001oh freeze it in arms of the united [Music] under states indivisible with liberty and justice thank you very much um i just want to have before we do roll haul i just want to have a moment of silence for a danbury employee who passed away um alchemy shipment has to she's i don't know if she's a employee anymore but she was for several several years so just a moment of silence okay thank you theresa can you roll call me teresa you say here rachel schleske michelle cowell here kate canetta kate's here okay glass cooper here lauren daley here joseph de silva here bridgette guertin ralph pietro albert russo louisa okay we have some recognitions tonight good evening everyone so we've been looking forward to this for a few months see some familiar faces in the
002audience good to see them with their children tonight so we have two recognitions and two awards we'd like to acknowledge and recognize some well-deserving students i'm gonna just start off with thanking those students and their families for being with us this evening so first award we're going to talk about quickly is about the cave leadership awards and then the second one is the housatonic resources recovery authority billboard contest regional award winners so first we will start with the cave leadership award this is something that happens annually they say that we have principals or leadership from the respected buildings parents it looks like all throughout the audience and then also our deserving students so if you could just give me a moment i will mention all of the cave award winners by school and then we
003can individually speak to all of them so we have sean jacobson from broadview middle school yes please the mandiada from broadview middle school ava morning from rogers park middle school [Applause] richard silverblade from rogers park middle school [Applause] anna talbot from west side middle school [Applause] colin sterling from westside middle school [Applause] paz moran from danbury high school scott gersten from danbury high school jennifer cedano from ace [Applause] and so if we can and first let me just say cave studentship student leadership awards program is designed to honor students who exhibit exemplary leadership skills the award recognizes students who exhibit leadership skills including willingness to take on challenges capability to make difficult decisions concern for others and the ability to work for others and willingness to commit to a project diplomacy ability to understand issues
004clearly and ability to honor commitment please join me in congratulating our students and cape ward winners this year and so if we can have sean come up and take a picture with the family i love your knife [Music] cool okay can you come back up pretty yes [Music] um thank you so much thank you congratulations richard [Music] um this is for you congratulations there he is congratulations [Music] pass congratulations [Music] congratulations you know congratulations [Music] i don't know exactly yeah congratulations can we go in with all the kids [Music] congratulations if all the children come back up and we'll do one with the all the children [Music] yeah make a space here put your put your right on your hips nice and straight look at that she's a photographer thank you everybody [Music] um they
005have to stay for the whole meeting so i just want to um for our winners and um i was working for us all of our students have been recognized this evening your principals um have a couple of wonderful things they'd like to say about you before you and your parents leave and so if you don't mind i'd like to start with broadview middle school with dr edie thomas and she has a couple of amazing things to say about her 2 students dr thomas she's gonna come up again it's hard to talk about people unless they're with you first of all thank you very much for the opportunity to be able to talk about our students i think that you only hear the negative things that are going on but this is what is really going
006on in our schools and we're just very proud of our kids so this is diana she is a responsible and trustworthy and honest young lady you can be along with me not only is she a bright student but she is has also proven herself as a leader in our building she volunteers regularly at her local church she also searches out to help we do this big project for veterans day and diana made 30 valentine cards to give to the veterans you know that's a lot of cards and she's just a genuine interesting in other people she cares about people and she is a well-rounded individual i can't think of a better person to receive this recognition than her and her amazing parents that are back there so if we can give them a round of
007applause [Applause] you know we recognize too that we can't do it by ourselves and the parents are so essential in what we do so i'm just proud to see parents here tonight representing their kids sean you can be alone too if you like to sean is also you know you know i can do this without reading about sean i've had i think every one of your brothers and sisters which is quite a bit his mom's back there she works for the school and shawn is just a well balanced student he's involved in everything he's academically um his gpa is like a 98.5 at this point and um but you got some challenges there's three other kids in the class that you guys keep going back and forth we got vets on who's going to be
008number one but um we're just really proud of him he's involved in everything just recently and sean this isn't on here but i know about this he happens to be a part of unified sports and he decided to create a field day for those students and um and he actually had one of the teachers sent out an email to all of us telling us we have to volunteer we have to um yeah yeah telling us i was forgetting to think who was the principal you know but asking us to volunteer he was asking us and participate if not donate and things like that and i just thought that was amazing he took this initiative on himself to do this and he's working with one of our teachers but overall he is just well-rounded he's involved
009in everything he's in unified sports he's a student leader um council he has uh he's in the rock band i don't know you're in a rock band that's pretty impressive and then all of a sudden he is the vice president for the national junior honor society so you can see what i'm saying he's involved in every sport that you can think of he says lacrosse football he's all over the place and i'm just very proud of him he receives awards every year we do student of month we do academic awards i can't think of a year that you haven't received award yeah i know it's been every year haven't it so we're just very proud of him he i can't think of a better person and i'm i'm saying this and i can't say it
010enough these are the kids that are in our buildings so all that other stuff you hear isn't it's real don't get me wrong it's real but this is what we experience and we want you guys to experience that tonight so thank you very much where's sean's mom dad's here help hey take dr thomas's lead and bring the student up with me this is gabe morning and i will stick to my script so that i don't go along because i know i can talk too much so ava is a very and i can't see either a well-rounded and very active member of our school community she's an honor student who takes advantage of many of our after-school clubs she participates in the social justice club is a member of the national junior honor society and an
011active member of latinos in action where she tutors newly arrived english language learners she was part of a group of our social justice club members who i spoke back spoke about a couple weeks ago who volunteered to participate in a book study and student exchange with peers from our scotts ridge middle school in ridgefield you can also find her on stage during our musical theater productions of hairspray junior where i first met her and in matilda jr our most recent one ava is just as active outside of school where she's a figure skater and takes dance classes she still finds time to give back to the community where she volunteers at hudson valley regional health center she participates in fundraisers for new fairfield community charities supported by the lions club and she also helps her
012grandfather who has parkinson's super excited to to celebrate her as dr thomas said we oftentimes hear so much about the negative things that are happening across education in general and i'm pleased to be here with all the families to celebrate all the good that is happening [Applause] so richard silverblade is here because along with earning honors or high honors every trimester at rpms he has also been nominated for student of the month for both math and music richard has taken our advance taken advantage of the many opportunities offered at rogers park as well as in our community he's an active participant in the math participant in the math club and national junior honor society he's a sports enthusiast who plays deo and travel lacrosse he's always willing to lend a hand in both the school
013and in our community at school he volunteers to record our musical theater productions and at home he helps a family friend by working in the pit crew during races another one of his passions and makes sandwiches for the dorothy day house additionally he participates in an organization called racing to save lives he has been an active member of the scouts and is now a patrol leader troop historian and troop instructor for eagle scouts his eagle scout project is painting benches for hospice center and danbury and gives and he also gives out coffee at exit 2 during the holidays so i'm excited to have also richard here with his family and i'm happy to honor him [Applause] west side middle school good evening folks i am the stand-in for dr lavanca today uh i'm the assistant
014principal at west side and i am really glad to be here because very often i deal with uh issues in the building and discipline and behavior and other concerns so it's really lovely to celebrate students here tonight so here we have blondie i mean colin i call him blondie that's my nickname for him this is colin sturdivant cullen is a bright well-liked hard-working young man he is a positive role model whose shows kindness and compassion toward others and demonstrates patience and strong leadership qualities when working with peers cullen excels academically and conveys a high level of understanding and learning he pays attention to detail and takes much pride in his work cullen is an active lacrosse and hockey player and he even has his own ice rink in his backyard that's pretty impressive colin will
015be traveling to europe this summer so jealous he's going with team danbury to travel and study the impact of sports and wellness on society the sky is the limit for colin and we wish him all the success in his future and endeavors as you know westside has two academies cohen is a member of our global studies academy and then we selected another student hannah who is from our stem academy right and so here's a little bit about hannah miss hannah talbott has consistently demonstrated an unmatched ability to be a leader teammate and role model to others in and out of the classroom hannah is an active member of her scout troop and a very committed student when faced with any sort of challenge hannah has shown a collaborative spirit amongst her peers that has led
016to a high level of continued academic success her leadership has been exhibited by her ability to provide meaningful feedback to her peers through a variety of mediums hannah is an invaluable member of our community and has a limitless and hannah has a poem that just got entered into the west side middle school academy school literary magazine just this week so congratulations thank you miss williams next is principal donovan nate perry high school hello scott scott may look familiar to you because he's one of our ambassadors that come and talk to you once a month about what's going on at danbury high school so you may seem familiar but that's the tip of the iceberg scott is a very dedicated hardworking student he's a student body treasurer and national honor society treasurer liaison to the board
017of education a peer leader peer tutor captain of the indoor and outdoor track teams and his second degree back mountain martial arts while doing that on his spare time he has achieved a 4.766 gpa at danbury high school has been the top 10 of his graduating class all four years has been on distinguished honors role 10 times high on the role four times as an ap scholar scott is also the ciac scholar athlete of the year for 2022 for danbury high school which is out of all of our athletes the top male uh highest ranking athlete uh he is also an all-american track athlete he was named all fca second team was the state open runner-up in connecticut on all-state honorable mention and holds the danvers high school record of the 1600 meter medley rely
018i don't know what that means scott has been uh actively involved in denver high school and has thoroughly enjoyed giving back to his school and surrounding communities he is well respected and trusted by his peers and next year we'll be attending binghamton binghamton hopefully to study computer science computer science round of applause [Applause] now i had to bang bang this one to actually show up in front of people she's very shy yeah it's not like to be in front of people she hates talking autographs later there you go hello everyone this is probably one of the best known students at danbury high school she yeah she's she is involved in everything she runs tracks holds leadership roles class president and his one of the role was one of the lead roles in the school play
019sister act nice job brother thank you uh what is even more impressive is paz participates in all these activities while maintaining a 4.5 gpa and taking honors and advanced placement courses a senior class president paz has worked tirelessly to provide the best experience for the class of 22 which as we know coming back in and getting everybody back into everywhere was no small task at all she's done a fabulous job her energy and willingness to put herself out there has been a needed attribute as we transformed back in from covet and she leads from the front if we're going to do something a spirit week of any kind or anything like that she is the number one model that we have for jumping on board and doing stuff uh if i'm still correct from the
020last time ever paz will be attending nyu nyu in the fall hoping to study being famous [Applause] i'm hoping this hook gets us some good broadway tickets because we all know she's going to end up there somewhere congratulations [Applause] so anthony's going to speak on behalf of jen at ace we have a thing called guidance which is when a student comes to ace they get into a guidance group and they really form kind of a tight relationship with that guidance teacher it's a class you have every other day the whole time you're at ace with that teacher and the same group of students so anthony's going to speak on behalf of jen so thank you um yeah i can actually speak endlessly but i'm going to read what i wrote to keep it brief uh
021so jen here is a shining example of someone who has made the most out of her time at ace entering our school in the fall of 2019 for her second year in high school jen was faced with the choice of how she was going to proceed thankfully for her and the rest of our community jennifer decided to face the challenges that life presented and deal with them in positive and healthy ways jennifer found the strength and the courage to grow into a young woman with tremendous character she is hardworking a good friend and a contributing member of her community she has won countless student of the month in ace of hearts and spades awards for overall achievement warmth and thoughtfulness and hard work as well as high honors during her time at ace and is
022celebrated as one of the best students who is a promising future ahead with a passion for creativity and the arts jennifer looks forward to pursuing a career in this area and we here at ace for certain that she will be successful in whatever endeavor she chooses [Applause] nicole's got his features in here so i'll read what nicole's guided teacher read jen's art is phenomenal my screensaver my computer is her art so nicole is an exceptionally dedicated motivated caring compassionate and hardworking student who takes pride in all that she does is quick to volunteer for any community service opportunity that she can she's been a student at ace since the second semester of the 2018-19 school year so she's like one of our pre-coveted kids which gives a totally different perspective to be able to say
023that in our building she's consistently been a regular attender at the school maintaining a 90-95 attendance rate each semester that she's been there while today she's also received the ace of hearts for caring award the aces fades for hard work and has been recognized as a student of the month in addition to her academics nicole maintains two part-time jobs two three two in addition to her academics she maintains those two part-time jobs and has represented ace as a member of the connecticut association of alternative schools and programs student conference planning committee she's also served as the ace board one of our two board event reps for ace another thing that we have at ace is when students come to ace they come to visit and we want to make sure they kind of get the
024experience before they make the decision to come a so we have students do a one day visit and the one day visit requires that an ace current student becomes a host and models the behavior that we're looking for at the school and nicole is somebody who has always been someone i've grabbed and said you know i need somebody to be a host especially if it's somebody who's coming in who maybe needs a little tlc this is the host that can show people you know how to go about their business at ace and make them feel welcome so congratulations thank you principal webber and thanks again to all of the award winners so next on the i'm going to push this one to dr selig he worked on this project with the city of danbury and
025because of the hard work that was put into this we now have two students who were finalists that we want to recognize thank you so this is a an award by the housatonic resources recovery authority hra as you probably know it is a regional governmental waste management recycling authority it serves 14 municipalities in western connecticut so they have a competition for students from all the different municipalities are invited to participate in a billboard contest where they're asked to submit artwork encouraging the public to recycle the theme for this year was recycle your food scraps and compost there were a total of 1300 artwork submissions to hr array from the 14 different municipalities and dan barry had two winners that received honorable mentions so there were winners in different grade categories we had a winner in
026the third grade category and in the sixth grade category um third grade was pranith said kumar he attends king street primary he is placed second in the regional contest in the third grade category but has also won first place in our local contest in the city of danbury for his grade uh and his participating teacher is miss jaudy it's a round of applause please [Applause] and our sixth grade winner is blake roberto who attends broadview middle school he's placed third in the regional contest for sixth grade and has also won first place in our local contest in the city of danbury for her grade her participating teacher is miss moore [Applause] and if we can we have awards for you and then of course we can't have the award without a picture with the superintendent
027and the vice chair so if you can over there um thank you [Applause] and thank you to our winners tonight and families i want to thank you it's great to see everyone in attendance this evening looking forward to great things from all of you children and all of our kids you guys are certainly welcome to lead you're so welcome to stay but it was great happening thank you [Applause] yes the board welcomes public participation and asks that speakers please limit their comments to three minutes speakers make walker objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them the board will not permit any expression of personal complaints from defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the danbury public school system signed up for public speaking good evening
028my name is emily pardales and i am finishing up my 19th year as a teacher at danbury high school i am also a taxpayer in danbury i am here to share with you a journey that i have been on in the fall of 2018 i was moved to g-building a beautiful brand new building with a gorgeous view of the hillside and in the distance broadca middle school although the view is gorgeous the windows do not open they are welded shut preventing teachers from being able to regulate the airflow in the classrooms and causing us to be completely dependent on the hvac system this is the cornerstone of my alarm the lack of a healthy environment due to poor air quality i should tell you that i have been trying to rectify this issue through a
029variety of communications and collaborations but i seem to be meeting brick wall after brick wall i realize that the city owns our school buildings and is responsible for these repairs and to ensure all is in working order but our system requires that i record this to you first and my hope is that you will wield your power with the city as such i am now here asking for your help on tuesday january 25th i was out of school with kovid and realized that many teachers in g-building were also out with covet i began to question whether the hvac system in g-building was working properly so i sent an email to my union representatives this started what turned out to be a very long and upsetting process i don't want to take up your good time
030by standing here and orating every detail of this process but i did compose a timeline of the over 30 steps i've taken since january as well as a narrative that provides you with more details for you to review and process when you deem inappropriate mr ross is now handing them out for me my goal tonight is simply to let you know what my life has been like seeking the simple goal of fresh air in a healthy working environment there are really two issues here one air quality in term of viruses specifically coca-19 and two air quality in terms of carbon dioxide levels the first issue was attempted to be solved by the district providing air purifiers to teachers i have provided pictures to you and to the district of the air purifiers blinking green at
031the beginning of the day and bright red by the end of the day so while we appreciate the air purifiers we are still questioning whether they are working at a capacity great enough to provide a safe environment incidentally these self-stain machines are quite loud as we have been working with students who wear masks it is already difficult to hear them that this increase in ambient noise exasperates that issue the second issue has not been resolved at all a flow of fresh air you're reaching your treatment to order in order to keep the carbon dioxide level from going up class after class teachers have reported that the air quality in the morning seems fine the air seems to be flowing and the classrooms are definitely cooler after sitting vacant overnight i'm sorry to cut you off
032but that is your few minutes thank you um is there any is there anybody else who has not signed up that would like to speak okay thank you um ralph can you make a motion for the consent calendar sure i'd like to make motion of the board of education approve the items on the consent council exhibits 22 23-58 and 23-59 as recommended second second joe is there any discussion all those in favor say aye aye nay are there any educational or staff staff representatives dr selita or aaron daly student representatives good evening members cabinet and community members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the alternative ace will continue to host the prospective dhs students continue their most prospective dhs students until on may 17th a total of 29 students
033were scheduled to come in for one for one day visit to experience our progression interviews with prospective students and their families will take place on saturday june 11th with the ace staff this saturday may 14th from 1 to 4 ace will be hosting a barbecue to celebrate our founder joe pepper this the day will also include activities for kids such as a bouncy house and face painting as well as time for alumni and staff to share stories and special memories related to children and ace experience joke head and t-shirts will also be on sale on the day of the event next thursday on may 19th ace will host its annual wellness center presenters will be coming to ace to meet with students to discuss various careers how they look like healthy living lifestyles and each
034student will select four presenters to attend during the mornings will include culinary yoga boxing art therapy drum circles healthy relationships and mindfulness after lunch on may 19th the top floor of ace will be open for staff and students to participate in a school-wide renaissance fair the fair is organized by community students joanne smiles melissa laski daniela esposito kyle chappella ashley thank you staff and students from june 1st to the 3rd the 15a students go on the whitewater rocking trip the trip is organized by anthony holland and will be shop run by anthony kyle chicola and ashley hunter students will experience two nights of camping and a wonderful day of rock and 15 miles down the hudson bureau the ace coffee house is set for thursday june 9th from 5 30 to 7 30 at the
035hatter's park pavilion the night is organized by english teacher joanne foles and her poetry students the event will see eight students and staff create original pieces of work in the school performance by kyle tropos music appreciation class classes this year is the eighth graduation wait i'm so tired this year the east graduation is set for june 14th and 4 p.m and will be in the browser auditorium thank you dr thomas and broadway for being so hospitable and allowing us to reach your venue thank you for allowing us to share what's going on with our ace family dawn 26th look this afternoon stay safe and yeah [Music] good evening my name is tina mcgill and i'm this year's bg vice president i'm scott the treasurer scott and i are also officers on this chapter's national honors
036society and on the industrial ceremony for the 2022-2023 national honor society will be held on monday may 16th at 7 00 at the dhs auditorium so since we're both seniors we're very excited um but sad that the year is over and here are some dates for the end of the year june 6th will be senior awards at six o'clock june 8th is the last day for seniors which will also be our sixth flagstrip um june 9th is our graduate graduation rehearsal and also senior fest june 10th is early dismissal captain cam distribution june 13th um will be another early dismissal and graduation graduation starts at 12. um june 14th will be another early dismissal rain date um june 15th is a the early dismissal alternative date for our graduation um and june 17th will be
037the early dismissal last day of school uh junior promise is this friday tickets are being sold this week um and it's being held at the portuguese club senior prom is two fridays from this week uh it'll be in the amber room and we'll be selling tickets for it next week and lastly community change projects for period leadership class are either kicked off we'll be kicking off the next couple of weeks a lot of projects are kickball dodgeball portal tournaments bingo knights and other fundraisers that's thank you guys thank you thank you scott okay moving on to the superintendent's report thank you thank you so we have quite a few updates and also some amazing news to announce but we'll start with a city council budget update we had the mayor's budget proposed and approved by
038the council so john has trump mr spain has some updates regarding next steps for us as a cabinet but also as board get some other news thank you so as you know last week when the city council adopted all the department of budgets they followed their ad hoc committee's recommendation which was to endorse the mayor's budget of for us of 141 million dollars you'll remember our uh our board budget was 152 million and so after that uh we've we're going to we've gone to work uh the administration the cabinet uh we're putting together some ideas we're going to come in front of you uh with some recommendations at your first june meeting it's neat that's the same time last year the budget was brought to you to make some decisions um well just to be
039a little more specific what we're doing now is we're taking a second look at what we put together you know it was back in december and uh we know a lot more now than we did then uh taking a fresh look at enrollments with better information now we know more about some of our costs as we get closer to july 1st uh some of the labor contracts that we uh estimated and probably knew how they come in uh we now we have them in so we'll put all that together and as i said bring you something at your first june meeting if i may well while i'm here i'd like to also just say word on the audit and some of the publicity that received this week as it was connected to our budget and
040um a few things briefly if anything you know there isn't there's not a school audit what was going on um the city is putting together its annual uh financial statements it's a 204 page that covers all of their financial results of last year and um hey i would just cr i'd like to preface things this way some of you may know this i myself started my career in business as an auditor i was an auditor for uh two years a corporate fortune 500 owner and after that i became an internal control coordinator for the anaconda company in waterbury uh dealing with all their audits writing accounting policy and procedures and things like that so i say that because i understand i've always understood what auditors do and what they need to do and have always
041been able to talk with them about the tasks they're trying to do it was either late february or early march we've been having some regular zoo meetings with the audit comedians city finance officials and we were led to believe that we were finished with all the requirements that were necessary in fact the only item the auditors were looking to have finished at that time was a thing called compensating balances it's a section in here it's something the city puts together and at that point the auditors were discouraged from finishing they were told that we needed the city needed to finish the mayor's budget it would take about a month and they could come back that and um so we didn't think we had much of a role at that point in the year we had
042to do anything and about a month later when they came back we received a list of what was then 18 items to finish things like coffee bank reconciliation or you know typical normal kinds of things they need to put their statements together so uh on may 6 that this uh turned into 21 items from 18 items and i can report to you tonight that of the 21 items 20 of those have been completed we've submitted them to a we've engaged a municipal auditor ourselves to look over our work and make sure those items put together pass muster are correct and policies importantly don't need to be done a second time i expect all those to go over to the auditor's portal it's all remote this week the one item that's not done we had a
043telephone conversation today had to do some paycheck sampling that they asked to do back in september we asked them if we could have uh could have the request again they didn't have it they couldn't find it they said they would give us a new one as soon as they put one together so that's the only item we think we have to finish now um but i think just as importantly we're doing the self-assessment ourselves we're looking inwards and gonna determine what what went wrong and why how did we get to this point and um with what happened what are we gonna do differently next year what type of steps i'll call them corrective actions so that everything's done on time we don't get here and with that plan we want to share that and sit
044down with the audience and see here's what we think we need to do differently what do you think will this work will this make it better because you know it's always been my experience i i've been on it for 30 years at least by some of the top firms in connecticut um and it's always been collaborative they they really are our partners of us they're there to help us and i i want to make sure we have that relationship that they could help usually they welcome uh things like that but i think we'll put together uh something that works certainly share it with you when we have it and so that's that's what's going on thank you john thank you thank you a quick question so we have a finance committee meeting coming up yes
045are you going to go over the stuff that we're that you're proposing to present to the board after yes yes we'll have an update number one on the audit but then secondly we will walk the finance committee through anything that we're going to propose to the board on june 8th uh that first board meeting in june yes but that's what you're asking right we're going to welcome community first absolutely yes that one item that's not completed do you have any idea when that's going to be complete the issue ups are good yeah we're waiting for what they do is they'll they'll come in and they'll sample some payrolls and they'll just randomly take some paychecks they'll they'll trace that through to everything let's say they'll look at the labor contract and see if they're paid
046on the right step they'll look at in their personnel files and see if they have their w-4 filled out and uh you know was the direct deposit right they traced things up and down the continuum and so then as we said could we have that request again and they couldn't find it we'll give you another one to help us in the next couple days because until we get it what they want us to do is um because now every everything's remote they'll want us to make copies of their appointment letter or their w-4 or something else that's in their file if i'm out of order please stop me it happened to me the communication and what came out as far as statements from the city side making it board to me look like we didn't
047know what we were doing and leadership and to me i feel like it should have been some type of communication and understanding if you guys have been working so long together and putting the budget together to have some type of discussion before that type of information came up so you're telling me you start off with 18 items they found them to 21. so now you have everything all taken care of except that one item and then to me it should be a clear statement that the board is in compliance that's the word i want to use you know that there have been hundreds i'm not exaggerating hundreds of documents that we had provided to them you know when when things are done remotely as they decided to do um they came you know it used
048to be they come in and say you know let us see the labor contracts and handling the books that keep as long as you operate back before you go along now they want to see things or if there's a bank reconciliation you email it to them they'll email you a question of something they don't understand you email back and the whole thing is just much slower when it's remotely than when it's here questions take longer the explanations take longer but throughout really in september and october there were many many documents that we sent but normally they asked for nothing unusual nothing um you know they have they put these statements together the same way every year and their uh their audit requirements they have to have certain backups and documents in their files thank you
049okay i agree with your remote some things some things are great remote some things are not who made the decision to do this remote i don't have the answer and perhaps that was an escape and i'm guessing it wasn't us that decided to do it remotely no it's a it's a city contract honestly i think they weren't the only front and i think a lot of audit firms when they found like most businesses they have to try and do things differently um it seemed like a good idea at the time and it was the best awesome thing but just as you got further into it there were things you learned that everything remote takes longer yeah thank you that's it theresa michelle um connection with the last part how many people employment records do they
050look through i mean is it one two is it a dozen i mean they have a sample size i'm not sure how many they take to satisfy themselves um you know i i don't really pay that much attention to them we just say you know here's our stuff tell us what you need if it were um a dozen or two dozen kids [Music] like i said they have um requirements to do the work the aicpa says you have to do this this and this and you have to have this and that so um i i think they were i don't have any reason to think they were doing more or less than they normally do but it just it was different you know and a lot of the um what i'm learning is you know
051we changed systems uh during the middle of the year i don't think that honestly was that project was led properly some decisions were made that we're not trying to piece together they're asking for the data and we've done it but they've asked for details from one system that agree with the total from the other you can do that but it's a step-by-step process they asked us just this week to demonstrate how the two systems were brought together in uh july of 2020. people who did that are gone they left writers behind but we put something together that we think does it they match that you received in september and you're asking them to resubmit it or uh it was the second item it said we had asked you for this back in september you still
052haven't gotten oh i i was i've been here one week they didn't ask me anyway they asked someone in another department so i said could i see it again you know i'll finish it and they couldn't produce it so we there i'm playing catch up so this started before you got here it starts um you are there any more questions thank you and so the the next one is the cave legislative wrap-up this is a two-parter mike is going to speak to both the second part um about ryan but mike can you take this when i know you attended the cape meeting yesterday sure so there was a it was a busy session for schools and kate gave us a wrap up it's about 16 pages it's there's a lot in it so i tried
053to distill it down to what i thought was the most relevant stuff in the district and kind of give you the greatest hits here so um the the big bill was the funding bill it was hb 5506 this was kind of the you know your christmas tree building and all this stuff kind of attached to it so the good news coming out of this is alliance funding is going to be authorized through 2028 so we get to five year extension now one of the things we had hoped for is that it would be accelerated one year and this was going to be a bill hb 5283 which did not pass that would have helped us net about additional dollars by advancing the alliance funding that bill didn't pass so that was a little bit of
054bad news for us that was one we really got behind we actually provided some testimony written in person in hartford and uh we're a little disappointed by that but 5506 still has some good news in it so um construction in particular um there is uh it was passed that there's going to be 80 reimbursement for construction on the 154 million for the career academy now that's really good news that means that 123.2 million of that 154 will be reimbursed by the state which means that whole 154 billion we don't have to come up with about 30.8 so that's pretty good news uh and that'll get us to the 154. uh and after that 154 would have the law wouldn't be acceptable expenditures and then any money [Music] so yeah so that's good news also in
055that bill was 150 million dollars in hvac reimbursement grants for air quality um that'll range on anywhere from 20 to 80 reimbursement based on the city population of you know some wealth the second big bill that went through was sp1 uh there's two two big sp sp and two and you always know when they have low numbers like that they came in as real high priorities for the governor so sp1 and that one is actually titled an act concerning childhood mental and physical health services in school so this is a lot coming down the pipeline for childhood mental health and physical health services this include grants to early childhood service providers and grants to hire and retain more social workers psychologists counselors and nurses nurses they recognize that this is also a pipeline problem so
056there's provisions in there to sort of increase the pipeline people are going through sb2 is also focused on mental health this one is actually titled an act expanding preschool and mental and behavioral services for children so this is a lot of money coming through with mental health there's going to be mandate the district's higher mental health coordinator including this is may 26th is going to become get outside and play for children's medical health day so number four is hb5001 this is also about mental health it's going to provide grants for school-based mental health services and it will require the adoption of a truman c intervention model in schools and the fifth one is probably most relevant to this body it's it's doubled it's two lambda right now it's pa 22-3 and hb 5269 this will
057allow public agencies to continue to hold remote and hybrid meetings originally that was going to sunset and they decided to allow it to continue um and actually there's a spider web of caveats and special rules that go into this which leads me to the next point which is each one of these has layers to it and like i said there's 15 pages in here and i just gave you a sort of high level so we're going to be inviting our lobbyists um for sullivan lashing to come at a future board meeting and they can really dig into some of the the you know more details a lot of these have i mean they haven't written rules yet they haven't decided how they're going to do grants if there's going to be reimbursements if it's going
058to be competitive all that stuff is still getting worked out so as that becomes more clear um ryan and zach from sullivan and shane will come and tell us a little bit more about it and we can figure out how to position ourselves to go get some of this money thank you mike thank you any questions regarding uk legislative rights yes question about the hrac would that help um mr dallas yeah that's basically a summary of the stuff that you have yeah did you guys send that to the board sure yeah thank you we we will have a wrap up for the board that everything that mike just wrapped [Music] so the next one teacher of the year dr selig why you have the floor so teacher of the year we're back doing teacher of
059the year right now um so we are nominations open on april 5th they closed on may 2nd of not available um save the date emails have already gone out to all the nominees we expect that teacher of the year to be finalized by may 13th so just a couple days from now and we had a little shift so originally we were going to be doing the teacher of the year for the district on may 18th we had a little conflict with one of the nea dinners so we decided to push it back to may 24th so it's going to be broadview middle school everyone is invited and we hope you'll all be there to uh recognize all the nominees and 22 teacher of the year this person will then go upon too hard for her
060to be considered for the 23 teacher of the year they do it kind of one year staggered so they'll be in the running for that and we have high hopes absolutely and we will have all of these school representatives on our website tomorrow so all the individual representatives from every school they've already been informed of course but the the entire district is not aware of those winners but all those names will be posted to the website but if you give me a moment i'd like to take a minute to share who those names are so allison safford from pembroke elementary school is the is the teacher of the year at pembroke barbara stewart from millbridge primary school caitlin polinkas from ellsworth avenue school cara patalia from south street elementary school kathy berman from haystown avenue
061school daniella esposito from ace donna shore from stanley elementary school doreen chernisky from king street primary school elizabeth de resto from shelter rock school emily lopez from i'm millie lopes i'm sorry from rogers park middle school wendell and davidson from danbury primary school heather mueller from king street intermediate jamie pope from broadview middle school joseph gustepe dispe from westside middle school academy laurie woodruff from ace magnet school luisa guadardo from park avenue school melissa gabriel from mars street school melissa thiel from danbury high school and michael flynn from great plain elementary school so please join me and i know they're not here but applauding our [Applause] and winners forward to may 24th to decide who the representative for the entire district is going to be looking forward to that evening and then the next side
062i'm sorry are there any questions about the teacher of the year update as i've seen cat uh cara and kelly smiling about all the names we just mentioned yes yes for sure superintendent goals update we have two items here one fiscal responsibility planning for growth and talent acquisition this is goal three um sub bullet the danbury career academy task force uh before we go to dr casimiro i just wanted to say one of the superintendent goals speaks to partnering with the city of danbury to begin to plan for the reality of the airbury career academy and the moves and the investment that it's going to take to successfully open up that building in 24-25 so we had our first meeting task force meeting was that i believe it was two weeks ago so it would
063be the first week in may our next meeting scheduled for the first week in june there are a couple of members of the task force who are not available so we are looking to find a date but the plan right now is may and june we will meet we will reconvene again in september and continue to meet monthly as we continue to investigate and plan for this challenge ahead together so the task force is made up of two council members two people from the mayor's office including the mayor two board member representatives then i have um three cabinet members um the assistant the superintendent to my right dr castamero kelly trucias and the chief operating officer mike selig and first meeting was great we felt like it was important to provide some context for the
064task force and so that context as we were planning these sessions we realized everyone in the task force did not understand how this started and the rationale behind the academy what was driving the actual six academies that we landed on so dr castimero provided that initial overview for the task force um and not very different from this board i think the task force was also equally engaged on that evening and so if dr casemiro our board teacher can walk us through the task force meeting last week that would be awesome thank you thank you so in your packet tonight you do have the powerpoint presentation that was shared with the task force on may 4. so i'm just going to talk briefly about the highlights as touch points um as kevin mentioned it was important
065um to go back to certainly getting the conceptual beginnings of where we started with this recognizing that we were you know now speaking of folks who only really knew it as uh you know building a school and um you know none of these academies come to be how were the different academy types selected um so we took our time to go back to some of their research but the very first uh one most important task that we have to do that night was to make sure that we were clear on the purpose of the task force um so why we're you know getting together and having that collaboration that really was to um you know build that shared understanding about the process of the development and the funding that we needed for the academy to
066make sure that the communication line was open and that we were meeting on a regular basis so that was really really the key we did talk about how this would fit into our mission and vision and some time discussing that along with identifying the different career clusters that are available uh that were being promoted not just nationally and regionally but the ones that connecticut identifies that are also really much the subject matter of lots of discussion with the mayor's function on the different agencies in the state of connecticut and how there's lots of partnerships growing around these 12 connecticut clusters so i'm not going to go through the whole thing you do have it in your pocket we talked about the programs of studies and health and what that is the concept of those so
067those people make a little bit of the curriculum committee um and also what an industry-recognized credential is those would be advantageous to our students and how those fit into the academies and the pathways as well and then we talked about the concept in terms of the coursework the rigor the small learning communities and the importance of developing an advisory board on community partnerships with businesses and then growing that out is really provides the foundation for the academies not just the beginning but in years to come and we saw what that looks like in other communities where this has developed it's quite impressive one of the best examples of that is the partnership called pencil down in nashville where we learn just how elaborate developed these partnerships are and how much communities will sponsor and support
068the academies recognizing that you're producing students who will likely go back off to college development interests to go off to college or school or career and come back and live in the community because those opportunities have been made known to them those relationships have been established and so it's uh it's just a wonderful concept to go around we went into the pathways from the trajectory and the flow of learning from 9th grade to 12th grade and then we spent some time talking about the academies that would be located on the news site versus denver high school site um one of the most important things to point out was that it was just not about a building and that this was a concept and a transformation of teaching learning in the way that we were um
069organizing our high school and that danbury high school was very much a part of this transformation that it didn't just live in the building that we're building so i think that was important [Music] plans and scaling and drawings and then they start to actually break ground inside the building to build it up so it's actually a very productive meeting uh we ended that meeting um with identifying proposed agendas for the next couple meetings so in june program the catholic partnerships to talk a little bit more about individual pathways uh the improvement committee did a little bit of a deep dive into one of the medical technology pathways just to give a little snapshot of what that that looks like um september uh we'll be doing more uh discussion around the physical building plans and construction
070process um that starts to become really really more refined and ready to share um start talking about the staffing and that's really a key piece as we as we move into this you know what will it take to staff and open that building so building the building is one thing staffing it making sure that the resources are on both sides and in place and in our current high school are going to be very important um transportation and food service needs and then updating the enrollment which also is a very key part of our budget development process so it was a very good meeting and we look forward thank you dr casamaro teresa question uh was there anybody from west valley on the task force or had been invited as you know i've worked many years
071at restaurant and i was always appalled that there was no everybody was distinctive silos and i think a lot of our students graduate go on to westcon and being a partner in the community i think it's important that they should be on the task force and also um i had expressed this in the curriculum committee the art and engineering and design academy i think it should really uh the art piece should be renamed visual performing arts to be more encompassing of the theater and music department as well as the visual arts department um that's my two cents so i'll i'll just say something about the uh the task force the task force and i i think there are there will be plenty of opportunity to engage west con and other partners in the city the
072purpose in which cara had opened with and that was this purpose is solely the sole purpose of this is to partner with the city to talk about funding to open up 24.25 and the academic experiences for kids there certainly may be some opportunities to connect and partner with west con and other institutions of higher learning but specifically for this task force it's a one agenda item and that is we want to make sure we're on the same page with the city and partner in a way where they understand enrollment understand our enrollment projections understand our need for more staffing to open up not only a high school but also a middle school and so given that specific agenda the request was to keep the task force tight to make sure that we can focus on
073these specific items and then once we once we get some commitment and investment we can revisit i mean at the same time cara is working on the academic experiences piece with the new director of academy partnerships that's certainly going to be helping it i think to address some of the things that you're talking about teresa but cara can speak to some of those things because that is happening it's just in a different lane that's all as part of the model um it's important to have an advisory board of community members and business members and certainly university representative the part of the university partnership would be a perfect member of an advisory panel for uh that would work directly with the school and the community so it is a fun time totally great jack can you
074keep it close to the first step yeah thank you thank you yes [Music] so will sites and facilities can be involved at the ground level as far as the construction of the building and all the you know that aspect of it or and how do you measure what board members are on the test polls but is it just going to be those two members or will we have an opportunity to participate in that process so we have two four representatives we will probably have to talk soon because one of those seats might be open really really soon um and so we will have to backfill one of those two seats and make a decision about that so we'll speak to the board chair and but but the ask was as part of keeping the task
075force tight it was two representatives from the board which is consistent with mayor mark's 2020 2020 task force years ago so we had two board members two council members and i believe it was mayor mark and someone else also from his office in this case i think it's three because antonio is also on it on the task force as well which is certainly appropriate but to your questions about the sites and facilities the sites and facilities it's so we did have one meeting with sightseeing facilities when antonio came in and gave the overview and just said hey here it is but antonio will be back because with an approved bond referendum if that happens there are significant projects on that agenda and i i don't remember where we left off in our last one but
076our chair for sites and facilities is here lisa if you had some thoughts um can i just yeah i think you have to press both at the same time speak loud all right um is the uh buildings committee that the city council voted on the task force is that one in the same or is that two separate separate separatists yes um so yes on our agenda on the sites and facilities we will be adding um you know the uh career on a regular basis so we will be having um up-to-date discussions on that as well as also the building committee that was just approved for city hall so we'll be working with that as well so as we get information from city hall we'll bring it to the sites and facilities committee also you know
077updates on the bond and everything so i really want to make sure that that committee you know keeps everybody updated on the academy and where we are construction-wise are you okay thank you okay thank you teresa oh concerning the referendum coming up is there a ground swell building hopefully for a positive result because i understand we have to have not just a positive vote but 15 of the voters turning out which i don't know what that number is six pounds six thousand thank you so i i can tell you there are multiple strategies to encourage voter participation the mayor's office is engaging in one that i think is probably going to be most influential one the mayor's office my office will be doing a joint op-ed the entire community the mayor's office city hall my
078understanding is they will also be posting things to their own website and uh pushing the word out it's the strategy i think as we get closer to the june 7th date um i think that they're choosing to get as we wait until they get closer to that date and then there's also um we have some [Music] groups in danbury independent of the district that is also informing our staff about the referendum so our teachers union has taken this on to help spread the word in our administrative union i understand it is also joining in that as well so we do have some momentum in that regard and again just getting out and spreading the word about the referendum and how it could be beneficial to our families so thank you for that question excuse me
079but we also have quite a few community groups that are doing things to inform parents about the referendum and how important it is so we're just we're not all alone by ourselves you know i have a lot of people that's out there that want to make sure that this move forward thank you and if you know the questions i just have one more item as an update and that is i mean now it's a it's about to turn into a question and that is the strategic plan board of vet workshop scheduled for tomorrow night the two goals that we were hoping to accomplish with tomorrow night if the board recalls in our last workshop we had agreed to schedule a follow-up meeting in which the board could have an opportunity to not only work on
080its own goals to help support accomplish the strategic plan and help us realize our pog vision but also identify a strategy in which you can extract the goals from the strategic plan to focus on your supervising goals and given the members that are not here with us this evening um i don't know if everyone's going to be available for an in-person meeting tomorrow so lauren i'm not sure how you want to handle that i'll just end it there and just remind everyone we have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow night but i don't know what that participation is going to look like so i just want to share with you more on how they'd like to proceed could i because we have talked about this for a and it's a part of the strategic planning workshop
081and we as board members also join a part of the board the superintendent evaluation as far as goals that the board came up with and my understanding there was seven goals or six goals that we need to talk about tomorrow so i encourage everyone and i know there's a lot of things going on to please tomorrow if you can't stay for the full session i think it would be to me going to talk about goals talk about the superintendent and strategic planning to be here and not do it on the computer would be a lot big you know to me better a little bit more understanding for the information but i i'm not a chairperson so that's my suggestion is for as as i can see it those that can make it we come here
082tomorrow and do the workshop so i definitely agree that in person is much better i do know last time we had several members that couldn't make it and um right now speaking with kevin and having um information we probably will have about a third of the board that will be able to make it tomorrow um craft about we're figuring if it's in person and given our participation this evening yeah so that's the only reason we're having this question do we postpone it and do it when we have a better chance of having more of the board here because we prefer not to have it on not have a hybrid we prefer to have everybody here um but that's kind of i guess we should probably do kind of like what about this because to me
083this is a part of the superintendent evaluation and to talk about the seven goals that the committee came over right to discuss and to see if we can move that in line with what the superintendent goes on so we have we're not really pushing but if we could postpone this uh maybe another week okay um you know because i don't know everybody else i don't know any other uh works recipients are available but i can work on i can speak with the person who's going to facilitate if it's not that person certainly will be able to find someone else but i don't think dr memphis would be available um but if he's if not tomorrow i don't think he's gonna be available but he assured us we could find someone else before so i'm we'll
084have to work on that i'm just not exactly sure it's just the 23rd that's just a date 23rd or whatever date [Music] go for it just i hate saying when i was in the board before but when i was on the board before we used to do a lot of the committee meetings and stuff the same day as the board the regular board meeting because people typically blocked out on wednesday and the staff the um people already hear any so if they're they're not they're killing they're killing that whole day if we could and i just don't know how how long the meeting is going to be or workshop's going to be do us 5 to something well we could do 5 30. you know i'm just saying something like that you know for the
085interest of everybody's time not to you know because i i just i just realized the system of getting the invitations is a lot different um i might be just an old guy trying to figure it out but i went on my google account by the calendar and i saw these dots on what the hell is this so i i press on and i'm like this meeting that i didn't know there was a meeting last night i'm like so i'm something wrong with with my system but i was just you know get the night people are here you know certainly bring some food in that's always an attraction and just do it you know because most people just put aside that wednesday night right and it's okay wednesday night you get there in time do we
086can do you know not knock out a committee meeting or workshop before the regular meeting so it's not you know tuesday night wednesday night thursday the evaluation committee and the strategic planning we need at least an hour and a half okay so if you're gonna do it before boarding five years [Music] facilitator if he can do it then that'll be foul okay so this workshop is part of the uh us 90 minutes before the meeting and i will speak to the facilitator oh facilitator and see if we can because i think we were like i was going to tell um rachel that was the one that i might not be able to paint about well she should definitely have it like that i think it's about sure who would be important yes and that concludes
087the superintendent's report thank you thank you um any information from the board not information but um i would like to propose an amendment or an addition to our agenda which under foia we can do with a two-thirds vote the purpose is to put on the agenda and accept unfortunately well fortunately unfortunately my letter of resignation um i'm seeking my party's endorsement to run for judge of probate and pursuant to the canons of judicial ethics that apply to candidates and people who hold that office you may not hold other elected office so i cannot run for jesuit probate or even seek the nomination while simultaneously serving on this board so unfortunately i would make a motion that we amend the agenda to add that to the agenda for tonight's meeting second all of us i'm sorry
088i apologize i did not bring enough copies of the letter for everybody but i did um give the original to warren and i'll read it for the record it was pat it was passed up for the secretary um it's addressed to rachel uh david today may 11 2022. madam chair will soon be seeking my party's nomination run for the office of judge of probate as the rules associated with running for judge of probate prohibit candidates from holding other elected office i ask that the board accept my resignation from the danver board of education effective upon the adjournment of the board's regular meeting on may 11 2022. i want to personally thank every member of the board for your hard work respect and kindness i'm confident our students are in good hands moving forward i will
089watch the development and opening of our new career academy with excitement it's been an honor to serve on the board and a privilege to serve with every member of this board i will very soon not be a member never hesitate to ask for my helpful i will always support our students teachers administrators and this board and i have to say after tonight's meeting it's bittersweetly because the students we have are amazing uh the principles we have are amazing and some in all of our staff and that's a wonderful testament to the city and just in this district and our administrators i'm really proud to have been on this board i want to thank everybody here i want to thank rachel who's done a really nice job leading the board this spring and everybody here for
090being so kind and being collegial and professional working so hard thank you we can't not accept it but we probably should vote since it's a motion okay all those in favor of joe's resignation please say hi all right [Music] it's accepted thank you joe you appreciate it but does anybody have any other information on committee reports or anything else they want to share i'll be very quick we had we had a curriculum committee one night this week at my age i forget the nights so one night we had a curriculum committed meeting one night i think it was an excellent community meeting and the information that were brought to us was excellent and i certainly want to thank carol and her staff for doing what they do and bring the information to us in a
091form that i can understand okay and and i tag everything to age because of their age so uh you know i'm not gonna never disqualify my age but uh on top of that we had a community relations committee meeting i think it was last night and that was an excellent commitment so uh i want to thank the leadership of both the committees uh for having these uh meetings and i know it's tiresome because it's tiresome to me and i invite all the board members and i see that our new board members are that can at a particular time can participate we are not going to be there 100 but this is how you sort of get to learn understand what's going on in those committees and how we operate my last thing is and if
092i'm out of order stop me i'll put that to age since i've been on the board when we get stuff like this from a person it always goes to the superintendent and and let the superintendent give it out to the board members and i was a little offended that it was handed out to us first because that is the procedure since i've been on the board so if things have changed and things have changed i don't want to get this type of information during the open session let me read and digest this at the end when i get home and can digest it i heard what do the young lady say okay and i just want to look into make sure that when we operate and operate under the right procedure thank you i was
093not sure how that went i didn't know this is you know so i wasn't sure what to no no reflection no i understand i just didn't know what the deal was basically that's the first time i've ever seen that happen i'm saying yeah i didn't know that excuse me on this goes to him he sees it you know because we don't we don't know if the information is accurate or whatever it is is that maybe something that should be added to them lauren is saying maybe as part of our public participation notice right we should include because it's disturbing it's disturbing when you're trying to concentrate on your meeting and trying to reach something that someone is okay okay thank you um anybody else at anything um i just wanted to say that dsabc is
094having their breakfast on june 2nd and if anybody is interested in more information on that i can go ahead and forward you the information to insurance okay all of us in all favor thank you very nice