001what i'm trying to do is kind of get a feeling from from the folks here um what they number one think about that idea number two um maybe just kind of toss around some suggestions so that you know um as this is you know perhaps executed under the the superintendent committee as one of the board goals um we can kind of have some ideas to put into play there and and start that conversation so with that i will open it up okay would you like board members to respond to you first um i guess i'm looking to get everybody's feedback but if board members want to jump in first i think that would that's a good order of operations just i may be a bit below the curve but um i thought kevin and our
002district was doing a good job keeping in tune with um our stakeholders so please enlighten what we're how we're feeling i think no i think that i think that the administration is doing a good job with that i think as board members and as a board we have a separate role to play in the conversations that we have with the community and you know our ability to have conversations about different things is broader than what the administration may be able to get into so you know i think part of this is trying to help people understand sort of what the role is of the board in a more direct way so they can you know they can ask us questions in a less formal setting about some of these things and we can have conversations
003with them and also to just sort of make sure that we are making ourselves as approachable as possible to the public because that's that's to me really what our role is is to to be sort of like the the liaison between the public and the administration and the schools um so that's sort of the perspective i'm coming from okay does that make sense i am certainly open to hear how we can improve and i'm guessing that since ann was starting to jump in and has some great ideas also thanks alan and my colleague mike is here tonight too we've had fairly good success with our open forums um and so when i think about being approachable kate you just use that word um i think right now many of the community members may see the
004board and let me walk you through this see the board as being able to have their three minutes before a board meeting and not really understand that um a it's not a time to get a response um we are have been doing a lot of work in the community through parent c through pep through a lot of our other parent trainings to encourage parents to be able to talk directly to board members and i think we do have some folks that will reach out to a board member with a specific issue or a problem they're having but certainly what i think would be amendable to to perhaps everyone is to set up something where there's maybe quarterly dialogues very much like what we do with chats with kevin um the chats with kevin are very
005specific to um his role in the district and questions that he's able to answer but a more inclusive dialogue um besides what he does with the board you know just a give and take conversational type um event maybe you know zoom or something live when we get past our our coveted surge here again um just to have that open up that dialogue and feel and have families feel that they can come to something and talk to board members um you know and and so it stops this type of thing and puts people on a level playing field where they really feel that they can have that open dialogue so that that would be my thoughts on that type of thing mike did you want to chime in on that with some thoughts too no i
006don't really have anything to add i i i i agree with your points um yeah if there's you know i don't know if it's zoom is the right mechanism or whatever but i mean there's always you know always capacity to to increase you know the feedback loop between the district and um the community um but you know that's you know that's that's a place i think you and your office has pretty wired so you know i would just sort of defer to you guys on on the best mechanisms to keep that back going i certainly you know think it would be a good idea to you know let's try it out let's see if we get a good audience that comes you know let's let's do some free thinking before we actually offer it you
007know what's going to be the the catch to help bring folks in you know do we pose some questions up front around the goals that the board is working on perhaps we do it after those goals are complete and that will help direct the conversation a little bit those are my thoughts i agree that we need to uh extend ourselves in the community again the question would be how do we go about doing this and i'm sort of looking at that both sides sure i want to get to know some parents out in the community that i don't already know but again when we get to um a certain portion of what type of questions do you want a parent to present to you uh and i think most of the people in the community
008don't know who the board members are and i think if we open it up and saying okay you know most people don't even know what war they're in in danbury okay this is uh you know kate she's on she's on the board of bed and she's in this war and that can develop some kind of question i don't want it to come where it's gonna be um a disaster where people are asking negative questions concerning administration teachers uh and other people and it's including board members so i i think we really have to be careful how we go about setting this up and new zealand could be a start but i also like the idea of uh meet and greet uh you know somehow you come through beaver brook uh and that that's just one
009thought because we thought talked about this about 10 or 15 years ago come through beaver brook introduced the whole slate of board members that are there uh and and and um you know the parents want to have a few minutes with the board members let them do so and then look at a a next step after we do that stuff but i you know and maybe it's just me with my gray hair and old age just said uh i've learned the hard way that you really have to be careful how you bring people towards you and we don't know the question that they're going to ask and everybody we have a lot of new people don't know how to answer a particular question concerning our parent you know our parents say what i'm having problem
010with the bus stop i'm going to uh go to the board and i'm going to do this that's not the procedure you have to be able to answer them it's a chain of commands and then you know then if you can't get any support from that chain of command then your next and final stop is the board so you know we have to sort of more or less educate them too so that's sort of where i'm coming from i think it's a good idea always get the public and the community and you know get to know someone that you know that you haven't met before so how we go about doing it is going to be uh the concern we have asked folks um with the chats with kevin once they register if they have
011questions ahead of time that we do help prepare for um and kevin reads through them and and so we do have some ideas sometimes but not always um you know real specific questions i think perhaps some guidelines about how they're deferred if it's not an actual board issue um and the steps that you just outlined um they're gladys are points well taken yeah i think the uh the education piece is the part that i think is is a really important thing to to recognize there because um folks don't always understand sort of the connection between the administration the board of ed and you know how everything functions and who they have to go to so i think that that that in itself just offering that as an explanation people have all different kinds of ways
012of internalizing information um for us to to have a you know whether it's a face-to-face conversation where we're talking about that or you know assume a zoom call where we're talking about that i think providing that clarity will help folks engage with the district in a more meaningful way so i appreciate you know i certainly appreciate what you're what you're saying though i think providing some structure before we go into that space is really important i know as part of parent c one of the nights was spent on talking about the role of the board and how the community can interface with the board um so that might be something that we want to think about how do we uh you know talk to patrice nelson and um felicia thayer that actually did all the
013work in parents see and do we want to perhaps offer a workshop in that so more families can understand the role of the board um and how the board works and i think that you know might be a good um a first step if you would um certainly i will make sure that all the things going on in my office that you're all invited to so this saturday ten to one at the danbury dome we have our early childhood um resource fair so please board members come out bring your tag danbury public schools will have a couple tables there wonderful opportunity i know that mr ginelli a passport member has come out several times and um just to there and greeted folks you know hi i'm you know dick janelli i'm a member of the
014board uh you know this is what we do so i invite you all to this saturday at the dome at 10 10 to 1. don't feel you have to be there for the whole time you know come out for an hour walk around see our early childhood programs and some of the activities that we have planned for the kids this is a group endeavor with ourselves um and five other agencies in danbury putting this on i'll make sure you all get invites as well thank you yeah kate i just wanted to add you know i i you know i know we've we focus sort of more on the mechanical issues when we um when we do these forums it's more often times about you know how the budget process works or something like that but
015you know would i wonder if there'd be interest in sort of you know aiming a little bit you know more academic you know the latest research on reading or cognitive development or something like that i wonder if there would be any traction in that and then from there you know you could kind of have you know back into some of these other questions well what's happening in the english classroom and you know all that kind of stuff so just the thought you know um again the the you know actual conduits for this i'd completely leave to end but you know i think i you know i know kevin would love something that's just you know um you know just you know less less about the mechanics of of schools and more about you know exciting
016stuff you know learning and you know you know the new new curriculum and problem-based learning and you know all the things are going to be happening at the academy with you know project-based learning things like that so just a thought okay thank you um as far as this this uh this goal is concerned and i mean i i think really from my perspective the best strategy right now is to you know look at this as a board goal because i think it's not just buy-in from this committee it's buy-in from all of our board members to you know participate and help uh help that initiative so um you know my hope would be to sort of you know in the strategic planning piece um you know where the board goals come into play to make
017this a a goal of the group um and to look at um you know starting something probably next school year because i think at this point we're we're pretty close to the end of the school year there's a lot of things going on um and i don't think we you know it makes sense for us to start to move forward with this and then lose that momentum over the summer as everybody kind of goes their own ways so i don't know if anybody has other thoughts on that but i certainly don't want to make that decision without without everybody else being on the same page i think it's a great idea to sort of uh you know those that are not going away uh just sort of uh over this summer come up with a
018sort of a more plan that we and when i say we the committee can submit to the board and then look at you know starting it from the beginning of the school year okay does that sound okay to you as well al you can take that as a yes you're a mute but i'll take those again sounds like a plan king excellent thanks al i do some research in my office too um and through our partnership districts um for like initiatives in other districts that boards might do and maybe get some you know lessons learned from them and what what are the most effective ways that they've seen things like this uh work well that's a great idea i love that yeah um luis i don't want to leave you out if you had any
019comments i am all for um getting out there in the community and and um and just building that bridge um that kind of makes us a little more accessible to people and i i think it's a great idea i remember at the high school i remember dan donovan used to do breakfast with the principal monthly and you know the parents could go and sit with him and it was you know informal but it was you know place to get to know the principal and make a very large school seem a lot smaller so you know i think i think it's a great idea and i'm all for waiting you know getting a really good format in place and kicking it off come the next school year i think it's a great idea okay great thank
020you so much all right so i think for now um you know again i'm i'm just gonna suggest that we um you know under the purview of the uh the strategic plan and the board goals as part of that strategic plan sort of um you know start that conversation in that space and just get some feedback hopefully from the rest of the board on that particular goal and then uh dr mita you know whatever you're able to to find or if you have leads and that you want me to find the follow them up um because you certainly have a full plate um but i would be happy to uh you know take a look a closer look at what other districts are doing as well great for guidance um all right so that's that's
021the the sum of what i wanted to talk about for uh a board meet and greet and then the other thing to do to that is on here is um the upcoming referendum um we're pretty limited as far as you know what we can do because public funds cannot be used um you know for any kind of advocacy work but i think it's important that um you know we sort of understand ourselves that uh as board members we're in a sort of unique position to be able to advocate for um this referendum um and that uh you know we we make we do our best to raise the level of awareness in the community about uh the date of that referendum and how people can vote um you know i think um one of the
022things that that we could consider doing is possibly putting together an op-ed um you know when we talk about why we support the uh the project overall um and what we think it can do for the district but i sort of wanted to get a sense as to whether or not there's any appetite to do that so i think this um everybody needs to understand we need sick kids if i have the number wrong let me know we need 6 000 people that pass this okay so no matter what happens if we don't have six thousand people to come out next month well in another week and a half or two weeks it's gonna fall and we don't want that to happen so it comes right back to the question since we can't do it
023and do too much what is it by law that we can do because i there's a group of people that are not they don't have the time to sort of deal with educational issues and everything else that's going around like you know some of us that are retired and and interested in the school system there's no way we can't send messages home to kids anymore in backpacks so i guess my question would be would it be against the law on the 14th at the dome to have something to say um please show your support on june is it june 7 june the 7th we need 6 000 danbury residents to come up and vote in order to pass this referendum okay uh and i understand people can do absentee ballots too right no i believe
024so i believe uh the legislature passed and authorized uh that that folks can use absentee ballots going forward so so something really brief because people are bogged down with everyday life and reading a whole lot of other stuff that comes into them just three items and and maybe put that out there is there a law against us having a table at the dome and handing out that kind of information i mean i think my understanding is that public funds cannot be used for advocacy so if we're talking about folks who are paid position um you know being in those spaces it would not be appropriate for them to to advocate i mean i think you can share basic information like there is a vote coming up on june 7th this is what the vote is
025about and this is where you can go to vote or get more information about voting um so we can we can in that kind of limited way talk about um you know what what about the referendum but in terms of saying you know we're looking for your support um that would not be that would not be okay to do so is the city paid for the dome okay i mean the city's renting the dome so therefore public funds are being used so i don't know um i don't know who's paying for the dome rental i don't know if that's being done through organizations or if that's being done by the city i i will check on that i believe it is a smaller agency here in danbury because the actual event is a plti graduate
026project okay so i'm not even sure that there is being a cost to the dome but i will check on that i'll email people tonight and get back to you but it's not coming out of any of the the budgets that i um that you're handling correct okay i mean i think the other question is if we were to get something if we were to print something up to hand to people like i mean we could have people standing you know like we could have board members talking with folks as they're going by like dr mead was suggesting and that might be an opportunity to have that conversation but in terms of putting something in people's hands we're a little bit limited as well because we can't use public funds to produce any information that
027has you know um a position one way or the other on the referendum but again my question is if if we came up with something with two splits the date the date the referendum the date okay and 6 000 people to support it no take the word out support okay to participate and could we uh will we be violating anything uh any type of law to give out that little strip at the dome on saturday i mean my sense is no that might be you know that might be a question to go back to to um kim thompson about and just look for some clarification um but my sense is that as long as it's not uh advocating for a vote one way or the other if it's just informational like you know they they
028printed i believe they printed in the paper an announcement about the referendum um so as long as we're sticking to that those very simple facts um i don't think there's any restriction on that okay and if someone wants to donate uh you know if someone have a printer and can do it you know within the group you know somebody wanted to donate a thousand sheets of paper so it won't be no is that can a person do that as long i i believe as long as they're not using publicly funded equipment or or materials um if it's private i believe that you can spend up to a thousand dollars you know as a private person before you have to file any paperwork with the state okay so black and white um staples charge is what
02916 or 20 cents a copy now for an eight and a half by eleven so a thousand thousand sheets of paper uh but it's going to add up quick dr me do you know how many people are expected at this event on saturday we don't the weather looks really good so that sometimes lessens the amount of people that come because they're involved in sports so we don't know the first year we had 400 the second year we had close to a thousand oh wow okay yeah okay what about the ptos the city-wide pto um you know i i'm envisioning i'm visiting kids standing out there with signs on the street corners down by the on a maintenance south at the entrance to rogers park and we do have a lot of young parents that i
030mean if we can raise their awareness we'll come out and do that but how do we do that um that's the million dollars we missed the may may pto meeting uh citywide meeting was that what last monday night um yes i believe that was last week okay and and there was a mention about the the referendum and i think there was some conversation about the referendum and you know again folks are trying to be respectful of that line so you know i don't i don't want to you know i don't want any of us to wind up in a position where where that we're we're crossing that line kay i'm envisioning you on uh i-95 fm at 7 30 in the morning given given the word of getting the word out there for us look
031at that smile i i mean you know channel three you you belong on tv with that smile i appreciate that but i i feel like uh my time in the press is uh best spent out of the press um i don't think charisma i do think i do think i'm bringing it up in this space though because you know it's my hope that you know as board members that you know a lot of the work that we're we're tasked with is advocating for education in our community and we're in a unique position in that our positions are not paid um we do this as a volunteer service so we don't have the same level of restriction that administrators do or that city officials do um you know if they're taking a salary so um you
032know i guess my thinking is too that you know what are there any ideas about how we can get board members to to do more public facing work okay a little late in the late in the game i mean we do have we have a month left and i just don't want to i i'm not i'm looking to not squander that time that's that's really what it comes down to um i-95 i mean don't they have the city politicians on there all the time can't we poke one or two of them to go up there and advocate for education that's an interesting thought i mean i think you know part of this too is um you know to gladys's point earlier we have to bring out 15 percent of the population to participate in the
033vote um you know and that's that's an interesting that's a that's a difficult ask for a june referendum when folks are not accustomed to going out to vote so that i think is is you know it's an awareness thing um you know to make sure that folks are even aware that there is going to be a vote and i i'm sorry and that's the most frightening part because as long as i've been in this city i've never known a referendum to be in june unless it happened when i was in the hospital so you know people are trying to find out what's going on in june all right i'm not sure we're gonna come up with any better answers here um on this but i just wanted to sort of put that in you know
034that thinking out there um and certainly to anybody who might be watching this meeting to raise their awareness that you know we are looking to to make sure folks understand that we do need 15 of the community to show up for the vote on the 7th in order for it to be certified as a a referendum a formal referendum um and that you know we're we're trying to um you know make sure that folks understand what it is that they're voting on um you know it's go ahead small i'm sorry i just stuff swirls around in my brain kate i just can't help myself what about the voter list um do we have phone numbers attached to that and maybe we have 11 members on the board of education and give each member 100 names
035each or to make 100 calls uh there's 26 letters in the alphabet and an 11 vote runner so we can't bump into each other uh at least we would get get some phone calls made and i i don't think a hundred phone calls in a little less than a month is outrageous to to accomplish even if you leave voice mails so uh just just a thought i'm ready to make calls with you are al um but i think that the bigger question is how would we access those voter lists because that's got to be done through the city and i don't know what restrictions there might be for something like that especially because they're sharing it with not you know elected officials i would check with your chair of your town committee i'm stay or
036your vote registrar voters um i suspect that they are accessible um i i suspect that several several oh okay i mean some of the experienced councilmembers that that's how they they they promote they vote they get on the phone and make phone calls they had to get the list from somewhere yeah um and there are phone numbers attached i believe to these lists just one small avenue of how how do we contact people and raise their awareness i'm not going to make 1400 phone calls kate but i'll make 100. i'm putting you down for seven 700. well you you get my point i do i do thank you and i think we could do this i i don't see anyone on board i don't want to speak for anyone but i think a hundred phone
037calls in a month is a doable dual will ask just as a thought okay now i don't know if the cabinet or teach uh teachers cabinet folks they are you're right they are paid so that would probably eliminate them from the volunteer status just a thought kate i like it al i'm uh i'm i'm i'm on board with uh that that voter contact you know that direct voter contact to to let them know what's going on because you know to me this is a bigger community issue right we're talking about it from the school perspective because that's what we do here on the board but um you know this is a project that really has um you know roots in other a lot of other parts of the community as well you know it's directly
038connected with the business segment it's directed with you know it's connected with um you know the overall health of our schools which is a community issue so um i know i'm preaching to the choir bit here but you know whatever we can do to help again raise awareness that this is happening and let folks know that they need to get out and vote um you know i just think we need to jump on those opportunities wow and we do have this robocall system don't we but we can't use that i was just gonna say uh you know if if maybe if we could come up with a specific scenario and then run that by legal just a message that says get out and vote don't vote yes don't vote no but even i mean and
039that's what i mean because the guidelines are so fuzzy we keep saying what can we do what can't we do if we came up with a very specific message you know tailored it you know and please chime in here you know when we pump this through you know parent square either the robo call or the text or the email you know if we could get clarification on whether it passes muster for being objective enough you know maybe we could use it as long as it's because i've been looking at this law now for the last three weeks and they always use the example of xerox machines right you can't use the photocopier to run pamphlets and then you can't use kids to act as couriers right these are the sort of big examples but it
040specifically says you can use the resources to make uh informational text and if the phone call is strictly informational the email is informational how is that any different so you know maybe i'll i'll run this by the general counsel as you know as a scenario and see what and see what they say okay mike i'm in agreeance with you i think um you know run it by uh kim yep the legal counsel to the board and then also perhaps bring in tom mooney yeah who is our other uh attorney that works closely with the district for his perspective on this too okay and we'll just carefully craft the message to make sure it doesn't look like we're we're pushing an agenda okay that'd be great great you know and that's twelve thousand kids so you
041know hopefully a thousand kids is twenty four thousand adults yeah even if half come out it gets us home so we have 40 000 voters in the city of denver if 15 is 6 000 i i just i'm not a math major that means 10 percent would be four thousand right yeah yeah yeah you know fifteen percent fifteen percent yeah so we're at about i think forty six thousand so it's just over six thousand it's just over six yeah okay that's my two cents i'll be quiet well and that's what we're doing here is just kind of talking through some of this stuff so i appreciate everybody's patience because i know it's um it's delicate to talk about some of these things and um you know i i i feel very cautious right now so
042i appreciate that um is there anything else that anybody wants to to discuss before we adjourn if i could get something else i reviewed the minutes from last time and i think the minutes are absolutely correct i had reported out that stop and shop foundation had donated twenty thousand dollars in food uh gift cards for our families um they revisited that they and they came back with thirty thousand for um to be divided between the four schools so we're really excited about that we're right now looking at signage and the amounts of each card and this will be rolled out in august for next year in the food pantries the schools are going to name their food pantries you know special names and make them really welcoming to our families the last thing that i
043just had is we are right in the middle of doing all our welcoming school walkthroughs i think some board members have been contacted to actually do the walk through at their child's school if they have children in our schools and so we'll wait on reports back from the people who are doing the walk-throughs but i have chatted with them so far and they said they're really excited about what they're seeing in our schools a level of welcomeness already and so they'll generate reports on next steps so that's that's all that i have from my department we did a graduate uh graduate 19 parent c graduates last week and we have about 32 i think it is right now families our parents taking the people empowering people class on wednesday night so that's wonderful parent leadership
044training is taking off again like it did in 2012. so keep the momentum going love to hear that yeah absolutely and thank kate thank you for coming to graduation last week that was wonderful thank you for the invitation i mean it's phenomenal the work that you're doing to to make those connections and to build advocates in the community so i really appreciate that hopefully some of you can make it out on saturday as well yeah i'll be i should be clearing cleared by then so i'm very good hoping to get there myself i'll be back though yeah all right um well anything else all right um i'll entertain a motion to adjourn then don't move thank you al regards to mr meat i will tell him i will tell him um gladys i'm assuming you
045might be a second on that is that okay and all those in favor please hi i'm muted i'm sorry that's okay awesome thank you so much and thank you for taking notes this evening i appreciate it hey i'll check in with you tomorrow after i talk with kim that'd be great thank you dr selig talk to me dr silva