critical especially you know i know everyone has as other things going on it's a very busy time of year so i just appreciate those that came out and again we had a good a good conversation i'm hoping to continue that conversation at a special meeting if the finance committee chair doesn't mind holding his
077finance money meeting on tuesday june 14th at 6 pm if you all could attend and possibly we talked about hoping the finance committee earlier in that day doing a lunch meeting as we did at our last finance meeting than today that's right if we could do it at noon it's over soon thank you okay at so a full board meeting so we can continue that discussion and wrap things up we do have to um vote on without you know the validation of the superintendent as well as the um exempt employees i did forward an invitation from ksi who's having their moving up ceremony on june 16th they're actually two ceremonies in the morning 9 a.m and 11 a.m byo chair it's outside and indoors if inclement weather and we race i don't know if that's
078on our it's not on our agenda but we race is having their ceremony on tuesday june 21st at 6 30 at danbury high school and also the people empowering people graduation is thursday june 30th at 6 pm at hatter's hall i believe we all received email invitations for these but i just want to make sure you all receive that when you're aware that's happening [Music] and then the other thing i wanted to say and i didn't plan this but it came up during public participation was the participation of the board during the budget process this was a unique year we tried to begin conversations earlier and more frequently with the city as board chair i did i was involved in those meetings on several occasions as i could attend they were on a weekly sort
079of a weekly basis there were a few where um an attendee or two but the other thing is i you know i had my opportunity to speak at the city ad hoc committee meeting i presented on behalf of the board there what is what was in those minutes for that meeting it was a very very short clip of what i actually said um and so if you watch the full the full video you'll get the the whole gist of my speech in which i did advocate for our our schools and then i do want to say also when i and i didn't want to take away time away from public participation that's meant for the public having said my piece and i appreciate those board members who let me know ahead of time that they
080were going to speak at the public hearings at city hall and i mean that's i i just had to get that off my chest and share that so that's all i have for as a board chair report are there any other board comments questions updates hey um i just want to thank the the folks that came in this evening to speak with us you know part of what we're trying to do in this space is create community conversations and you know we're not always going to agree on things we're not always going to be able to fix the problems that are right in front of us as they're happening but the first step is opening that communication up and you know i hope you feel that we listened to you this evening we heard your
081voices um and that they matter to us um back to board business um [Music] an excellent excellent event the staff there did an amazing job of walking each of the students through project-based learning where each group got to present and operating as a judge it was like really a great experience i highly recommend it to any of the board members here you get that invitation it's such a great way to talk to kids find out about their excitement about what they're doing and connect with them and show them that the adults in our community care about them and care about what they're doing so i can't recommend that enough i also did get over to the high school they had a day of action against gun violence and we had quite a few legislators that
082were there also to support um you know a great event there were a lot of kids in the courtyard that were happy to see us wanted to engage in conversations wanted to you know let us know how they're feeling and what they're going through and you know i know that security is always something that's very high on our list you know trying to do problem solving and figuring out how we can make sure our space and stay safe and i just want to commend those students for you know taking action making it a day of action and engaging in that conversation with us thank you thanks i'm just going to comment on kate's mention of the tbl there is one word there is one more pbl tonight it's tomorrow night at broadview so if you
083didn't have an opportunity to go to ais or to rogers park last week tomorrow night it is at broadview it will probably be as fantastic as as the other pbl experiences to really see what our students are learning engaging and enjoying in their history classes is amazing and if you haven't already responded i'm sure they would love more judges at tomorrow night's event so that's brought you i did my tomorrow speech uh for the superintendent evaluation committee uh members that um received a package that were not there last night uh and we will be receiving some additional information tuesday night is just around the corner please go into your focus read your information so we can go over and won't have as long as meeting will not take it long on tuesday night so please
084if you didn't get your package i don't i would assume they're at people's world but there's information in there that you need to review i think everyone received them this evening at their places correct did you receive a folder okay good and if you could look at the form that we have to fill out and i think if everyone brings just a couple sentences for each category on the form it would be more productive ahead of time come with some thoughts on paper come prepared thank you anybody else [Applause] um any discussion no no discussion all those in favor [Music]